Portland Botanical Gardens | Proposed

[MarkDaMan]

Not a PPR project but this could be interesting to watch...

https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/...-buy-site.html

Portland Botanical Gardens lands option to buy site
Updated: Apr. 28, 2024, 5:05 p.m.|Published: Apr. 27, 2024, 5:28 a.m.
By Dennis Peck, for The Oregonian/OregonLive

The proposed Portland Botanical Gardens has taken a major step forward, landing an option to buy a 59-acre North Portland Superfund site along the Willamette River.

The purchase and sale agreement gives the nonprofit organization, formed in 2020, a year to finalize a deal for the former site of the McCormick & Baxter creosote plant situated between Metro’s Willamette Cove property and the University of Portland’s Franz River campus.

“It’s a bright, shiny project for Portland,” said Sean Hogan, executive director of the botanical gardens group. “We hope people are as excited about it as we are.”

The botanical gardens would include pavilions, outdoor pathways, offices and research facilities, as well as public access to a stretch of Willamette River beach.

The goal, Hogan said, is to open two-thirds of the property, currently privately held, to the public free of charge.

Because the property is a Superfund site (cleanup was completed in 2005), the state Department of Environmental Quality and federal Environmental Protection Agency play a major role in vetting a potential purchaser and will require the new owner to continue to care for the property.

...(continues)

[maccoinnich]

Might be worth splitting this off onto a separate thread?

[MarkDaMan]

Originally Posted by maccoinnich

Might be worth splitting this off onto a separate thread?

I was thinking that too. We'll see if anything develops or if this is just someone's pie in the sky dream that fizzles.

[maccoinnich]

Willamette Week story from earlier in the month, published before the announcement:

A Once-Polluted Stretch of Riverfront Has Been Clean for Nearly 20 Years. Why Is It Still Off-Limits?
The McCormick & Baxter site is one-third larger than Laurelhurst Park but hosts far fewer people.

• ADDRESS: 6900 N Edgewater St.
• YEAR BUILT: The creosote plant operated from 1944 to 1991.
• SIZE: 41.8 acres (land); 16.4 acres (water)
• MARKET VALUE: None
• OWNERS: McCormick & Baxter Creosoting Co.
• HOW LONG IT’S BEEN EMPTY: Cleanup completed in 2005
• WHY IT’S EMPTY: Lingering liability

There’s not much activity on the 41 acres of Willamette riverfront property immediately upstream of the BNSF Railway Bridge in the University Park neighborhood.

The beach and expansive uplands contain driftwood, migratory birds and, judging from tracks under a security gate, the occasional coyote—but no people. None legally, anyway.

That’s because, for nearly two decades, the property, formerly home to the McCormick & Baxter Creosoting Co., has existed in legal limbo. Although environmental regulators completed a $70 million cleanup in 2005, the property remains off-limits to the public and under the partial control of a defunct, bankrupt company whose owner wants to partner with a nonprofit to turn it into a ticketed botanical garden.

Portland is a river city where most of the waterfront remains in private hands or otherwise inaccessible to the public because it’s in industrial use, heavily polluted or otherwise walled off. Unlike Austin or San Antonio, Texas, or even Vancouver, Wash., Portland has turned its back on one of its greatest natural resources.

...continues at Willamette Week.

[maccoinnich]

Portland Botanical Gardens Makes a Play for Riverfront Property
Community groups that seek public access to the land are dismayed.



On April 25, the Portland Botanical Gardens, a fledgling nonprofit, announced it had signed a purchase agreement for the McCormick & Baxter property, a 41-acre stretch of Willamette riverfront that taxpayers spent $70 million to clean up two decades ago.

The group signed the deal, first reported by The Oregonian, at an undisclosed price with Charlie McCormick, the former CEO of the creosoting company that polluted the land.

...continues at Willamette Week.

[PDX2SEA]

Incredible. I'd love to see this area as a botanical garden. What a treat to watch the development of it over the next 10-20 years. I hope they can salvage some of the volunteer trees that have started to grow on the land.

[uncommon.name]

Originally Posted by maccoinnich

...continues at Willamette Week.

The groups opposing this aren't making a play to purchase it and just want it (which is privately owned) to be just given to the public? The botanical gardens group has stated multiple times that access to the land will be free. Not sure why those other groups think they should have a say in it, if they aren't willing to buy it themselves.