Pearl District News

[Derek]

It's honestly not that bad for a storage building...

[RainDog]

A low bar, but valid point. It's really not bad.

[maccoinnich]

Pearl gets its hotel at last

A new hotel in the Pearl District is aiming at tourists and business travelers alike.



The swimming pool at the Hampton Inn Pearl says it all. It has a sober lap pool at one end, and a kids' water play area at the other, complete with tiny slide, torrential bucket and weeping toadstool.

There are few other business hotels in the area. The yellow-clad Residence Inn by Marriott Portland Downtown/Pearl District has a strong line in business travelers, and is just a five-minute walk from Union Station. Many a listicle has been generated trying to name 10 Pearl District hotels. But of the Ace, the Mark Spencer and even McMenamin's Crystal Hotel, none of them are very close to Northwest Glisan and 10th Avenue, which is considered the heart of the Pearl.

...continues at the Business Tribune.

[maccoinnich]

[QAtheSky]

The Modera has taken quite a while to wrap up the exterior work, mostly smaller skeleton crews working intermittently. I wonder why?

The lobby is open now and all the ground floor apartments next to it on 13th still need need exterior work to complete.

[maccoinnich]

Notice of a Pre-Application Conference for 815 W Burnside St. Would be great to see that Firestone redeveloped.

(If they get the project submitted before May they can avoid a new and dumb requirement of the Central City 2035 plan: buildings along the Park Blocks have to be set back 12' from the property line.)

[urbanlife]

Originally Posted by maccoinnich

Notice of a Pre-Application Conference for 815 W Burnside St. Would be great to see that Firestone redeveloped.

(If they get the project submitted before May they can avoid a new and dumb requirement of the Central City 2035 plan: buildings along the Park Blocks have to be set back 12' from the property line.)

At the base or some amount of feet up? If it is at the base, that makes no sense because there is a street between the park blocks and any building. The plus to this is that most of what is built along the Park Blocks probably isn't ever going anywhere.

And yes, I have been wanting to see that Firestone site redeveloped for years. Of course I have also been wanting to see the underused blocks at 10th and W Burnside redeveloped for years too.

[maccoinnich]

Originally Posted by urbanlife

At the base or some amount of feet up? If it is at the base, that makes no sense because there is a street between the park blocks and any building. The plus to this is that most of what is built along the Park Blocks probably isn't ever going anywhere.

From the new zoning code:

Standards for the Park Blocks. On sites with frontage on a street shown on Map 510-22, and on sites that are adjacent to an open area shown on Map 510-22, buildings must be set back at least 12 feet from the street or adjacent lot line along at least 75 percent of the length of the lot line. At least 50 percent of the space between the building and the street or adjacent lot line must be landscaped with ground cover plants and shrubs, and contain one tree per 400 square feet. All plants must be selected from the Portland Tree and Landscaping Manual. This standard applies to new development. Exterior walls of buildings designed to meet the requirements of this Paragraph must be at least 15 feet high measured from the finished sidewalk at the building’s edge.

[AdamUrbanist]

WTF? That is truly idiotic. We're talking about a park in the middle of downtown. Presumably a place where we want to encourage active uses like cafes that spill out onto the sidewalk. A 12 landscape buffer is just going to create awkward places for homeless people to camp.

[urbanlife]

Originally Posted by maccoinnich

From the new zoning code:

The only thing I can think of where this would be applied would be the Postal building site, but even then, it makes no sense to have this kind of building language. The only benefit to setting a building back this much would allow room for outdoor seating for any potential restaurant.

[RED_PDXer]

I can see the logic in the setback. Portland blocks are small and the park blocks are even more shallow. It's an attempt to increase the park-like setting beyond the park itself. There are some downsides to the small block sizes in Portland and one is the lack of broader open spaces downtown.

[MarkDaMan]

I've never understood why we don't reclaim the road space boarding the Park Blocks. We just need to look up a few blocks at PSU to realize how much more open and peaceful the park is without the roads.

[RED_PDXer]

Originally Posted by MarkDaMan

I've never understood why we don't reclaim the road space boarding the Park Blocks. We just need to look up a few blocks at PSU to realize how much more open and peaceful the park is without the roads.

Tots. I work near PSU and the feeling of walking through the PSU park blocks is much more pleasant than the rest of them. A non-motorized park blocks would be fantastic!

[QAtheSky]

The two projects on NW Raleigh are moving along. Just waiting on the storage unit building construction to finish out the street grid and this area will be a half decent slice of the urban fabric.

As these get taller, along with the Vista tower nearby, the other vacant lots become wildly more conspicuous.

This area also desperately needs some ground floor retail activation. NW 13th North of Lovejoy gets unfriendly pretty much immediately with only the fake loading docs and parking garage entryways fronting to it.

[johnliu]

This area is coming along well!

Originally Posted by QAtheSky

The two projects on NW Raleigh are moving along. Just waiting on the storage unit building construction to finish out the street grid and this area will be a half decent slice of the urban fabric.

As these get taller, along with the Vista tower nearby, the other vacant lots become wildly more conspicuous.

This area also desperately needs some ground floor retail activation. NW 13th North of Lovejoy gets unfriendly pretty much immediately with only the fake loading docs and parking garage entryways fronting to it.

[maccoinnich]

Posting Notice for 815 W Burnside

[QAtheSky]

Originally Posted by maccoinnich

Posting Notice for 815 W Burnside

If they can wrap retail around from Burnside onto the Park Blocks successfully it would be a big step towards activating the area. This auto shop site and the Telecom building across the street do a great job of pretty much killing any gravitational pull from the Powell's intersection.

[johnliu]

Originally Posted by QAtheSky

If they can wrap retail around from Burnside onto the Park Blocks successfully it would be a big step towards activating the area. This auto shop site and the Telecom building across the street do a great job of pretty much killing any gravitational pull from the Powell's intersection.

Yes, that would be great.

However, W Burnside as an active street is hampered by the narrow sidewalk and heavy traffic. Hard to stroll comfortably with bus mirrors whizzing by your head and so much car noise that you can't hear your companions talk. To activate W Burnside, we'd need to widen the sidewalk, reduce traffic, add sidewalk seating. Which can't be done without a Burnside-Couch couplet. A ship which appears to have not sailed but been scuttled.

To really wrap around retail and activation, this building would use an arcade to widen and shelter the sidewalk, or include a retail-lined passage.

Interesting this is a IH project, only 7 stories, on expensive downtown land. I thought the development industry has been saying that IH prevents new projects unless they are 325' tall?

[AdamUrbanist]

Developers are clearly struggling to accommodate inclusionary housing. One strategy might be to make a project as large as possible to take advantage of economies of scale. Another may be to under-build the site with a less expensive building type. It will be interesting to watch what happens.

[maccoinnich]

The narrow sidewalks on Burnside definitely make it an unpleasant street. This developement will likely be required to dedicate land to PBOT to create a 12’ or 15’ wide sidewalk.