HomeDiagramsDatabaseMapsForum About
     

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


Reply

 
Thread Tools Display Modes
     
     
  #1  
Old Posted Dec 15, 2006, 8:35 PM
MarkDaMan's Avatar
MarkDaMan MarkDaMan is online now
Moderator
 
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Portland
Posts: 7,513
Old Town/Chinatown News

Ideals and image into brick and mortar
Architecture - Mercy Corps sets out to transform its mission into a visual statement as well
Thursday, December 14, 2006
RANDY GRAGG
The Oregonian

Mercy Corps is renowned for how quickly it delivers aid to war and disaster zones. But when it comes to making decisions on its new headquarters building, it's moving a little more slowly.

Consider agenda item No. 1: goals.

"Create a clear and powerful image for Mercy Corps, which projects its worldwide mission and promotes the dignity of the people it serves," read the architects' first draft of goal No. 1 at a recent meeting.

"Whose power?" interjected John Hanson, Mercy Corps' senior program manager for Africa. "It seems like we're bragging."

A 10-minute agenda item quickly stretched into 35 as the committee analyzed every word of a total of five goals. Should the building "project" or "illuminate" Mercy Corps' mission? Should it "respond" to the neighborhood or "interact"? Should it be "economical" or "affordable"?

The lead designer, Thomas Hacker, likes to rev his clients up with forceful and inspiring words. Mercy Corps, accustomed to dealing with the victims of power and worried about leaving the impression of extravagance with potential donors, is more wary.

But, at this stage, with no tough money decisions to be made, the disagreements between the designers and the building committee are lighthearted and productive. A 20-minute discussion at a second meeting led to a final draft for goals ranging from the building's public image and flexibility to its neighborhood friendliness.

The Oregonian is following the design process of Mercy Corps' new headquarters -- the translation of the organization and its ideals into "architecture." If things go as planned, Mercy Corps will renovate and expand the historic Skidmore Building at Southwest Ankeny Street and First Avenue. But for now, the building committee is dealing with the preliminaries: goals, square footages and, of course, parking. Architecture is still blurry.

Consider the issue of space. Jean von Bargen of Michael Willis Architects, who is collaborating with Hacker, discovered staff members spend, on average, less than 40 percent of their time at their desks. Besides meeting spaces, employees need quiet rooms for making phone calls and finishing reports and grants. Because many work in Portland but their hours coincide with the work day in a distant country's time zone, some would like to have better kitchen facilities. Some employees want rooms for naps, yoga and breast feeding. Executive director Neal Keny-Guyer wants a "photo-op" spot for his frequent TV interviews.

Architect Hacker showed the committee two drawings describing one of their wishes: a central space -- possibly an atrium -- uniting everything. The architects want it to connect the historic 1895 Skidmore Building they'll renovate to the newer building they will design around it. The staff wants someplace to gather and to see one another. Hacker's first drawing is conceptual, a simple circle in a square. The second shows rough plans of new and old buildings connected with dots and scribbles suggesting people and movement.

"It needs to be dynamic," he said. "I see an interpenetrating space filled with natural light."

There are limits. Under current zoning, Mercy Corps could build up to 95,000 square feet. It needs only 65,000 -- at least for now. A key question Mercy Corps must face is whether it wants to be a landlord, building more space than it needs in order to have future expansion room.

Vollum center model

Executive director Keny-Guyer thinks the Jean Vollum Natural Capital Center is a great model, the home for the ecological advocacy and research group Ecotrust, which leases some of its space to other like-minded organizations. But Mercy Corps' building committee got a cold lesson in current development economics when the project manager they've hired, Carter MacNichol of Shiels Obletz Johnsen, flatly stated, "You can't build new office space for what you can rent it for."

In short, they would have to subsidize any tenants, at least for a while.

Another complication is parking. Despite the staff's high environmental idealism, a recent survey showed one-third of Mercy Corps' 140 employees have either family or commuting needs requiring them to drive every day. Tenants would require more. Additional spaces for the planned learning center would be good. But given the site's limitations, 31-74 spaces is all that's possible, and each one is expensive.

"Ideally, we want at least 75 spaces," said committee chair Matthew DeGalan, who will be leading the fundraising for the building. "But it will all come down to cost."

As committee members' eyes drooped over the realities, architect Hacker stepped up mid-meeting to present some actual architectural concepts.

Concepts spark energy

The room's oxygen level increased as the effervescent designer started talking, not about square footages and rents, but baskets. Hacker pointed to various displays around Mercy Corps' offices of artisans' work from countries where the organization works. The baskets in particular are an excellent starting point for architecture, he says. It just so happens, it's an idea he's working on with another building, which will soon rise in south downtown, the 1700 Fourth Avenue condominiums.

Hacker clicked through PowerPoint images of that structure's faceted facade and then flashed a sketch in which Hacker's gestural strokes of red, yellow and blue have woven a building next to the Burnside Bridge -- Mercy Corps' site. It's nothing more than a vaguely rectilinear cloud of red, blue and yellow lines. But it's clear enough to show a step-back and a tall line of trees rising from a roof terrace to separate the upper building from the busy bridge while creating a green gateway into the city.

The committee's excitement was palpable, even as some members pointed out flaws -- like a roof terrace on a shady north side next to a busy bridge. MacNichol, mindful of the budget, fidgeted and sighed. ("It's my job to be the bad guy," he quipped.) But all Hacker wants for now is a weather report: Does the committee see clouds or sun so far with his concept? The committee members nodded their warm approvals.

"I'll tell you one thing," said committee member David Evans. "It sure beats the hell out of talking about parking. It's great to have you giving form to what we do."

Randy Gragg: 503-221-8575; randygragg@news.oregonian.com.

http://www.oregonlive.com/search/ind...?yalcrg&coll=7
__________________
make paradise, tear up a parking lot
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #2  
Old Posted Dec 15, 2006, 10:03 PM
Dougall5505's Avatar
Dougall5505 Dougall5505 is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: P-town
Posts: 1,976
what is the 1700 fourth avenue building that the story says should rise soon in south downtown? is it in the sowa? or is it that developtment be portland state?
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #3  
Old Posted Dec 15, 2006, 10:50 PM
MarkDaMan's Avatar
MarkDaMan MarkDaMan is online now
Moderator
 
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Portland
Posts: 7,513
Gerding Edlen's 1700 building is the 16th story entry level condo housing that is going to anchor the Montgomery Blocks near PSU.
__________________
make paradise, tear up a parking lot
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #4  
Old Posted Dec 15, 2006, 11:00 PM
Dougall5505's Avatar
Dougall5505 Dougall5505 is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: P-town
Posts: 1,976
thanks i realized it right after i posted that message
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #5  
Old Posted Dec 19, 2006, 4:27 PM
MarkDaMan's Avatar
MarkDaMan MarkDaMan is online now
Moderator
 
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Portland
Posts: 7,513
Whose Chinatown?

give it up already...Chinatown? bleh, it aint working!


Whose Chinatown?

BACKSTORY: Area’s future may not include those who built it
By Peter Korn


On first glance, the Pacific Tower, at the corner of Northwest Fourth Avenue and Flanders Street, looks like most other apartment buildings. A little less glass, a little more brick than some of its neighbors a few blocks to the west and north, in the Pearl District.

A closer look makes the building more intriguing. Little bits of design — Chinese letters inscribed on an outside wall, bamboo in the upstairs garden — reveal a building leaning toward an Asian motif. Nothing dramatic, just a hint that some not-so-obvious intention went into the design of this building.

And since the Pacific Tower stands 16 stories tall in Chinatown, a block away from the Portland Classical Chinese Garden, the design starts to make sense.

The tenants, at least most of them, were supposed to be Asian. The developers of the Pacific Tower, working with public officials who helped subsidize the building’s construction, intended a building that would induce elderly Chinese to live in Chinatown.

But stick around and watch the front door of the Pacific Tower open and close. The people coming in and out of the apartments are not Asian. Most are young, in their 20s or 30s. And they’re not wealthy young— the building received public money to provide affordable housing.

Jimmie Luey, a retired architect and longtime Chinatown activist who was part of a citizens advisory board that advised the Pacific Tower’s developers, smiles when asked why the Chinese seniors failed to come live in this Chinatown building designed for them. “That’s a good question,” Luey says.

Suenn Ho, an urban designer who also consulted on the building, says, “I personally walked 120 seniors into Pacific Tower when it opened (in 2003) and they all asked for applications.” Asked for an explanation of why they didn’t take residence, Ho says, “I don’t know. People were excited about it. There were a slew of reasons.”

Among those reasons are a lack of parking in the neighborhood, fear of crime in the streets due to the abundance of social service agencies in the area, and the absence of an Asian grocery store.

Some Chinatown leaders say the apartments weren’t priced right to appeal to Chinese residents. None of those conditions changed, however, from when construction started on the Pacific Tower.

If the Pacific Tower is any indication, Chinese people don’t appear interested in living in Chinatown. Despite a clamor for public investment to reinvigorate the area, the majority of property owners in Chinatown aren’t spending their own money to fix up their properties.

That doesn’t mean Chinatown doesn’t have a revitalized future. It just may not be a Chinese future.

In the end, neighborhood leaders and others say, Chinatown may never again have a heavy Chinese population for one primary reason: People — not developers, not community activists, not urban designers — decide where and how they want to live.
Garden losing visitors

In September, the Under the Autumn Moon festival brought more people to Chinatown than any event in decades, upward of 35,000, according to festival organizers.

The festival was held to celebrate the opening of Chinatown’s two new festival streets, Northwest Third and Fourth avenues between Burnside and Glisan streets, along with sculptures and landscaping that cost the Portland Development Commission $5.4 million.

In the eyes of many Chinatown leaders, the festival and the new street designs would herald a new beginning in their neighborhood.

That PDC investment was on top of the more than $6 million the city collected through local improvement district taxes to help build the Portland Classical Chinese Garden, the one Chinatown attraction that, since its 2000 opening, is drawing both tourists and local residents. But even at the garden, attendance has declined each year, from 285,000 visits in 2001 to 127,000 last year.

Gloria Lee, the garden’s executive director, says she wishes the garden had more of a following among local Chinese, but she is heartened by the fact that one in four of the garden’s volunteers are Asian, compared to one in 20 five years ago.

Those Asian volunteers have to drive or take public transit to the garden. “Nobody lives in Chinatown anymore. It’s a business district,” says Michael Cheng, past president of the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, a Chinatown-based organization that for more than a century has represented the interests of the Chinese community.

Nearly three months after the Autumn Moon festival, a resurgent Chinese influence is hard to find in Chinatown. Three key businesses have left the Fourth Avenue core recently — including Hung Far Low restaurant, a neighborhood institution.

Vacant storefronts along Fourth Avenue speak of a continued decline rather than rebirth. But some Chinese community leaders say revitalization may yet occur if they can get more help. There are others who wonder if all the help in the world will be enough.
Searching for an identity

Tom Carrollo, president of the Old Town/Chinatown Neighborhood Association, says there are plenty more people like those who live in the Pacific Tower ready to move into the Chinatown neighborhood, even with the atmosphere created by the social service agencies and the lack of parking.

“The creative class is enamored with our neighborhood,” Carrollo says, referring to educated young adults. “They like us the way we are, and they accept us the way we are. A little gritty is OK with them.”

And attracting residents, Carrollo says, is the key to stabilizing the Chinatown neighborhood. “Chinatown needs more people living there,” he says. Only permanent residents with disposable income will support the shops of a vibrant neighborhood, Carrollo says.

Carrollo, who is not Asian, says he thinks the next few years should determine what kind of development takes place in Chinatown. But Carrollo isn’t sure how much faith members of the Chinese community are showing in an Asian-based Chinatown.

“There are buildings’ owners, absentee Asians, who seem willing to let buildings stay empty. That creates blight and takes away from the environment,” Carrollo says.

Carrollo says he doesn’t know what shape Chinatown will take in the future, but he is certain the development commission and Chinatown leaders won’t have the final say.

“I don’t think you can force anything,” Carrollo says. “You don’t want to Disney-fy a Chinatown. You can create the environment that is conducive to Chinatown doing well. From there it goes out to the street level, safety issues and livability issues. But beyond that the free market has to have a play.”

Neighborhoods change their identities all the time. Northwest Portland was low-rent, now it’s high-end. North Mississippi Avenue 10 years ago was forlorn; now it’s up and coming. The heart of Chinatown, Third and Fourth avenues between Burnside and Glisan streets, didn’t become the heart of the Chinese community in Portland until World War II, and it has been steadily losing its Chinese residents for three decades.
Voting with their feet

Today an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 people of Chinese heritage live in the Portland area — many of them in outer Southeast Portland. Pieces of Southeast 82nd Avenue have more Asian establishments than all of Chinatown, including Fubonn, a large Asian supermarket that anchors a mall full of Asian shops. Some are wondering if 82nd Avenue has become the new Chinatown.

Luey, who has been on the board of directors of the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association for more than 30 years, says leaders of the Chinatown neighborhood bear much of the responsibility for the area’s inability to improve. And Luey doesn’t think more public money is what’s needed to reinvigorate Chinatown.

“Twenty-five years ago we hoped to get this built up but instead it’s deteriorated,” Luey says. “I don’t think anything the city can do will make this happen. It takes a change in mentality of the people in charge of the associations, including the CCBA. CCBA as a group had its head in the sand. We don’t have proper leadership in the community. They’re all narrow-minded and selfish.”

Luey says the Chinese community leaders who want Chinatown to reflect its Chinese heritage need to start by taking action on their own rather than ask for help from outside investors or the city to take on the risk of putting money into a decaying neighborhood.

“They would need to have to set examples,” Luey says. “Get their own buildings improved, get back to living down here. That’s the way to attract people down here.”

Luey can list building after building where he says the owners had the opportunity to redevelop but refused. Luey says grand plans were considered for community buildings and low-cost housing. But the faith in Chinatown’s potential, he says, always has vanished when it came time for the Chinese property owners to invest their money.

“The owners don’t want to spend the time and money to develop them,” Luey says. “This is the mentality. They don’t think long-term.”

But it would take long-term thinking to invest in some of the abandoned Chinatown properties. Fred Fong is part owner of a rooming house that he says was built in the 1880s. The building, at the corner of Northwest Third Avenue and Davis Street, has been unused for years because, Fong says, it would take a complete overhaul to make it habitable. And, Fong says, the building’s historic designation puts restrictions on any renovation the owners might attempt.

“It’s a historic building, so you can’t do anything with it,” Fong says. “If you can find someone with the bucks to turn it inside out, something could happen,” Fong says.

For now, the building remains deserted.

Other Chinatown property owners say that they simply are not sure that renovating their properties will lure tenants, given how many businesses have closed in the neighborhood recently.
Dreams of a ranch in the city

The more optimistic among the Chinese community have different takes on what would restore Chinatown, but most agree that the starting point should be one big attraction that could lure Asians into Chinatown on the weekends.

Lee, executive director of the Chinese garden, says an Asian supermarket would be the answer. “A grocery store in the Chinese community is a social center,” Lee says. “Your outing for the day.”

Portland has two Asian supermarkets — Uwajimaya on Southwest Beaverton-Hillsdale Highway and Fubonn on Southeast 82nd Avenue.

Betty Jean Lee, a longtime Chinatown activist, is even more precise. “It can’t be just an Asian grocery store,” Lee says. “It’s got to be Ranch 99.”

Chinatown activists speak about Ranch 99, or 99 Ranch Market, in the way immigrants from China spoke about mythic Golden Mountain — referring to faraway California — 150 years ago. Ninety-nine Ranch has stores that specifically target the needs of Chinese customers at stores in California and Kent, Wash. And two years ago, Omar Lee, a shopping mall developer who includes 99 Ranch Market in his multistore Asian shopping centers, came to visit Portland’s Chinatown two years ago. Lee says he even considered a site at the time.

But no longer. Lee says that after his visit he just wasn’t convinced that he wanted to try to lead a turnaround in Chinatown.

“I told the folks at the time it’s more than just a couple or three gung-ho developers,” Lee says. “It takes a village, a community to make this thing happen.”

“It was like a puzzle and all the pieces didn’t fit,” Lee says. “We were drafting on pure enthusiasm without any specific assurances from any group.”

Developer Lee says he would consider looking at Portland again for one of his Asian centers, but “I’d better not be the pioneer.”

Michael Liu, whose family opened Fubonn a year ago, says they never considered opening their Asian supermarket in Chinatown, even though he recognizes the positive force such a move might have created.

“Parking, that’s the main issue keeping people from going down there,” Liu says. On Southeast 82nd Avenue, Fubonn has acres of free parking.

Chinatown parking — or the lack of it — isn’t an issue, however, for part-time student Natalie Schaefer. She’s happy with all the street improvements in Chinatown and relishes how the rooftop garden at Pacific Tower, where she rents a one-bedroom apartment for $660, looks right down into the Classical Chinese Garden.

Parking? So close to downtown and the transit mall, Schaefer just needs a car once a week when she drives up West Burnside Street to Fred Meyer for groceries.

Chinatown isn’t dying as far as the 27-year-old Schaefer is concerned.

“Diversity is the way to go,” she says. “You can’t just say only Chinese can live in Chinatown.”

peterkorn@portlandtribune.com
http://www.portlandtribune.com/news/...49106246828100
__________________
make paradise, tear up a parking lot
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #6  
Old Posted Dec 19, 2006, 4:36 PM
Urbanpdx Urbanpdx is offline
BANNED
 
Join Date: Jul 2006
Posts: 561
Oh what a surprise...

The market is more powerful than the planners...just ask anyone from the former USSR.
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #7  
Old Posted Dec 19, 2006, 4:55 PM
vjoe's Avatar
vjoe vjoe is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Mar 2006
Posts: 80
Chinatown has gone way downhill the last 10 years since I moved to Portland. Even back then it was a pretty tiny Chinatown, but now there are only two chinese restaurants there, no grocery stores, just sad.
The chinese classical garden somehow didn't help much, they should have more events and discount for Portland residents.
The city should send someone down to LA chinatown to see the revitalization process there.

Reply With Quote
     
     
  #8  
Old Posted Dec 19, 2006, 5:14 PM
twofiftyfive twofiftyfive is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Sep 2006
Posts: 167
Quote:
Originally Posted by vjoe View Post
now there are only two chinese restaurants there
I can think of five off the top of my head: House of Louie, Good Taste, Republic Cafe, Fong Chong, and Golden Horse, although I would only eat at the first two.
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #9  
Old Posted Dec 19, 2006, 5:28 PM
cab cab is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: Portland, Oregon
Posts: 1,450
Veg house is pretty good. Seriously, put an asian supermarket on the huge surface parking lot right smack in the middle of that area and the place will be fine. Look at Seattle's Chinatown, the only thing different is it having a little more density and that huge Supermarket complex.
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #10  
Old Posted Dec 19, 2006, 8:18 PM
mhays mhays is offline
Never Dell
 
Join Date: Jul 2001
Posts: 19,760
Seattle's Chinatown/ID (actually Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Filipino, etc.) is slummy and underused in areas. But it also has a number of new buildings, and some major renovations going on. It has dozens of restaurants and numerous groceries of various sizes. Uwajimaya is a center. The Wing Luke Museum will be a big draw when its new home (4x the size) is completed in 2007 (that's one of the big renovs going on now).
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #11  
Old Posted Dec 19, 2006, 8:58 PM
vjoe's Avatar
vjoe vjoe is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Mar 2006
Posts: 80
Quote:
Originally Posted by twofiftyfive View Post
I can think of five off the top of my head: House of Louie, Good Taste, Republic Cafe, Fong Chong, and Golden Horse, although I would only eat at the first two.
really? I guess we didn't look hard enough when we went for dim sum. Only saw House of Louie and Fong Chong. The Mrs was busy steering us away from panhandlers.
It seems quiter than a few years ago that's for sure.
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #12  
Old Posted Dec 19, 2006, 10:05 PM
Urbanpdx Urbanpdx is offline
BANNED
 
Join Date: Jul 2006
Posts: 561
For Dim Sum (and Chinese food and culture in general) go out to 82nd. I like Wong's King on 92nd and Division.
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #13  
Old Posted Dec 20, 2006, 12:27 AM
roner's Avatar
roner roner is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Portland
Posts: 119
yeah, Wonk King is King. The place is amazing really, one of my favorites in Portland.

The new Chinatown at 82nd and is thriving as far as I can tell. It would seem doubtful that OTCT would see a sizable return of Chinese at any time in Portland's future. On the hand it's ripe to become a cheaper alternative to other spots in downtown. The district has a thriving entertainment and arts scene, and on NW fifth between Couch and Davis a number of sweet spots have spring up. Let's just hope it remains a little gritty and adds some serious density.
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #14  
Old Posted Dec 20, 2006, 12:38 AM
Urbanpdx Urbanpdx is offline
BANNED
 
Join Date: Jul 2006
Posts: 561
As ususal, the best use seems to come organically, not by some master plan that shoots out from SW Fourth Avenue.

I agree that Old Town/China Town has a future, lets just sit back and let it happen. 82nd is happening nicely without any "assistance". I hope we don't have to show how much we all value diversity/multi-culturalism and put up a bunch of silly statues out there.

I know some of the developers who are making it happen on 82nd and they don't need or want our "help". One 60-70ish immigrant I know says that there is money laying all over the ground in the US and everyone is too lazy to pick it up. In Vietnam where he came from there was nothing laying on the ground. He came here with nothing, had no job skills and did not know english. He laughs when people say there is no opportunity here. He has sent his kids to the best schools and they are now helping in the business. He has completed several large developments on 82nd and will do more. He loves this country and the freedom here. There is money, smarts, and guts shaping the area. Just watch.
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #15  
Old Posted Dec 20, 2006, 12:49 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
Quote:
Seriously, put an asian supermarket on the huge surface parking lot right smack in the middle of that area and the place will be fine.
Except ameneties like Asian supermarkets follow the people they serve--not the other way around. It's no coincidence that Uwajimaya is located in Beaverton, where live many Japanese and Koreans.

This area will be a cool neighborhood--with or without Asian residents. I don't know what the PDC was thinking here with its celebration streets and crappy public art. They should have widened the sidewalks and left it at that--let the developers do the developing.
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #16  
Old Posted Dec 20, 2006, 1:02 AM
westsider's Avatar
westsider westsider is offline
Kicking a** since 1907
 
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Portland
Posts: 437
Quote:
Originally Posted by Urbanpdx View Post
For Dim Sum (and Chinese food and culture in general) go out to 82nd. I like Wong's King on 92nd and Division.
I'm partial to Hung Far Low on 82nd.
__________________
"People should not be afraid of their government; governments should be afraid of their people"
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #17  
Old Posted Dec 20, 2006, 1:39 AM
roner's Avatar
roner roner is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Portland
Posts: 119
yeah Hung Far Low is good, but have you been to Wong Kings? (I'm a big fan)
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #18  
Old Posted Dec 20, 2006, 4:20 PM
MarkDaMan's Avatar
MarkDaMan MarkDaMan is online now
Moderator
 
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Portland
Posts: 7,513
Quote:
Originally Posted by PDX City-State
This area will be a cool neighborhood--with or without Asian residents. I don't know what the PDC was thinking here with its celebration streets and crappy public art.
The fesitval streets are going to be a huge asset if the PDC realizes that OTCT can be, as someone else stated, a cheaper alternative to SoWa and the Pearl. Since we have a permanent "Flea Market Fesitval" with the Saturday Market, we don't see a lot of little fesitvals most cities have on weekends. I think too many people are hung up on the Asian theme for Asian people, and the fesitval streets should be for things like a Rose Festival small merchant Blvd, gay pride fesitvities instead of the waterfront park box, the bars in the area can close the streets for some summer celebration, a fleet week party, Chinese New Year, etc.etc. The PDC is shooting itself in the foot if it doesn't realize downtown needs cheaper neighborhoods too, and they shouldn't be dedicated to offering housing to one race of people that may or may not (and with lack of much Asian community imput, I suspect may not) want to build their community there.

As for the public art...the PDC had ample money for two or maybe three pieces of great art/fountains, instead they wanted art on pratically every corner and have spread the budget too thin, and is lacking diversity in the pieces by choosing the same artist for all installations. I am all for a piece of art that is designed by an artist who is dedicated to building something from the inspiration they feel when walking through the district. I don't think it should have any extensive community review, and it is okay to be daring and even controversial for one piece of freaking art in this city.
__________________
make paradise, tear up a parking lot

Last edited by MarkDaMan; Dec 20, 2006 at 4:48 PM.
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #19  
Old Posted Dec 20, 2006, 4:41 PM
Urbanpdx Urbanpdx is offline
BANNED
 
Join Date: Jul 2006
Posts: 561
I think Mark makes a good point here. Trying to compartmentalize races and ethinicities does not make sense to me. If the market does it so the businesses will do better (like how car lots always tend to group) then that is one thing but to plan it is crazy. I like the idea of all "groups" feeling like Portlanders and sharing the districts. It makes the neighborhoods better.
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #20  
Old Posted Jan 11, 2007, 5:07 PM
MarkDaMan's Avatar
MarkDaMan MarkDaMan is online now
Moderator
 
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Portland
Posts: 7,513
Old Town/Chinatown News

A new vision for Old Town
Tired of being a dumping ground yet committed to the downtrodden, the neighborhood plots its next chapter
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Fred Leeson
The Oregonian

It's midmorning when a line forms. People, faces etched by the chill, stand silent or talk quietly. Some eyes are bleary.

"How cold was it last night?" someone asks. It's not a trifling matter when you're homeless.

Some days, the line winds around the corner of Northwest Sixth and Davis, awaiting the 10 a.m. meal at Sisters of the Road Cafe. Inside, spaghetti -- sauce with or without meat -- or rice and beans go for $1.25. No cash? Work 15 minutes instead.

The sidewalk lines should disappear next spring, but not from a decline in need. The 27-year-old social service agency will double its tiny size by expanding into an adjacent small storefront.

"It will bring our waiting line in off the street," says Monica Beemer, executive director.

That's no small matter for clients or the neighborhood. For decades, lines of homeless and hungry have marked Old Town/Chinatown as a landscape of despair and hope, recovery, relapse and hope again. People line up for meals or shelter at institutions such as Blanchet House, Union Gospel Mission, Portland Rescue Mission, Salvation Army, Transition Projects and Sisters of the Road.

"When you see a line of 100 or 150 people, to some it's discomfiting," says Brian Ferschweiler, executive director of Blanchet House of Hospitality, Old Town's biggest meal provider.

Some people think the lines -- and even the high density of social service agencies in the area -- deter positive change in the city's oldest and historically most diverse neighborhood.

"There's nothing unique about Old Town that says there should be this concentration of social services," says Larry Norton, a retired California lawyer who moved to Old Town in 2004. "When you look from Burnside north, it's no wonder Old Town hasn't developed at a rate comparable to other places. You can't blame the developers."

Old Town is not static. It has lost restaurants, a grocery and some small businesses in the past decade, and the number of nightclubs with pulsing rock music has increased.

Former residential hotels, many of them revamped for extended careers as low-income rooms, hold the city's highest concentration of paroled sex offenders because corrections officials like Old Town's dearth of children, schools and playgrounds.

As condo towers sprout in the nearby Pearl District, Old Town business owners, residents and social agencies are debating what they want their neighborhood to have.

High-rise towers? Families and children? More low-income housing? If the neighborhood retains its overwhelming percentage of low-income residents, can businesses survive?

The private market will hold some answers. In the meantime, many of the social service agencies are pushing ahead with plans for new buildings and expanded services. The most dramatic so far is the new $5.4 million Union Gospel Mission building at 15 N.W. Third Ave.

Scents of fresh paint, concrete and carpet glue waft through a new studio apartment, where a large bay window offers an expansive view across Burnside. The first tenant will be a fourth-year resident in the mission's addiction-recovery program.

The building includes dormitories for newer residents of its treatment community, which will expand gradually from 30 to 80. "We're moving from prison dorms to college dorms," says a proud Bill Russell, the mission's executive director.

Across Burnside, the Salvation Army is doing a feasibility study on its Harbor Light property that could lead to significant redevelopment on the block at Southwest Second Avenue and Ankeny Street. Over on Northwest Glisan, Transition Projects is discussing a new building that would add shelter beds for women and expand drop-in services for the homeless.

Blanchet, too, wants to eliminate twice-daily lines. The agency hopes to build a new home in Old Town that would include an indoor reception. Ferschweiler says it would improve customer service as well as public perception. The agency hopes to select a site in spring.

Since pioneer days, what is now called Old Town has been the city's doorway for newcomers with little in their pockets, including sailors, African Americans who came to work on the railroads, Gypsies, Japanese and Chinese. Before Old Town became the popular label in the 1970s, the area north of lower Burnside was known by names such as Skid Road and Little Tokyo.

Over the decades, social service agencies, most of them faith-based, arrived to help with food and shelter. By the 1970s, urban planners started calling for diluting the concentration of agencies, but the idea never took hold. Siting a homeless shelter in any neighborhood wouldn't be easy.

As Old Town plots its future, many decisions will come from the basement of Central City Concern on Northwest Sixth, where bare fluorescent tubes and a welter of water pipes hang above folding tables arranged in a square.

"There was a time when nobody down here talked to each other," says Russell at Union Gospel. "All that changed with Richard Harris."

Harris is director of Central City Concern, a nonprofit housing, medical and addictions rehabilitation program. In 27 years with the agency -- 10 as executive director -- Harris has masterminded the renovation of several Old Town flophouses into low-income units, many devoted to clean and sober tenants.

In the 1990s, in an earlier round of City Hall's periodic what-are-we-going-to-do-about-Old-Town plans, Harris realized that Old Town's multiple voices should be talking to one another.

He formed a Visions Committee with members from neighborhood businesses, ethnic institutions, social services, residents and the Old Town/Chinatown Neighborhood Association.

The committee has no legal power, yet its conclusions are persuasive in the neighborhood and at City Hall on such matters as street improvements, parking, crime, public safety and economic development.

The committee's guiding principle -- "All have a right to be in and grow in Old Town/Chinatown" -- rejects the idea that the social agencies should be dispersed. The principle has held firm as the agencies make plans for new buildings or expanded services.

"We all know we are an attractive nuisance," says Russell, referring to food and shelter providers. "But we all realize that we are team players -- different position, same team."

The committee's live-and-let-live attitude may not extend to new services, however. Mayor Tom Potter's new plan for a day center to get squatters off downtown streets originally called for the center to be in Old Town. The neighborhood association spoke strongly against it.

"We're clearly a dumping ground," says Norton, the retired lawyer. "It's not a nice phrase, but it's a fact." Potter's plan, yet to be implemented, was amended so that two other central city neighborhoods will share the burden.

While the Visions Committee reached consensus on many ideas, it has yet to define what it wants to see in new neighborhood housing. It's a debate that extends beyond housing. Some fear an increase in low-income units will chase away the businesses and services they'd like to attract.

The City Council raised the stakes in October when it voted to spend at least 30 percent of urban renewal funding on "affordable" housing. That could mean millions of dollars for Old Town projects.

But what kind? A 2005 Portland Development Commission report said 92 percent of the neighborhood's 2,215 rental units held tenants earning less than 60 percent of the region's median income and that only 87 units in the neighborhood were owner-occupied.

Harris says the committee tried in 2003 to come up with a desired balance of housing. "We couldn't do it." Sitting at folding tables, the Vision Committee tried again last month. Some of the voices:

"It's always been the tendency of the city to shove low-income stuff our way," says John Beardsley, an Old Town property owner. "I think we can expect more of that unless we set our goals higher."

Harris favors a more diverse mix but says the neighborhood shouldn't reject new housing for the city's poorest, who earn less than 30 percent of the median income. "It's better than to have people on the street."

"If we don't have economic development, we don't have a neighborhood," says Rebecca Liu, who spent more than 20 years as a director of the Consolidated Chinese Benevolent Association in Old Town. "We need to look more at ownership and bring back purchasing power to support local businesses."

"We're not here to become the Pearl," says Carl Roberts, a resident in one of the single-room occupancy buildings.

Fern Elledge, human resources director at Transition Projects, is concerned that rejecting units below the 30 percent income level could restrict her agency's tentative redevelopment plan. "There needs to be resources for the low-income," she says. "I don't think we can ever move away from being a neighborhood that is different from the region in general."

Paul Verhoeven, director of Portland Saturday Market, grasps for compromise. "Our goal should not say never another shelter bed, but we should try to move more to the other end of the scale."

There is no resolution this day. The discussion will continue.

At Sisters of the Road, Beemer admires the Visions Committee's work. "We have our eyes on change, and the neighborhood will continue to change."

Yet she sees little to be gained from the housing debate. "Old Town is what Old Town is," she says. Given Central City's eight low-income buildings in the area, she thinks it's unlikely that Old Town will shake its reputation for low-income housing.

Newcomers, she says, can't avoid looking around. If they like what they see, they'll move in. "They know what it is, right?"

Fred Leeson: 503-294-5946; fredleeson@news.oregonian.com
http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/o...l=7&thispage=4
__________________
make paradise, tear up a parking lot
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 8:57 PM.

     
SkyscraperPage.com - Archive - Privacy Statement - Top

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