Pearl District News

[PDX City-State]

I think moving ahead with this project is a reflection on the strength of the Pearl District and the Central City. I"m glad at least someone has a positive view.

It very well may be that the condo market will be in full force in 2010, but it's also very ballsy to speculate such things with projects that cost 60 million dollars. Make no mistake that the risk to these projects are significant in the current market. That's why Joe Weston is shelving the Cosmopolitan and the Manhattan towers for now.

I think moving ahead with this project is a reflection on the strength of the Pearl District and the Central City. I"m glad at least someone has a positive view.

Building a 19-story building that includes uses the market doesn't currently support certainly indicates someone's positive view, but I don't agree that pure speculation is a reflection of strength in the housing market.

There are tons of great sites surrounding the central city for 2-4 story redevelopment that makes sense. I believe that most of this low density development doesn't make sense for the central city.

I think we'll see a lot of this type of development. The retail market is still pretty good. Robert Sacks and Allied Works are hopping 405 to occupy a three-story building in Goose Hollow, The Ace Hotel and the American Apparel Building (also owned by Sacks) are great examples of low-rise redevelopment. It looks like the bathhouse block will be a low-rise redevelopment. I think the market will support what Brad and the Naitos are doing in Old Town: a nice mix of Class-B office and retail. And there may well be some larger Class-A office towers in the CBD.


It's not as if developers just wing on this projects. They have to go through extensive feasibility studies and appraisals just to get a loan. They definitely know the market.

[zilfondel]

Originally Posted by pdx2m2

The city and neighborhood would be better if these timid developers did nothing and sat on the property until they had the backing to so something larger and more substantial...or until they sell the property.

I don't agree with PDC City-State that we have seen the end of large scale development for some years. Hoyt is moving ahead with Block 17 at 225' and Winkler/Naito are moving ahead with Waterfront Place at 250,000 sf of office and Cent. Mills will probaby move ahead. Hoyt still has 3 million sf of future development in their masterplan and I don't see them stopping until it's done.

Have you been to the Lloyd district recently?

Really, not developing at all leaves the area as a dump, with it being characterized by light industrial and parking lots. This is exactly how the Pearl District developed in the first place, after all - it wasn't like it all developed in one stroke.

Originally Posted by pdx2m2

The neighborhood wants spatial and architectural diversity and is working to save the small 'buildings of character' in the pearl. These new little things aren't going to fall into such a lovable category.

This statement seems to contradict your assertion that the entire city should be 200'+ high rise towers.

[Castillonis]

A developer was telling me to notice that grocers have special needs and are demanding. I believe that they have much much lower profit margins. He said that they are usually found in lower height buildings such as three floors and do not want columns as well as several other demands.

A current construction project on the east side at around say 37th and Belmont where they are adding another floor to a concrete structure was an asian market a few years ago.

You can get entire pig hearts, spleens, livers from Uwaj... You can learn how delicate the spleen is once you remove parietal and visceral ... It tears apart like aspec. You can't repair a liver either, but it is more durable than the Spleen. Sudden deacceleration causes the falciform ligament or round ligament to slice the liver (there are three teres/round ligaments in your body) OK enough rambling. I couldn't help it. I learned so much from the fresh organs. You can't learn that from a shriveled up cadaver

[Castillonis]

I found a good article on passive solar heating. It is a long article with diagrams illustrating concepts.
http://www.azsolarcenter.com/technology/pas-2.html

[tworivers]

Good architectural critique of the Casey and the Metropolitan over at PORT.

[awg]

Originally Posted by tworivers

Good architectural critique of the Casey and the Metropolitan over at PORT.

Isn't this is a goofy review for residential projects? The whole point of a residence is the inside. Shouldn't the reviewer have walked INTO both of these buildings???

[PDX City-State]

Originally Posted by awg

Isn't this is a goofy review for residential projects? The whole point of a residence is the inside. Shouldn't the reviewer have walked INTO both of these buildings???

First, this is a goofy review. The reviewer gives a graded review but fails to explain his criteria. And that he gave the Gregory a higher review than any of these destroys his credibility right off the bat.

Second, you're right. If he's giving a graded review, he should have checked out a unit. Still, evaluating the massing and exterior finishes based on how the building looks from the street is completely fair as this is how most will experience a building.

[zilfondel]

^ agreed. And besides, the 'grade' should be given last, not first. His justifications are pretty weak one-liners.

[tworivers]

Yeah, I should have taken a longer gander at the review. You guys are right. For one thing, I somehow missed the Gregory 'grade' entirely.

I did agree with his general perspective on the exteriors of those three new buildings, though. Particularly the Wyatt's D+.

[zilfondel]

^ however, I think the blog is cool. thanks for bringing it to our attention!

[WestCoast]

I drove over there today, the area has a weird feel. I think as the last few units are finished, it might be kind of nice, but there is just nothing around there.

Any word if the marina is going to happen?

[bvpcvm]

i've always thought that was a bizarre place for such a development. there IS awesome coffee (sidney's) across the railroad tracks, but that's it for things to do there. someday, of course, the rest of the pearl will reach up to riverscape but that probably won't be for another 5-10 years. in the meantime.........

[PDX City-State]

Originally Posted by bvpcvm

there IS awesome coffee (sidney's) across the railroad tracks, but that's it for things to do there.

There's also Carlye, which is one of the best restaurants in Portland.

I personally think the location is fine, but the design that's terrible. Tim Ralston and Company missed an incredible opportunity. He was a subdivision developer, and he's applied that building genre's motivating ethos (uniformity) to an urban development. Not only does every building other than the mid-rise look identical, they're not much to look at anyways. Think of what could have been.

[Castillonis]

I took the photos that comprise this panoramic image at about 1300 on Sunday 30Dec07. I applied the ptlens plugin/application to the individual images to correct for abberations such as "corrects lens pincushion/barrel distortion, vignetting, chromatic aberration, and perspective" written by a computer science professor who taught in Portland/Beaverton. Then I ruined some of those corrections by using autostitch to create a panoramic. I will be purchasing a digital SLR and stop using my compact camera which has a much smaller image sensor. I will also try and use a wide angle lens instead of stitching photos together and loosing detail and creating geometric abberations.



ptlens
http://www.epaperpress.com/ptlens/
autostitch
http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~mbrown/autostitch/autostitch.html

[Castillonis]

Everywhere I looked I saw FarWest Steel tags at construction projects in the Pearl.


FarWest Steel's carbon steel products
http://www.farweststeel.com/Farwest/ProdList.aspx

[Castillonis]

I took these images at about 1420 on Sunday 30Dec07.

[Castillonis]

I took these images at about 1330 on Sunday 30Dec07.

[edirp]

There are 46 available units currently listed on on the MLS.

[Leo]

Originally Posted by bvpcvm

i've always thought that was a bizarre place for such a development. there IS awesome coffee (sidney's) across the railroad tracks, but that's it for things to do there. someday, of course, the rest of the pearl will reach up to riverscape but that probably won't be for another 5-10 years. in the meantime.........

Ditto.

For that location, there ought to be a huge discount, and there just isn't. With their pricing, and with current inventory in much better locations, I think this development is going to have a hard time.

It's a pity, because this location has good potential for the future. But who wants potential when you can buy actual for the same price?

[Castillonis]

I took these photos at about 1330 on Sunday 30Dec07. I used the ptlens plugin/application to automatically correct geometric abberations. The plugin reads the EXIF information from your camera and makes adjustments to the photo for that particular camera and lens. If your camera/lens is not in the database the author offers to add it if you take specific photos that he needs to add it to the database. He taught computer science in Portland/Beaverton.

Cast in place towers with smaller precast concrete in the middle


precast concrete


Steel frame


Ramp