Downtown prospects called bright
Fur store reaction - Businesses and property owners say their top worry is surviving intense construction
Sunday, December 03, 2006
RANDY GRAGG
The Oregonian
With Gregg Schumacher's dramatic announcement that he's taking his fur store to the suburbs, a big hole has opened in Portland's downtown.
But let's take a walk around the block. Schumacher is leaving behind what prominent developer John Carroll calls a retailer's dream, a "1,000 percent spot" -- the crossroads of some major new opportunities in a rebounding downtown.
Within a few blocks, construction is under way on the city's first international-level luxury hotel, an urban park, hundreds of new condos and a revitalized transit mall.
Schumacher said that a combination of panhandlers, anti-fur protesters and urine-stained parking garages have made the Portland downtown "not conducive to running a retail operation."
But business people and property owners new and old say that though downtown has its problems, its prospects are bright. Many said their biggest worry was surviving the next two years of intense construction to reap the benefits of the biggest urban comeback since the 1970s.
"Nobody's been more negative about downtown than me," says Greg Goodman, whose family is downtown's largest property owner. "But I think we've finally turned the corner."
Goodman said that Schumacher's departure is an anomaly. In fact, the fur store sits on the leading edge of a westward expansion of downtown stretching from the new Brewery Blocks development to Carroll's recently finished Eliot Tower. Goodman's family is co-developing a half-block at 12th and Washington into a new headquarters for Portland's architecture firm, ZGF. Four of the city's top developers are vying to transform the Morrison Park Garage across the street from Schumacher into an office, retail and condo tower.
"You can feel all the infrastructure going in," says Richard Singer, one of the city's most prominent retail landlords. "You can feel the changes in everybody's attitudes. The West End is truly joining downtown."
Developers and property owners, of course, have a long view of change. Business owners are anxiously watching the clouds on shorter horizons, what prominent leasing agent Mark New calls "the perfect storm" of construction projects: the remodel of the transit mall, Macy's and Park Block 5, where a park-topped garage is being built.
To be sure, downtown has taken some hits in recent years. New points to the area's first "lifestyle center," Bridgeport Village in Tigard, which captured Crate & Barrel, Ann Taylor Loft and Anthropologie, first-timers to the Portland-area market and destination stores that almost always locate in downtowns. Singer notes that Portland's own increasingly vibrant neighborhood retail districts such as Northwest 23rd and Southeast Hawthorne have drained innovative smaller independent stores.
Meantime, Portland's beloved urban fabric of historic buildings is a problem when it comes to signing new stores. Big national chains favor huge new open spaces and often prefer two-story corners like those occupied by Nordstrom Rack or Banana Republic.
Because of their drawing power, national retailers demand expensive building upgrades at the landlord's expense, according to Lew Bowers, the Portland Development Commission's lead downtown negotiator. "We have a lot of small-time property owners who can't bear the weight of helping out all of downtown."
But to most local retailers, those are winds blowing high above their bottom line.
"I don't really follow any of that stuff," Schumacher says. "I listen to the people coming in the door. They've been overwhelmingly supportive of my decision."
City's campaign lauded
But other retailers don't seem to be hearing the same chorus.
Judith Head operates Josephine's Dry Goods at Southwest Alder and 11th, four blocks from Schumacher. She survived light rail's construction but still shudders at how many businesses did not. She wishes the city had better mediated Schumacher's conflict with the protesters. But she says her customers do not complain about downtown.
"The streetcar has been huge for us," she says. "We're getting lots of tourists. On Sundays, there's no place to park."
Nearby, Sean Igo and Craig Olson opened their design shop, Canoe, last year, after long, careful research about the area. "It's super vibrant here," Igo says, volunteering that even a killing a few months ago in a doorway across the street hasn't dimmed his enthusiasm. "I'm from Minneapolis. It's a ghost town compared to here."
David Mosher, who has operated Art Media at the same corner of Southwest Yamhill and Ninth since 1974, says he has worked downtown so long that he no longer notices panhandlers. But he is eyeing the perfect construction storm's first pelting: the park-topped garage being dug 20 feet from his front door. He said he's seen a 10 percent drop in monthly transactions over last year.
Mosher says he only barely survived the building of light rail two decades ago. He's already had to fight the new garage's contractor, Hoffman Construction, all the way to City Hall just to keep the adjacent sidewalk open.
Mosher appreciates the city's promotional campaign. He and three other businesses adjacent to the garage construction are getting free radio ads promoting coupons -- the discounts of which, he notes, the businesses are paying for.
"If we can have 1 percent for art," he says, referring to a program that allows developers to build higher if they put up art, "why can't we have a little rent relief for those of us these projects hurt?"
Portland Planning Director Gil Kelley has said the city will review its bonus development program for art and other amenities beginning next year. But that project will take at least two years to complete. Meantime, the PDC charter limits urban renewal funds to building improvements, Bowers said.
Potter initiative praised
Tim Greve's family has operated one of downtown's oldest stores, Carl Greve jewelers, for 84 of Schumacher's 111 years. He's moving, too -- two blocks east -- to the long-empty former home of The Gap at Southwest Morrison and Broadway.
Tim Greve often has been a vocal critic on downtown issues from city policies to fellow business owners' practices. He is worried about the construction but is buoyed by all the new development and the city's new promotion campaign.
But Greve and other business leaders say they are elated about a new initiative Mayor Tom Potter has crafted with civil rights and homeless activists that links new day-bed shelters with an ordinance barring people from obstructing "high pedestrian zones."
"This is going to be a rough period," he says. "But I think the direction is good. If we can address a tough social issue while creating a better street environment, we'll have hit the trifecta."
Greve is sad to see a fellow luxury retailer go.
"But each retailer needs to look at downtown as an environment," Greve says, "and decide whether it's a positive or negative influence."
Randy Gragg: 503-221-8575;
randygragg@news.oregonian.com
http://www.oregonlive.com/search/ind...an?lcfp&coll=7
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