Over drinks, Mills developers meet Portland public
Three out-of-state candidates hit a brewpub to sell the city on their credentials
Daily Journal of Commerce
POSTED: 06:00 AM PDT Wednesday, October 24, 2007
BY TYLER GRAF
The three potential redevelopers of Centennial Mills met the Portland public Monday at the Pearl District’s Bridgeport Brewpub & Bakery, pitching their resumes and imbibing stakeholder comments like a Black Strap Stout.
Located at the Willamette River’s edge, Centennial Mills is a historic site the city hopes will revitalize the waterfront once redeveloped.
Prospective developers at the meeting Monday weren’t expected to present specific proposals but rather to exchange information.
“This is (the developers’) first opportunity to listen to all of you,” Steven Shain of the Portland Development Commission said before a packed room. The PDC organized the meeting as a first step in stakeholder relations, and Shain ran the proceedings as the host, even bolting into the audience – microphone in hand – to get audience feedback, like a makeshift Phil Donahue.
The development teams, starting with Seattle-based Nitze-Stagen, had 10 minutes to introduce themselves while explaining their hopes for the project. Each team emphasized qualities it said were special to Portland – its artistic bent, its sustainability, its open spaces – and its commitment to maintaining them.
“When we get done, we want to make sure that we leave the community better,” Kevin Daniels, president of Nitze-Stagen, said. But Daniels tempered his remarks, broadly affirming,
“We all have a lot to learn about Portland.”
None of the development teams is local.
Port Kellas of Baltimore-based Cordish Co. said his company has the most experience with public-private partnerships. Stressing that his company was founded in 1910 and has won six Urban Land Institute awards, Kellas said he hopes to partner with the PDC because “the world views (Portland) as a petri dish of success.”
“As far as the approach we take, we always focus our projects around some sort of public use” including entertainment venues or even a museum, Kellas said.
Shaheen Sadeghi, principal of Costa Mesa, Calif.-based Lab Holding – which specializes in “anti-malls” and hip, urban retail sectors – started his presentation absurdly. “Well, we were started in 1810,” he said, eliciting laughter from the audience.
Sadeghi’s background is in apparel, having served as a president for surf-wear company Quiksilver. In 1993, Sadeghi teamed with Pompei A.D. architecture to create The Lab, a self-anointed anti-mall in Orange County, Calif.
Since that first development, all of Lab Holding’s buildings have been environmentally sustainable, Sadeghi said.
“I’m glad we started doing (sustainable buildings) before it became fashionable,” he said.
“We all have enough stuff in this country, so this is about passion. ... We don’t do Gap or Banana Republic. Not that there’s anything wrong with that; we just have enough of those already.”
Public and stakeholder feedback was positive overall. Audience members directed questions and comments toward the development teams, which listened intently and jotted notes.
Attendee Michael Montgomery, manager of the city’s River Renaissance, said the development has the opportunity to touch upon his organization’s goals: creating a prosperous harbor, maintaining a healthy river and building a vibrant waterfront district that acts as the city’s front yard.
“The thing about Centennial Mills that I like is that it could embrace at least four of our themes,” Montgomery said. “The development could ensure environmental aspirations and mitigation along the river’s edge. So this project could make the developers be good stewards of that theme.”
River Renaissance wants the city to build a seasonal river ferry, and it’s gone so far as “penciling in where the docks could be,” Montgomery said. One of the docks could be built at Centennial Mills.
Historic renovator Art DeMuro, whose Venerable Properties was one of two Portland companies the PDC passed on when it whittled the Centennial Mills developer list to three, told the development teams he wants to see as many of the site’s original buildings preserved as possible and have the site placed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Additional public requests included a wide-ranging set of priorities and goals, including improved public transportation to the area, retail affordability and a purpose aside from retail – along with calls to “dream big and worry about the outcome later.”
In conjunction with the development, the city will build a 1.5-acre park along with a bridge that will connect the park to Centennial Mills.
The next step in the process won’t be until January or February, when the development teams will present their proposals to the PDC.
Although the details of the site are momentarily undeveloped, amidst the hot and stuffy confines of the teeming Bridgeport Brewpub, the priorities remained grounded squarely in the present.
“Frankly, I’m ready for a beer, so let’s go,” Nitze-Stagen’s Daniels said, capping the public-input period.
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Three words: OREGON MARITIME MUESEUM! It would do everything that the article says that PDC and the public want for that area, and best of all, they want to be there!
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