Downtown Portland News

[PhillyPDX]

Originally Posted by colossalorder

Random question ... does anyone know whatever happened to the Albina Yards relocation project? At 200+ acres, it almost feels like it could single-handedly solve Portland's housing shortage for a long time. So many possibilities for large scale projects - stadium, campus, markets, performance spaces, whatever. Is it totally a dead idea for some reason?

https://www.oregonlive.com/commuting...-property.html

https://www.plandesignxplore.com/bui.../5/albina-yard

Who exactly is this person?

"Badreddine, who goes by Moe, acknowledges he doesn’t have any experience in owning or developing land..."

[maccoinnich]

I was skeptical of the idea at the time, for that reason. It would be an incredibly difficult project for even the most experienced of developers, and the fact that Union Pacific gave no indication that the site was available made it even more unlikely.

[JWW31401]

While unlikely it certainly would be a cool project
GBD architects has some interesting renderings on what a built out of this site could look like
https://www.gbdarchitects.com/portfo.../albina-yards/

[urbanlife]

Originally Posted by maccoinnich

I was skeptical of the idea at the time, for that reason. It would be an incredibly difficult project for even the most experienced of developers, and the fact that Union Pacific gave no indication that the site was available made it even more unlikely.

With the Port of Portland closing again since it can't seem to keep any ship traffic for obvious reasons, it seems like protecting our rail yards and upgrading our freight rail routes is even more important now.

[PhillyPDX]

Originally Posted by urbanlife

With the Port of Portland closing again since it can't seem to keep any ship traffic for obvious reasons, it seems like protecting our rail yards and upgrading our freight rail routes is even more important now.

Now if you want to talk finding a way to provide an Amtrak only track in that ROW to drastically cut the train trip duration between Portland and Vancouver, I’m all ears.

[colossalorder]

Thx for the responses on Albina Yards. Those GBD drawings are really tantalizing. One can dream.

I would think there must be some way of preserving rail but freeing up that land, or at least some of it. To me, it just looks like a huge parking lot for railcars. Is something functional actually happening there or is it just effectively storage?

[babs]

Originally Posted by urbanlife

With the Port of Portland closing again since it can't seem to keep any ship traffic for obvious reasons, it seems like protecting our rail yards and upgrading our freight rail routes is even more important now.

There really is zero reason why freight lines can't be relocated outside it an areas. Most stuff is trucked to a rail yard anyway. Relocating the railyards makes sense the railroad can modernize their operations and could make bank on redevelopment.

[urbanlife]

Originally Posted by babs

There really is zero reason why freight lines can't be relocated outside it an areas. Most stuff is trucked to a rail yard anyway. Relocating the railyards makes sense the railroad can modernize their operations and could make bank on redevelopment.

I have to disagree with this in the sense that it makes it even easier to have things locally shipped via truck when the depot yards are within the city, we just need better infrastructure to get all those goods into the city.

[subterranean]

Reminds me of the several attempts (by Nitze-Stagen and Paul Allen at one point) to redevelop the Port of Seattle's Pier 46.

[Jakz]

Originally Posted by urbanlife

I have to disagree with this in the sense that it makes it even easier to have things locally shipped via truck when the depot yards are within the city, we just need better infrastructure to get all those goods into the city.

The Albina yard is mostly used for train assembly and barge to train loading. It doesn't have the infrastructure needed for train to truck transfers. As urban rail yards go, it's a pretty good candidate for relocation.

[urbanlife]

Originally Posted by Jakz

The Albina yard is mostly used for train assembly and barge to train loading. It doesn't have the infrastructure needed for train to truck transfers. As urban rail yards go, it's a pretty good candidate for relocation.

That is true, I was more referring to the Brooklyn Yard. With the Albina Yard, it is a very isolated area that I am not sure is a good candidate for redevelopments to anything other than what it is being used for now. Terminal 2 and The Squish would be a better candidate for redevelopment.

Now if Trimet were to be aggressive with expanding light rail, I could see a spur come off the Yellow line, run through the Albina Yard and out to St John's. If that were to happen, then it would definitely make sense to redevelop that area into a new urban district.

[maccoinnich]

I haven't been to either yet, but I see that the new Stumptown in 11W and the temporary Nike store in Pioneer Place are both now open.

[downtownpdx]

Scenes from the 'We Believe in Portland' downtown cleanup

dowtownclean16 by Ryan Miller, on Flickr

By Suzanne Stevens – Editor, Portland Business Journal
Apr 19, 2024

A gorgeous sunny Friday morning greeted the hundreds of Portlanders who gathered in Pioneer Courthouse Square for the inaugural We Believe in Portland downtown cleanup.

We Believe in Portland grew out of a simple idea hatched by Ryan Buchanan, founder and chairman of the digital agency Thesis, and Carling Leon, the agency's senior engagement manager. It began about seven months ago with Thesis employees spending two hours on Fridays cleaning up litter downtown and then having lunch at a nearby restaurant.

This year, the two decided to go bigger by leveraging an existing partnership with the nonprofit AdoptOneBlock and relationships with elected and business leaders to recruit an army of cleanup volunteers.

Roughly 150 companies signed up to participate, resulting in the hundreds of fired up Portlanders who fanned out for two hours on Friday.

continues(paywall)https://www.bizjournals.com/portland...d-cleanup.html

dowtownclean21 by Ryan Miller, on Flickr
wiedenkennedy by Ryan Miller, on Flickr

[PhillyPDX]

Originally Posted by downtownpdx

Scenes from the 'We Believe in Portland' downtown cleanup

dowtownclean16 by Ryan Miller, on Flickr

By Suzanne Stevens – Editor, Portland Business Journal
Apr 19, 2024



continues(paywall)https://www.bizjournals.com/portland...d-cleanup.html

dowtownclean21 by Ryan Miller, on Flickr
wiedenkennedy by Ryan Miller, on Flickr

My wife did this, said it was amazing with people out, eating at restaurants and food carts. The way a city should be. Vitality.

[downtownpdx]

Exactly! The winter light fest is the same way. Nice to see glimpses of what could and should be year round.

[babs]

Originally Posted by downtownpdx

Exactly! The winter light fest is the same way. Nice to see glimpses of what could and should be year round.

There is a bit of irony here that Thesis moved their office out of downtown to a new building off 23rd. Original office was in Old Town, then the Pearl, now just off 23rd. If they really want to support downtown Portland, they should have an office downtown helping to rejuvenate the area. A cleanup doesn't do much to help bring downtown back.

[PhillyPDX]

Originally Posted by downtownpdx

Exactly! The winter light fest is the same way. Nice to see glimpses of what could and should be year round.

Now how do you make it self-sustaining with a critical mass, rather than special events? That should be the norm, not the exception.

[maccoinnich]

I've moved some discussion to the James Beard Public Market thread.

[2oh1]

Anybody who thinks the crime situation downtown is getting better needs to go to the Safeway on 10th & Jefferson.

The store is almost militarized. I mentioned before, there's only one entrance in & out now, on the corner of SW 10th & Columbia. Well, the store this afternoon had five security guards on duty. FIVE. Two were standing guard outside the entrance and another three were guarding inside. It was basically a gauntlet of security guards to get in or out.

They had more people on duty to stop people from stealing than they had working the registers.

Wow.

How did the situation get this bad, and how is that sustainable?

The population of this neighborhood has gone up so much thanks to the apartment & condo highrises that have been built over the past 20 years, but business are closing.

It would be a huge blow to downtown to lose the Safeway, but the store keeps cutting back its hours, they removed a chunk of the store in order to create a closed-off section for items that get stolen the most, and they've now got a fleet of security guards.

I'm glad to see the touristy parts of downtown are getting cleaned up... but... what about the parts people actually live in?

It's crazy how far downtown has fallen.

[urbanlife]

Originally Posted by 2oh1

Anybody who thinks the crime situation downtown is getting better needs to go to the Safeway on 10th & Jefferson.

The store is almost militarized. I mentioned before, there's only one entrance in & out now, on the corner of SW 10th & Columbia. Well, the store this afternoon had five security guards on duty. FIVE. Two were standing guard outside the entrance and another three were guarding inside. It was basically a gauntlet of security guards to get in or out.

They had more people on duty to stop people from stealing than they had working the registers.

Wow.

How did the situation get this bad, and how is that sustainable?

The population of this neighborhood has gone up so much thanks to the apartment & condo highrises that have been built over the past 20 years, but business are closing.

It would be a huge blow to downtown to lose the Safeway, but the store keeps cutting back its hours, they removed a chunk of the store in order to create a closed-off section for items that get stolen the most, and they've now got a fleet of security guards.

I'm glad to see the touristy parts of downtown are getting cleaned up... but... what about the parts people actually live in?

It's crazy how far downtown has fallen.

So the metric is the grocery store that has always been one of the worst grocery stores to go to? I mean, it has literally been called Psycho Safeway for as long as I have lived here.