HomeDiagramsDatabaseMapsForum About
     

Go Back   SkyscraperPage Forum > Regional Sections > United States > Pacific West > Portland > Downtown & City of Portland


Reply

 
Thread Tools Display Modes
     
     
  #381  
Old Posted Jun 17, 2008, 6:06 PM
LSPDX's Avatar
LSPDX LSPDX is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: Portland
Posts: 20
Great pics!! I gotta say the 3720 is my favorite building in the South Waterfront.
__________________
Weak Minds Discuss People, Average Minds Discuss Events, & Strong Minds Discuss Ideas.
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #382  
Old Posted Jun 18, 2008, 11:24 PM
urbanlife's Avatar
urbanlife urbanlife is offline
A before E
 
Join Date: Aug 2001
Location: Milwaukie, Oregon
Posts: 11,752
I do have to say, as of right now, I do like how they are bringing the floor planes to the outside. Sort of highlighting the slab construction. I actually didnt know they were this far along with this tower, goes to show how much I go to the SoWa.
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #383  
Old Posted Jun 19, 2008, 3:29 AM
sowat sowat is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: May 2008
Posts: 422
sadly, no pizza

Unfortunately the signs for Pizza a Fetta have come down. This was expected to go in on the ground floor retail of the John Ross, facing the courtyard. See article below from http://wweek.com/editorial/3350/9855/ Oct 2007 about restaurants in SoWa. About a month ago I also noticed the LEASED sign came down from where Orupa was planned to go. So it looks like a longer wait for more restaurants in the area. Perhaps in the long run this will be a good thing. If anyone has been to Bella Espresso I'm sure you'll agree we'd all like to see something more lively and up-to-date than the dated 80's euro-cliche interior design disaster and sad food at Bella. Speaking of which, off the SoWa subject a little, the bakery cafe at Clinton Condominiums opened and is great, do go. I hope we get something like that when 3720, Alexan, and Mirabella are occupied. In time.

[from Oct 2007]
And now, SoWa’s even attracted beach food .

Bella Espresso’s South Waterfront shop (3580 SW River Parkway, 467-7532) is much like its original Cannon Beach location—both a mocha mecca with a fondness for faux-renaissance clutter and a quiet lunch spot to savor good sandwiches, cheesecake, imported gelato and local baked goods. What’s more, Bella owners Kevin and Julie Countryman and James Faurentino will import a branch of their other Cannon Beach establishment, gourmet pizzeria Pizza a’ Fetta , to the ground floor of SoWa’s John Ross tower this January. Eat Me eagerly awaits the arrival of kite stores and saltwater taffy shops.

That’s not all. Across the street, an upscale eatery called Orupa (Oregon + Europe, get it?) will debut this winter in the stunning Atwater Place tower. These new restaurants will add more to the already solid offerings found at Le Hana Japanese Bar and Grill (3570 SW River Parkway, 681-3885) and the tarragon-chicken-loving Daily Cafe (3335 SW Bond Ave., 224-9691).
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #384  
Old Posted Jun 20, 2008, 3:49 AM
PacificNW PacificNW is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Arizona
Posts: 3,116
I hope they get that pedestrian bridge across I-5 to the SoWa started and completed. That, in it self, would increase the SoWa foot traffic.
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #385  
Old Posted Jun 20, 2008, 4:06 AM
pdxman's Avatar
pdxman pdxman is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Portland
Posts: 1,037
I'm going to an open house for the ped bridge next week so I'll fill you all in after that...I think just getting more people living down there and somehow creating jobs down there will get the area going. This is where we have to depend on OHSU to come thru and make something happen.
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #386  
Old Posted Jun 20, 2008, 4:30 AM
bvpcvm bvpcvm is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Apr 2004
Location: Portland
Posts: 2,788
Quote:
Originally Posted by sowat View Post
If anyone has been to Bella Espresso I'm sure you'll agree we'd all like to see something more lively and up-to-date than the dated 80's euro-cliche interior design disaster and sad food at Bella.
I couldn't agree more! Seriously, do they bus their hipster employees in from Belmont? I walked in and immediately had a vision of a hipster barista day labor center, heavily patronized by these guys.
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #387  
Old Posted Jun 20, 2008, 4:52 AM
PDX City-State PDX City-State is offline
Well designed mixed use
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: under the Burnside Bridge
Posts: 1,589
Hipster? Seriously, that's the most overused label in PDX. And besides, no hipster worth his or her salt would ever be seen in South Waterfont. That would mean they'd have to admit liking the tram, which could lead to a severe identity crisis.

I think jerkoff is a more apt descriptor. I had coffee there once and was treated like I wasn't there. For one, their coffee sucks. It's sad that these retail options set the bar so low in South Waterfront. I fear now that more respectable retailers will avoid South Waterfront because of round one. Then again, I could be wrong.

On the bright side, I ate at Bambuza last week and thought it was far better than average. It was by no means Pok Pok, but it was nearly as good as Pho Van. That's saying a lot. I highly recommend it.
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #388  
Old Posted Jun 20, 2008, 6:17 AM
bvpcvm bvpcvm is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Apr 2004
Location: Portland
Posts: 2,788
actually, you're right; working there invalidates their hipstertude. i guess it was the asymmetrical haircuts that confused me.
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #389  
Old Posted Jun 20, 2008, 7:46 AM
IanofCascadia IanofCascadia is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Apr 2008
Posts: 69
Okay, come on people. First we beg for more retail... then blast one of the few businesses with the guts to open up shop in the area. We then criticize not only the shop owners but also the employees, saying that somehow they don't fit in (let us all remember what the Pearl was like merely a decade ago).

While I'll admit that the coffee at Bella certainly isn't the best, I greatly appreciate the effort which shop owners went to in order to transform the place and personally quite enjoy the ceiling mural. The two story layout is also nice to write and get other work done.

The point I'm trying to make is that criticism is all well and good, but it won't turn an area into a lively and livable community. However, what will help to do this is greater foot-traffic and MORE diversity... not demographic stereotypes.
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #390  
Old Posted Jun 20, 2008, 4:08 PM
PDX City-State PDX City-State is offline
Well designed mixed use
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: under the Burnside Bridge
Posts: 1,589
Ian: I agree and my criticisms of the their staff don't run too deep. Still, I want to meet the person who convinced Bella it could survive in such a large place, and I'd like to meet the person who decided such a crappy buildout was somehow a good idea. I can't even imagine what they're paying in rent. It's probably the largest coffee shop in Portland, and it's rent is likely astronomical. It's suicide.
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #391  
Old Posted Jun 20, 2008, 7:00 PM
sowat sowat is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: May 2008
Posts: 422
Quote:
Originally Posted by MarkDaMan View Post
Yesterday I was informed by a forumer that Block 46 is not Prometheus's first project, in fact Prometheus doesn't even own 46. It was owned by Homer but it might be the one BrG is talking about being revised, I guess we will find out...
Block 46 is the Matisse, designed by Ankrom Moisan:
http://www.amaa.com/portfolio/projec...dvcnk9b3RiIzI3
Web site says project client is Simpson Housing. This was supposed to start construction this summer, no? Has this changed? I wonder if they are rethinking he project now that 3720 is now a rental.

On the South Waterfront thread bvpcm recently asked what was going on with block 49, which is the Tamarack affordable housing project also designed by Ankrom Moisan.
http://www.amaa.com/portfolio/projec...dvcnk9b3RiIzI4

Mark, any interest in asking Ankron what's going on?
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #392  
Old Posted Jun 21, 2008, 5:55 PM
philopdx philopdx is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Deep South
Posts: 1,275
I thought the interior of Bella was kind of neat, and not like any other coffee shops in Portland. I'm too young to have drank coffee in the 1980's, so maybe I don't remember that Renaissance-themed places were supposed to be hokey.

The staff need some serious training on making a latte, but this being Portland, I would be rather disappointed if I saw baristas that looked... normal.

I do, however, feel terrible for the owners. I was the only one in that huge space when I visited and I reckon they must be losing their shirts on cash flow. I don't see how they are going to survive, which is a real bummer.
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #393  
Old Posted Jun 21, 2008, 7:17 PM
IanofCascadia IanofCascadia is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Apr 2008
Posts: 69
My guess is that Bella and the other places will do well in the end... so long as they stick around a few more years, even if they bleed badly in between. As has been mentioned before, the whole district really is nearing the point of critical mass. With the completion of the new apartments and Mirabella, the district's population could easily triple (or more) by 2010.

Indeed Philo, Portland's bar has certainly been set very high. I mean in most cities the people think of Starbucks (which I like as well) as "fine" coffee. We go to places like Stumptown and sometimes forget just how spoiled we are. However, both of the times that I was in Bella there were maybe a half-dozen others in there as well. They're probably losing money... I just hope it's not that bad.
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #394  
Old Posted Jun 22, 2008, 5:28 AM
MarkDaMan's Avatar
MarkDaMan MarkDaMan is offline
Moderator
 
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Portland
Posts: 7,508
so how long until Starbucks opens in SoWa and puts Bella out of business?
__________________
make paradise, tear up a parking lot
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #395  
Old Posted Jun 22, 2008, 7:35 AM
IanofCascadia IanofCascadia is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Apr 2008
Posts: 69
Quote:
Originally Posted by MarkDaMan View Post
so how long until Starbucks opens in SoWa and puts Bella out of business?
Not what I'm saying at all. I like Bella, I like Starbucks, I like Peets, and I love Stumptown...heck, I can't think of a single coffee shop that I have been to that I don't like. I have a special appreciation for the current shops in SoWa since they were willing to take the risk of being the first (old Columbus argument we've probably all heard a thousand times).

Getting back to the subject at hand, anyone heard any news on Blocks 46 or 49? Both were supposed to start around now.
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #396  
Old Posted Jun 25, 2008, 4:52 AM
cronked cronked is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: May 2008
Posts: 200
Here is an Autostitch from 6-23-08. Not too much different from the last one. Just a deeper hole.

Reply With Quote
     
     
  #397  
Old Posted Jul 8, 2008, 5:27 PM
tworivers's Avatar
tworivers tworivers is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Feb 2006
Location: Portland/Cascadia
Posts: 2,598
South Waterfront forges an identity
Neighborhood’s residents are warming to life near the river amid construction

POSTED: 04:00 AM PDT Tuesday, July 8, 2008
BY SAM BENNETT (DJC)

On the Fourth of July, Norm Whitlatch helped throw a party for a couple hundred friends and neighbors.

Dubbed the South Waterfront Neighborhood BBQ and Potluck, it was the second annual Independence Day get-together for South Waterfront residents only, including soon-to-be residents of the Mirabella apartments.

For Whitlatch and his wife, Judy, the party was a way to meet neighbors and celebrate their new environs.

To the occasional visitor, the South Waterfront area can be a confusing grid of one-way arterials, construction equipment spilling onto narrow side streets and tall, uninviting condo towers. As Gertrude Stein would say, there is no there there.

But for residents who have just settled in or who have been there for more than a year, South Waterfront, though young, is a neighborhood with distinct character.

“This isn’t the Pearl District and that’s why we moved here,” said Whitlatch, who has lived with his wife in South Waterfront for a year and a half. “We like the proximity to the arts, and we rarely take the car out.” They said the Pearl has more pedestrian and car traffic on the streets than the retired couple cares for.

In the heart of the South Waterfront neighborhood, some of the action on the streets these days revolves around positioning and moving construction equipment, as workers build a continuing care retirement tower called Mirabella and an apartment tower called the Ardea. (<<Prometheus?)

Linda Wysong, June’s artist-in-residence at South Waterfront, said visitors have a much different perspective on the neighborhood than its residents. Wysong last month created a 15-minute video focused on the South Waterfront, its residents, construction workers and office workers at the OHSU Center for Health & Healing.

“What’s true today will not be true in six months,” she said, referring to the burgeoning neighborhood. “It’s different from the inside than from the outside. People from the outside tend to be more critical.”

Several people interviewed in the video, including a worker at the OHSU building, said South Waterfront does not have the feel of a real neighborhood. Others, however, said the area offers adventures for adults and children who want to explore the waterfront.

Stacey Bailey, who dropped by South Waterfront for lunch last week, said it won’t feel like a neighborhood “until construction is out of the way.”

But for others, such as the Whitlatches and Alberta Tapp, who lives in the Meriwether condo tower, South Waterfront is ideally situated to zip into downtown for arts events such as the symphony. Tapp moved from her home on nearly an acre of land in Wilsonville to a 1,250-square-foot condo, where she can watch wildlife and industrial life – as barges are constructed at an industrial site north of South Waterfront. She said community groups “make a great effort to make this a community.”

The Whitlatches, who live in the John Ross condo tower, left the Oregon coast to come to South Waterfront and live in what they called an “eco-friendly environment.” The couple said they are avid walkers and art-goers, and Norm Whitlatch joined a dragon boat team last spring.

Wysong said that although South Waterfront has a streetcar connecting it with downtown, it must make a greater connection with the rest of Portland.

“They have not found a way to integrate South Waterfront into the city,” she said. “How that connection is made is the open question.”
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #398  
Old Posted Jul 16, 2008, 11:54 PM
sowat sowat is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: May 2008
Posts: 422
sowa pics 7-16-08







Reply With Quote
     
     
  #399  
Old Posted Jul 17, 2008, 6:38 PM
brandonpdx's Avatar
brandonpdx brandonpdx is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Portland, Oregon
Posts: 550
what are those poles in the park?
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #400  
Old Posted Jul 17, 2008, 7:18 PM
sowat sowat is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: May 2008
Posts: 422
Quote:
Originally Posted by brandonpdx View Post
what are those poles in the park?
some temporary 'art' installation, I guess
Reply With Quote
     
     
This discussion thread continues

Use the page links to the lower-right to go to the next page for additional posts
 
 
Reply

Go Back   SkyscraperPage Forum > Regional Sections > United States > Pacific West > Portland > Downtown & City of Portland
Forum Jump


Thread Tools
Display Modes

Forum Jump


All times are GMT. The time now is 4:07 PM.

     
SkyscraperPage.com - Archive - Privacy Statement - Top

Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.7
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.