Posted Dec 17, 2014, 3:40 AM
|
Registered User
|
|
Join Date: Apr 2004
Location: Portland
Posts: 2,791
|
|
I hope this succeeds. And I'd love to see those three lots at the end of the bridge removed.
But I just have some doubts that this is the right place. I'm going to say this again, even though I've been roundly criticized for it before: if we want a market to succeed, put it on the block next to the Galleria.
It comes down to this: aside from tourists, people will be buying food here on foot, or on their way to transport, after work, on their way home. Yes, the Morrison Bridge location is on the MAX line, but that area of town is just sketchy enough that if people have to go down there and THEN, for example, walk back up to the streetcar, I think they'll go there less often. Sure, summer will be one thing. And for people heading east on MAX it might work. But heading west? On a rainy December night? A lot of people will say "no thank you".
The Galleria site is on the Streetcar line, a block from the MAX, next to Target, and on the way towards Powell's, the Pearl, etc. The Morrison site is on the way to, well, Waterfront Park. You could say it's on the way to Old Town nightlife, I guess, but who buys broccoli and takes it with them to the club? Yes, obviously, the Morrison site, if it's a success from the start and business fills in around it, may stimulate the revival of a whole new part of downtown, but until it does, this market will be on its own.
|