Focus: 25 Tallest Buildings Planned or Under Construction

It’s now almost 6 months since the first post on Next Portland. Since then we’ve published over 180 posts and added over 350 projects to our map, which is a testament to the staggering scale of development happening right now in Portland. Much of this development is 4-6 story buildings along the corridors such as N Williams and SE Division, but there is also a large number of tall buildings going up in the Central City, which why we decided to list the 25 tallest buildings planned or under construction.

While the boom of the 2000s was defined by the activity in South Waterfront, today that district has no apartments or condos planned over 6 stories tall. By contrast the Pearl, the Lloyd District and the Central Eastside are all seeing their skylines altered. Activity in Downtown has quieter, but it also has the tallest building in our list, which is now the 4th tallest building in the city.

Where possible, the heights given are the building height as defined in the Portland Zoning Code and published in the Design Commission’s Final Findings. Where indicated the heights have been estimated.

1 – Park Avenue West

Height: 460′
Architect: TVA Architects
Status: Under Construction

November 21, 2013 LU 13-214772 DZ - Drawings - 03

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Burnside Bridgehead, Pt II: Block 67 (Images)

This post is the second in a series on the developments at the Burnside Bridgehead. See also Part I about Block 75.

Block 67, a 21 story tower designed by Skylab in partnership with LRS Architects, is under construction at the east end of the Burnside Bridge. The building is composed of a 5 story podium with a 16 story tower over it. The tower is a parallelogram in plan, set at an angle diagonal to the street grid, giving it a knife-edge appearance in the NW/SE axis. The tower will include 276 residential apartment units, while the podium includes room for 200 car parking spaces and 19,709 sq ft of retail/office space. 416 bicycle parking spaces will be included in the podium and in individual units.

The developers behind the project are Hood River based Key Development and Portland based Guardian Real Estate Services. A  Multiple-Unit Limited Tax Exemption was approved [PDF] by the Portland Housing Bureau, which will allow the developers to offer 20% of the apartments at rents affordable to people making 60% or lower of median family income, for at least 10 years.

block 67 - 01

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Weekly roundup: 419 E Burnside, Block 8L and more

December 2, 2014 LU 14-169513 DZM AD - 419 E Burnside - Drawing Set - view 02

419 E Burnside. The ghosted outlines behind the building represent Block 67 and Block 75.

  • The City Council heard evidence on the rezoning for the Multnomah Athletic Club Block 7 apartments. No vote was taken, and the hearing will be continued on January 8th.
  • The Historic Landmarks Commission approved the design for Block 8L, a new mixed use building in Old Town.
  • The Design Commission discussed the Tess O’Brien Apartments, 419 E Burnside, the Hilton Curio Hotel and the Whidden & Lewis building renovations.
  • A Pre-Application Conference was requested for the Grove Hotel, and the first images were released.
  • The Portland Chronicle posted construction photos of Vallaster Corl’s Lower Burnside Lofts.
  • BikePortland wrote about the upcoming open house and forum for the James Beard Public Market, and how the market could be and opportunity to “improve Portland’s newest and arguably most awkward downtown bridge landing.”
  • The development boom at the Burnside Bridgehead was the subject of another post at BikePortland, which included coverage of Skylab’s Block 67, Works Partnership’s Block 75, Myhre Group’s 419 E Burnside, and Guerrilla Development’s Fair Haired Dumbbell.
  • The Daily Journal of Commerce published photos of GBD Architect’s Block A Apartments under construction in the Lloyd District.
  • The Portland Business Journal wrote that the “Portland Development Commission has issued a call for qualified developers who could pull off a transformative, big-picture project at the corner of Northeast Halsey Street and Northeast 106th Avenue.”
  • Tom Moyer, the developer behind Park Avenue West, was remembered in an editorial in the Oregonian. His legacy is as of “one of the people who helped define Portland’s city center.”