that parking lot to the north is MultCo parking overflow for their blanchard offices.

No comment lol

I would hate to see nextportland end, but I understand if it’s not something you can keep up. Thanks for doing it as long as you did, if anything.

https://media.bizj.us/view/img/12287...-from-west.jpg
I would love to see this kind of density around the Rose Quarter.

We have so many major projects to get off the ground let alone something like this. Would love to see it tho

One of my big vision ideas would be to repurpose the Coliseum as new main rail station/intermodal hub for Portland much in the vision of a European rail station. Passenger trains would no longer have to cross the Willamette River twice and the downtown rail tunnel could run directly below the station for quick and easy interchange. Part of this plan would be demolishing the Louis-Dreyfus grain silos in order to straighten out the track north of the Steel Bridge.

Agree a rail/subway station in that area makes a lot of sense

Notice of a Type II Proposal for Albina One

Great looking building!

Notice of a Type II Decision for Albina One.

[$] https://www.oregonlive.com/business/...ghborhood.html

...(continues)

Wow that’s huge news. Phil must know he’s going to get the Blazers finally for him to have such a mutual benefit in the area

It would be hard to overstate the significance of this. Once this $400 million is leveraged against other sources of public and private funding, that's a massive amount of investment in the neighborhood.

It might just be a big coincidence. But if I’m buying the blazers I’m going to help bankroll the area with a donation like this.

I wouldn't go that far, this is an amazing investment, but I don't think it has anything to do with any other ventures. When Knight offered to buy the Blazers, he gave a very low ball offer. If he was actually serious, he would have offered a realistic offer.

That was just the feeler we all know the first offer isn’t your final one. I don’t know like I said it might be a coincidence but it does have a huge benefit for him to invest in the area around his potential new toy

Unless he shells out $3-4 billion for the team, it ain't happening.

Knight is worth 50B come on dude lol… and the way these nba teams jump in value is nuts. It’ll be worth triple in 10 years. if he buys the blazers he would be the 2nd richest owner in the nba after Ballmer. 3-4B is nothing to him. If he wants the team he’ll get it

The Blazers are in the beginning process of a renovation of the Moda Center that will get the Arena ready for the Women's Final Four in 2030. They did the roof last year. Will be removing & replacing all the steel seating in the lower bowl this offseason. It's a stage renovation that's similar to what happened at Madison Square Garden in New York City. So 2030 is probably the earliest Jody sells the team as part of the Paul Allen Trust. By then the team will most like be worth north of 5 Billion. These improvements to the Rose Quarter, and the Albina Vision Development bode well for the Albina area going forward.

Building permit issued for Albina One yesterday:

...continues at the Portland Business Journal ($).

My family and I live five doors from this building on Thompson. It's definitely been an underutilized corner since Albertina Kerr left the building-- with that said, and with inclusion of black artists in mind, there is literally an entire exhibit of black local and regional artists at PAM from October until February that is inhabiting much of the non-permanent collection space. At the risk of cancellation, most galleries in town are clamoring for inclusionary artists, so is it really necessary to have a gallery showing only black artists? This neighborhood is burgeoning with artists of all races, creeds and ideology. I may sound like a jerk, but when does inclusive become exclusive? Sidenote, we are a biracial household and have been a part of the Albina arts community for 15 years...... feel free to cancel me.

I think the part that you have to consider here, is the Albina Vision Trust is about bring back the POC culture and history that was damaged by the development of I5 and other projects that damaged what was once a flourishing Black community. Literally their purpose is to bring that back, so while it's wonderful that all of those other places you mentioned are featuring art from the Black community, that is quite literally what the Albina Vision is all about.

Here is what their mission statement stands for. "Albina Vision Trust (AVT) is stewarding the thoughtful reinvention of lower Albina, the cultural heart of Portland and the once-thriving center of Portland's Black community, from which thousands of residents were forcibly displaced."

I totally understand that, and am in full support. I helped do layout for the book Jumptown and also played a lot of gigs with Sweet Baby James Benton who owned a jazz club and speakeasy on Williams way back when. I understand the ramifications of the Vanport flood, the gentrification caused by the hospital, etc.. I support the cultural re-establishment aspirations, but at the same time, I think there is a bit of an overreach that is even being felt by the black community to try and live up to the expectations put upon the community by a huge influx of money. Kind of a 'you better do good things with art, music and sport and the expectations are high with all this Phil money', is what I hear from friends in the community. I think letting some aspects happen organically without a broad brush would be welcomed by all in the neighborhood. This feels a little bit like a marketing strategy than an honest attempt to re-establish cultutal footholds. That's just a boots on the ground feeling and sentiment I am picking up, though. We'll see. Again, I am in full support and will go to the gallery and enjoy it!

https://www.oregonlive.com/education...-building.html
...(continues)

I think this is a brilliant idea.

I hope this happens; it would be a win-win for the city.

But doesn't the PPS HQ also house lots of non-office functions too? Like maintenance, supplies, etc? I recall this being a big topic during the Tubman MS move discussion (also considered the HQ site). Would it just be for the office building but not all of the other functions that can't easily be moved downtown?

I wonder how this will all shake out. Downtown doesn't help with all of the maintenance and kitchens facilities co-located at the current HQ. Is the cost including the relocation of those big facilities to some 3rd location? Or is that still TBD?

PPS hasn't exactly been the best steward of education dollars/decisions, so I'm curious what this will look like.

https://www.oregonlive.com/education...velopment.html

The article states that PPS will spend the next several months studying the logistics of locating the non-office functions away from the proposed Downtown HQ building before finalizing the sale of their building. I hope that they get professional planning help to do that efficiently rather than rely on in-house planners. I am optimistic that it will work out. With a unanimous decision by the Board, PPS obviously wants the deal to happen so that Albina Vision Trust can move forward in rebuilding the neighborhood that was lost decades ago.

Here's the resolution.

Renovation to VMC submitted for Historic Resource Review (via Portland Maps.)

...continues at OPB.

...continues at the Portland Business Journal ($).

...continues at KGW.

"The group plans to convert the aging building into 1,000 affordable housing units, an education hub, communal green spaces and mixed-use commercial opportunities, with the goal that the Albina neighborhood would be a riverfront destination for Oregonians to live, work and play."

Just bad phrasing, right? Or is there really a plan to reuse the existing building?

Unless there's a huge change I haven't heard about, it's a mistake in the article.

...continues at the Oregonian.

Wow, that's a wild amount of money.

So great to see this moving forward.

While I think this Rose Quarter expansion is a waste of money that isn't gonna fix anything because the bottleneck will still exist, I am happy to see the Feds giving money for the buildable caps since that was always something in danger of getting cut with this project. Caps over the freeway will help fix the scar this freeway has left on this area and will help it heal and become an urban district again.

Isn't it fixing the lane drop? That is the biggest bottleneck issue I experience when I drive this way.

I forget what exactly they are doing, it's been a while since I looked in detail.

It doesn't fix the lane drop, it just connects the off ramps from 84 to 405. Heading into the area from the north will still drop down to two lanes. What will be different is people driving on 405 to 84 and vice versa won't have to merge to make that transaction. So it will help with that, but even ODOT has said that it won't actually improve travel times during rush hours, nor will it improve the accidents rate because the majority of the accidents happen outside of rush hours when people drive faster through the area.

I would rather see two billion invested into transit and expanding the MAX and building at least one tunnel through downtown (even better would be to have it tunnel under Hillsdale and Multnomah Village.) But since this Rose Quarter freeway expansion is going to happen, I am happy to see that the buildable caps will be a part of the expansion and that Albina Neighborhood will have a real shot of return as hopefully a very dense and diverse district.

Did ODOT say it wouldn't decrease accident rates?

I drive the 84 to 405 exit to the Fremont and reverese commute 2 to 4 times a week. The wild merging between 84 and 5N with the Moda/OCC exit in such a tiny amount of roadway and is incredibly dangerous. I've seen more than my share of bumpers bumping and close calls over the years. The reverse is a little easier to navigate but there is still a strangle when it drops to two lanes next to the Moda and then an exit only lane to 84 appears shortly thereafter creating another stretch of dangerous vehicle crossings in a constrained amount of space before the lanes break off to the exit. Would think smoothing this out would greatly decrease the number of accidents.

WW, as always, has the story. TL;DR: No recent fatalities from vehicle-on-vehicle collisions (through 2017); lots of fender benders.

https://www.wweek.com/news/city/2017...ut-that-claim/

FWIW, ODOT could probably cap the freeway with the $450mil and include an auxilary lane on each side if they were willing to settle for three lanes with fairly typical shoulders. That would be about a 45'- 48' roadway width for each side, only 7' -10' wider than the current roadways. They'll get that width just by making the sloped embankments vertical, which they'll have to do anyway. Problem is ODOT really wants 55' roadways which can be restriped to four lanes in the future. That extra 10' on each side adds a lot of cost.

Credit to Joe Cortright (who exaggerates a little bit, as always): https://cityobservatory.org/rq_hidin...%20feet%20wide.

I agree with that assessment.

Stupid fender benders because of poor roadway design cause increased costs to insurance providers and ultimately their policy holders, aka us. The frequent bumping instead of fatalities is due to the traffic traveling slow in a very congested area. Ultimately it still leads to a ton of delay for those traveling the freeways. More congestion, more pollution, more time sitting in cars, trucks and delayed freight instead of being productive.

Wow that City Observatory link, such vitriol. Tell us how you really think....

...continues at the Oregonian.

Would also be great to see a night life area form next to the Moda Center from this development.

I would love to see the Rose Quarter/Albina District image become reality. It would be amazing seeing a residential skyline develop in that area and have the whole area feel like an urban extension of downtown.