Weekly Roundup: Pepsi Blocks, Las Adelitas, Old Portland Holdouts, and more

Las Adelitas at 6723 N Killingsworth St, designed by Salazar Architect for Hacienda CDC, will include 140 units of affordable housing.

The infamous Sugar Shack strip club at in Cully will be demolished to make way for 140 units of affordable housing at Las Adelitas, reports the Oregonian.

The Oregonian reports that the Portland is weighing a new strategy for how spend the funds from the 2016 affordable housing bond, following voter approval of Measure 102. The change could affect plans for 3000 SE Powell Blvd and 5827 NE Prescott St, two sites the Housing Bureau had intended to develop itself. The sites may now be turned over to outside affordable housing developers.

The Design Commission has approved the masterplan* for the Pepsi Blocksreports the Daily Journal of Commerce. The development could include up 1,297 units across the five acre site.

The Buiness Tribune wrote about four Old Portland holdouts, where new development surrounds existing buildings: the Field Officewhich wraps around the Dockside Saloon; Fire District No. 3, which formerly housed Touché and is now being incorporated in the Modera Glisanthe Dandy Warhols’ Odditorium, which sits on the remaining quarter block not occupied by the Broadstone Revealand the Auditorium Buildingwhich will be surrounded by 250 Taylor office building and the Hyatt Unbound hotel.

Portland Architecture interviewed Kyle Anderson of GBD Architects, whose projects include Hassalo on Eighth, Oregon Square and Block 216.

*This article will be unlocked for the rest of this week. After this week it will only be viewable by DJC subscribers.

20 thoughts on “Weekly Roundup: Pepsi Blocks, Las Adelitas, Old Portland Holdouts, and more

    • It’s dead. After they built the first phase they leased 90% of the building really fast but that wasn’t good enough for the investors so they pretty much cancelled the rest of the project.

      The closed off movie lot nearby is also pretty much cancelled. Investors got cold feet there as well. What I don’t get is why they don’t put the fences back down for ppl to use now.. it’s not like you can’t put the fences back up quickly if things change

  1. so many projects are dead.

    They make all these plans and get the approvals, but the lenders all know what so many don’t. Portland is quickly becoming what so many were moving away from.

    We’re just creating overpriced project after overpriced project.Some of them in far from prime locations….. like the Pepsi project and the projects in the Lloyd.

    • Yeah, either that or it’s a very difficult process getting a multi-million dollar building built, regardless of what city it’s in. Developing buildings, particularly very, very large buildings takes an incredibly amount of coordination. Not just between architects, engineers, and contractors, but between numerous layers of financial parties, city representatives, and other industry experts. There are countless ways for a building to fail. Your negative view on what Portland is becoming (hint: a modern city), may taint your viewpoint of the architectural industry here, but it doesn’t change the facts. If you think what is happening in Portland is unique, I’d recommend you travel to just about any other large city in the US and see what’s happening there.

      • no, what is happening in Portland is far from unique, and yes, it is happening ALL over the US. Homogenization is destroying us.

        • I disagree. Heterogenization is destroying us because local populations in Portland are made of completely contrasting family sizes, demographic & cultural habits, and most evident, linguistic differences. If there wasn’t a divide before, it’s certainly ripped tangents in the class struggle for a mere living space, in a safe part of town. Portland was a lot different 60-100 years ago and the architecture was different too. It was homogenous, which reflected the unity of the people, and the class divide was less of a problem because people living then had to work because the government wouldn’t pay for them otherwise. Crime was less of an issue back then as well, and I believe trusting your neighbor wasn’t as much of an issue back then. Many people, including myself look back at the design in those days and find discomfort in today’s aesthetics in the ‘modern city’ as the “””affordable housing””” we’re left with now is so terrible looking and makes people living in them look more misplaced than on the street. Modern cities are temporary. We should be building for the future, and look to the architects of the old European cities to influence our materials.

    • billyjo’s provincialism, combined with a lack of factual knowledge, is showing through. Unfortunately, this combination of retrogression and ignorance is pervasive in our society today and may end up being one of its downfalls. The levels of in-migration alone lay waste to the statement that Portland “is quickly becoming what so many were moving away from” (hint: the folks moving here don’t agree with you). The idea that this false statement is somehow related to lender calculations –never mind the assertion that the Pepsi and Lloyd projects are/were “far” from prime locations– is also absurd.

      • what an elitist reply.

        Yes, you know everything and nobody else knows anything. We should all just shut up and let you create the cities that we will all hate?

        If you have spent any time in Portland you would realize what a horrible location the Lloyd is. Just go into that mall and see all the companies that are wanting to open there. Move into the apartments that have been built and decide on dinner. McDonald’s or Burger King? Maybe Taco Bell? I guess you could hop onto the streetcar and head to the Pearl for a nice dinner.

        • Funny that you think the Pearl District is a good location since it wasn’t that long ago that the area was just a bunch of warehouses and rail yards. You probably wouldn’t have thought that was great location either back then. And how about Mississippi? Alberta? It wasn’t that long ago that those were considered bad locations. Heck, there was a time when the Alphabet District and inner SE were considered unsavory. It’s a good thing you’re not an urban planner.

          • Each of those areas grew slowly. It’s not like someone came in and built 1500 high end apartments in any of those areas when the areas were still up and coming.

          • The Pearl has far more than 1500 apartment units, all of which have been created in the last 20 years either by conversion or (mostly) new construction.

            The population of the Alphabet District grew incredibly quickly in the early 20th century. Between 1925 and 1931 one person, Elmer Feig, was responsible for the design of 25 new apartment buildings in that district alone.

            Most strikingly, Portland’s population more than doubled between 1900 and 1910, going from 90,426 people to 207,214.

            The idea that our neighborhoods originally grew slowly is not supported by a look at our history.

        • What a cheap, ill-conceived, and poorly-worded response. In fact-free 2018, merely calling out somebody’s vomit on the internet is “elitist”.

          I will make a good faith effort to answer your question, though: No. I don’t know “everything”, nor do I think that “nobody else knows anything” (binary much?). I don’t even work in the development/urban planning realm, which you seem to be assuming, so “I” won’t be creating “the cities that you all will hate” anytime soon.

          Regarding the Lloyd, I’ve lived here since 1996 and yes, it’s an auto-centric artifact of the mid-20th century (bad). But it’s also smack dab in the midst of a major transition toward something better (good). It’s on the light rail line, the (newish) streetcar line, the future green loop, there’s a pedestrian bridge over 84 at 7th that may start construction as early as next year, there is decent/improved bike infrastructure already in place, the mall is being re-developed with a new theater and Live Nation venue, a large affordable housing development is under construction, etc. For a variety of reasons, it’s a prime site in the central city for high-density residential development despite a few very large projects apparently not moving forward. Just last week, a developer started the process of constructing a mid-rise apartment building at 7th and Irving. What “the lenders all know” is vastly more complicated than what your first comment suggested.

          • no, your posts are not at all elitist. You’ve totally proven that with an even more “I know everything” post.

            The biggest problem with the Lloyd, as they have now decided it must be called….. I guess “Lloyd center” has too much of a bad vibe….
            The biggest problem is that for nearly 100 years someone has felt that it was the place to drop a mega development. There has never really been any kind of plan that put a 20 unit building on a plot, it has always been big, overdone dreams and that just doesn’t work Those fast food restaurants have persisted because the land has been a huge investment and they are waiting for that big payday. They aren’t gonna sell and build a 15 unit building on a small piece, they want the deep pockets of an out of state builder looking to either put a 6 story garbage heap or a 25 story glimmering tower. .

          • So with the Oregon Square and the theater parking lot both now on hold or totally scrapped, what is in the works for the neighborhood? crickets. That’s what. There are many, many huge properties that could easily be developed. Kaiser has full blocks being used as parking lots, each of the fast food locations (McDonalds, Wendys, Burger King, Taco Bell) sit on either full blocks or nearly full blocks. The land is there and there aren’t old buildings on them that people might try to save….. So where is the development? Go just a few blocks over and there are full block auto dealerships…. We could probably create at minimum 50,000 new units just on empty or nearly empty land. Why don’t we?

      • Actually, to believe that people moving here won’t change the way they vote in their former state is absurd. We can already see the over development occurring throughout the Portland metro area with many of these locations not being filled with small businesses. When you’re driving onto the east side, via the burnside bridge, take a look at the buildings in that area. The Dumbbell, Aura, and the Yard’s residential and business occupancies are not being filled and it’s evident in their empty spaces & desperate “LEASE ME” signs that have stayed in place for years now. These buildings not only were made for low-time preference profit, but not made with any contextual design aesthetic. Why do you think Autodesk bought space in the renovated building next door instead of something in the Yard Dumbell? Design Aesthetic? Wasn’t the Dumbbell sold to us as an attractive canvas for designers in Portland? The problem may be a mere price issue but perhaps somoene can shed some light on why that and so many other buildings stand empty after their construction.
        These new property prices are beginning to reflect bigger “modern city” costs and it’s overly inflated for the local population here (hence the outsourcing of investors from Asia, through the 2020PDX development). This isn’t unique, true, but since Portland has always showed itself to be the ‘different’ city, I think it’s natural for the local people to see these developments as being negatively impacting to communities. Alas, people from San Francisco, New York, Seattle, and others want the same liberal amenities, property (& grocery) taxes, and be surrounded by people who look and vote the same way they did in their previous crumbling city – and will refuse to see how their actions to virtue signal caused the housing prices to become so unlivable. It’s completely obvious in the last ten years, the Portland development that attempts to cater to these newcomers still fails to blend these buildings into the local environment. Instead, you get hot pink buildings and temporary looking, vinyl-windowed, corrugated aluminum shacks. A total mocking of our city and its history.

        • I think the problem is that there seems to be “ground floor retail” on the entire ground floor for every single new project. We don’t need billions of restaurants and boutiques. Ground floor retail should be used in high-traffic locations where people are already coming and going. Even Paris, which has many times the density of Portland, does not have ground floor businesses in every single block.

          For Portland, in most places, I think it would be a better use of space to create little recessed entry areas for ground-floor housing rather than an endless deluge of empty shops and restaurants. That way you create more housing, maintain the interaction with the streetscape, and prevent people from looking at depressing empty storefronts. It’s a win-win-win.

          • It’s not that nobody wants to open there, it’s that the price to do so, and in many cases, the hoops that the property owner throws up prevent the space from being utilized. Would these developers welcome a family dollar? Or are they all trying to curate the neighborhood to cater to the tenant that they seek? Hassalo has a giant for lease sign and then has “restaurant space” there too. The space has never been built out so it’s not like there’s already a kitchen there? They feel that their tenants need good dining options. McDonalds and the mall food court just aren’t what they want, so they don’t move there or move out quickly. What restaurants would open there? there isn’t enough housing nearby to justify the expense.

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