Weekly Roundup: Lents Town Center, Loyal Legion, Langano Apartments and more

Lents Town Center Property #2

Lents Town Center Property #2, including the New Copper Penny site

The Portland Development Commission will vote next week on whether to offer financial support to the three development projects in Lents. The developments include: a development by Palindrome Communities on Lents Town Center Property #2, which will also include the New Copper Penny site; a development by Williams & Dame on  Lents Town Center Property #3 (South); and a third by Asian Health & Services Center Lents Town Center Property #4.

The Loyal Legion, the new bar by ChefStable in the I. O. O. F. Orient Lodge / PPAA Building will open to the public on July 8th. A pre-opening event hosted by Restore Oregon will take place on July 3rd, where guests will receive guided tours of the newly renovated building.

The City Council discussed the zoning map amendment that will allow the Multnomah County Health Department HQ to be up to 150′ tall. A vote will be held next week.

A 6 week old restaurant was named by The Oregonian as its restaurant of the year. Renata recently opened in the former warehouse at 626 SE Main.

The growth scenarios in the 2035 Comprehensive Plan show that Portland is expected to gain 94,000 new apartments between 2010 and 2035, but only 17,000 new single family homes.

The new headquarters for SolTerra Systems at 2422 SE 9th Ave will be the tallest building on the west coast built with insulated concrete forms. Other sustainable features will include a green roof and low flow plumbing fixtures.

The Portland Business Journal published a photo gallery of Park Avenue Westthe downtown skyscraper scheduled for completion in December.

Tenants are now moving into the Langano Apartments, according to the Portland Chronicle. The building is owned by Petros Jarra and Ainalem Sultessa, immigrants who formerly operated Jarra’s Ethiopian Restaurant on the same site.

The Oregonian reported on the new building proposed at 4th & Harrison, which will include 425 apartments targeted to students at PSU. The developer hopes to open the building in 2018.

The East Building at One North is nearly finished. The Daily Journal of Commerce wrote about how the building will serve as a model for sustainability.

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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Weekly Roundup: Goat Blocks, Station Place Lot 5, Multnomah County Courthouse and more

Station Place Lot 5

Station Place Lot 5

The City Council heard the appeal of Preserve the Pearl LLC against the Design Commission’s decision to approve Block 136. Comments for or against the appeal can be sent to cctestimony@portlandoregon.gov until 5pm on April 15th. The Council will deliberate on April 23rd.

The Portland Development Commission board has voted to sell Station Place Lot 5 to Williams & Dame for $7.4 million. The developers plans to build a 204,000 sq ft office building on the vacant Pearl District land.

Grocery store Market of Choice and hardware store Orchard Supply will be the anchor retail tenants for LOCA @ The Goat Blocks, which is now under construction.

According to a post at The Portland Chronicle, demolition has begun on the Spring Market building on SE Hawthorne Blvd. In its place will be the Hawthorne 31 apartments by TVA Architects and VWR Development.

An article in today’s Oregonian covers OMSI’s desire for housing to be allowed on land it owns in the Central Eastside. The City is currently working on a draft of the SE Quadrant Plan, which will guide the zoning for the area for the next 20 years.

The Post Office Redevelopment could be a ‘golden opportunity for bikeway’, says BikePortlandWork on the  Broadway Corridor Framework Plan, which includes in the USPS site, will begin this year.

The Portland Development Commission has issued a Request for Proposals for Riverplace Parcel 3. Working with the Portland Housing Bureau, they hope to create at least 200 affordable homes on the site.

At Portland Architecture Brian Libby asked whether Portland can grow the right way.

A photo gallery at the Daily Journal of Commerce shows the progress on the Park Avenue West tower.

The Portland Development Commission has reissued a Request for Proposals for NE 106th & Halsey. According to the Portland Business Journal, the PDC is willing to “donate the land at no cost or channel up to $3 million in public funding” to secure the kind of development it wants to see.

A due diligence report [PDF] on the Multnomah County Courthouse was presented to the County board. The two sites currently being considered for the new courthouse are at the Hawthorne Bridgehead, and adjacent to the KOIN tower. No fatal flaw was found for either site, and the site at the Hawthorne Bridgehead remains the preferred site.

Weekly Roundup: Park Avenue West, bar closures, Centennial Mills and more

November 21, 2013 LU 13-214772 DZ - Drawings - 05

Street level view of Park Avenue West

  • There were no City Council or Design Commission hearings this week, due to the Christmas holiday.
  • In “Closing Time” the Willamette Week wrote about the many Portland bars that will have closed by the end of 2014, including Magic Gardens, which closes on New Year’s Eve. The strip club occupied a space in the Overland Warehouse Company building, which is due to be converted into creative office space.
  • An article by Brian Libby at Citylab asked whether Jordan Schnitzer can save Centennial Mills.
  • The Portland Chronicle published photos of Spring Market at SE 31st and Hawthorne, which is slated to be redeveloped by VWR Development and TVA Architects as a mixed use building with apartments over retail.
  • Another blog post at the Portland Chronicle contained photos of the Pearl garage set to be torn down for Vallaster Corl’s Couch9 project.
  • In “Nerves of steel: Building the Park Avenue West Tower in Portland” the Oregonian published photos and wrote about the construction of the skyscraper set to be the third tallest building in the city.

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.”

Park Avenue West (images)

Anyone who has been near Downtown Portland lately will have noticed the construction of Park Avenue West, a 30 story building rising adjacent to Director Park. The project is the third skyscraper built by TMT Development, whose founder Tom Moyer passed away last week at the age of 95. Previous projects included the 1000 Broadway building, which was completed in 1991, and the Fox Tower, which was completed in 2000.

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

The tower, designed by TVA Architects, rises to 460′ — the maximum height allowed Downtown by Portland’s zoning code. A spire extends the total height to 501′-7″. The lower two floors will be retail, and the next 15 floors are residential, with 211 apartments. The top 13 floors are offices, whose anchor tenant will be law firm Stoel Rives. The building will be served by 6 levels of underground parking.

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