[holladay]

Originally Posted by MightyAlweg

Sounds to me like you just described the Beaverton Round.

I totally get that a certain slice of 21st century Portlanders desperately want to be hip and anti-chain and anti-corporate. But when it comes to keeping a big city convention center and pro sports complex in financial good health, you are going to have to compromise just a bit.

While some may envision a LEEDS Platinum rated mixed-use, transit-oriented, work-live community of organic co-op vegan delicatessens feeding the incoming crowds for the Boat Show and the Blazers games, the reality is a tad different. The types and sheer numbers of customers that a big city convention center and a pro sports venue natually generates is going to need some large scale facilities to feed and entertain it. A Portland Live! development, probably not as big as the LA Live! version, would not only do wonders for that dead and sterile neighborhood, but also beef up business for the convention center and all the jobs and taxes the tourism/hospitality industry brings to a city like Portland.

But maybe they could also get a branch of Powell's in there, or a Stump Town Roasters or something, or an Oblation Papers or La Paloma outlet, just so it has a more "Portland" vibe to it?

Still, I'll buy the first round of Mai Tai's if Trader Vics returns to PDX there!

Aside from the slanted comments towards a significant portion of Portland's population, I can see the merits of your argument. However, to go the corporate route in 2009 would undo a lot of the solid gains this city has made in the last 20-25 years towards redefining its identity. I, for one, don't see the Lloyd District as a lost cause - I see its redevelopment as instrumental in increasing density on the Inner Eastside. But quality developments that mean something to the city versus placeless mega-developments are what we need more of in Portland.