Focus: Our 25 Most Popular Posts of the Year

The Goat Blocks

LOCA @ The Goat Blocks, the subject of our second most viewed post of 2015

2015 is the first full calendar year Next Portland has been in operation, and it’s been a year of huge growth for the site. As the year draws to a close it seemed like a good time to look at what the most popular posts of the year were. If there’s an overall trend evident it’s that posts about tall or large buildings do well. The single most popular post was the round up of the 25 tallest buildings planned or under construction. Posts about high rise buildings under construction—including Block 136, The Cosmopolitan, The NV (formerly The Overton), and Yard (formerly Block 67)—feature prominently in the list. The giant development at Oregon Square makes the list three times, and the redevelopment of the USPS site in the Pearl is included three times. The most popular post about a single project covered LOCA @ The Goat Blocks, a superblock development currently under construction in inner Buckman.

Other posts to make the top 25 were more surprising. The list includes the Worldmark by Wyndham and The Society Hotel, both relatively small hotel projects in Old Town. The initial post about 3rd & Taylor likely performed so well not because of the scale of the project, but because Next Portland was the first place to write about the potential demolition of the Hotel Albion. At only 8 stories Carbon12 wouldn’t come close to making the list of the tallest buildings planned for Portland, but is notable for the fact that the high rise structure will be built out of wood.

Were there any posts you particularly enjoyed reading this year? Let us know in the comments. Here is the full list of our most popular posts of 2015:

1 – Focus: 25 Tallest Buildings Planned or Under Construction

2 – LOCA @ The Goat Blocks

3 – Burnside Bridgehead, Pt II: Block 67

4 – Focus: 20 New Hotels Proposed For Portland

5 – Worldmark by Wyndham set to receive Design Advice

6 – Carbon12, an 8 story wood building, proposed for N Williams

7 – Concepts released for redevelopment of USPS site

8 – Pre-Application Conference scheduled for SW 3rd & Taylor

9 – Under Construction in Old Town: The Society Hotel

10 – Cook Street Apartments

11 – Lloyd Cinemas redevelopment returns in front of Design Commission (images)

12 – The Fair Haired Dumbbell

13 – Burnside Bridgehead, pt I: Block 75

14 – PDC identifies preferred concept for Post Office site

15 – Block 136 heading to Design Review

16 – Under Construction in South Waterfront: Block 37

17 – North Pearl High-Rises, Part II: The Overton

18 – Design Commission approves Oregon Square

19 –Design Commission reviews Oregon Square

20 – Oregon Square update

21 – North Pearl High-Rises, Part I: The Cosmopolitan on the Park

22 – Design Commission approves The Porter hotel

23 – 4th & Harrison returning for Design Advice

24 – Grand Belmont returns before Historic Landmarks Commission

25 – Hyatt Regency at the Oregon Convention Center

 

Weekly Roundup: 3rd and Taylor, Clay Creative, Centennial Mills and more

3rd and Taylor

The proposed developed at SW 3rd and Taylor by Ankrom Moisan Architects

Restore Oregon announced that they filed concurrent appeals to the City and to LUBA, arguing that the City erred in removing the Albion Hotel and Ancient Order of United Workmen Temple from the Historic Resource Inventory. The buildings are threatened by the development at 3rd and Taylor.

Online bank Simple will be the anchor tenant for Clay Creativeaccording to a story in the Portland Business Journal. The new space will be “nearly double the size of Simple’s current home and will be able to accommodate 500 people.”

Writing about Framework, the proposed 12 story building in the Pearl, the Portland Mercury looked at how the use of wood in high rise construction could “help solve the city’s affordability problem, create living-wage jobs in rural communities, and help save the planet”

The Portland Business Journal reported that the concrete slab for the AC Hotel by Marriott was poured last weekend. The pour included 1,100 cubic yards of concrete, enough “to cover a football field with a six-inch slab.”

The Daily Journal of Commerce published construction photos of the Burnside Bridgehead Block 75which has now reached its maximum height. The project is scheduled for completion in mid-2016.

The Portland Development Commission has walked away from a deal with Harsch Investment Properties for development on the site of Centennial Mills, determining that it wasn’t financially viable. Partial demolition is currently underway on the long vacant site. The current demolition work will leave the feed and flour mills in place, but with no plan in place for what to do with them a decision will need to be made in the new year whether to also demolish those buildings.

In a piece on Division Street, KGW looked at how it “got so popular and why the growth is causing problems for people who live, work and dine at Portland’s new restaurant row”.

The Portland Chronicle reported that demolition is likely imminent on two single family homes at 1515 SE 44th, which will be replaced by a four-story mixed-use development with 30 residential units facing SE Hawthorne Blvd.

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 I: Block 75 (images)

This post is the first in a series on the developments at the Burnside Bridgehead. See also Part II about Block 67.

Block 75 is one of a number of projects planned or under construction at the Burnside Bridgehead, a site which the Portland Development Commission has been trying to develop since 2005. A previous plan by developer Opus Northwest proposed a single large development on the multi-block site; the current plan has seen the PDC sell off the block individually, and let the developers choose what to build. For Block 75 partnership between Beam Development and Urban Development Partners was chosen. Beam are best known for their adaptive reuse office projects in the Central Eastside, while UDP have developed a number of apartment buildings along SE Division St. The architects for the project are Works Partnership, who have designed buildings for both developers. The landscape architects are Lango Hansen.

block_75_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.”