Daily Journal of Commerce Photo
Visions of a new Old Town
Daily Journal of Commerce
by Kennedy Smith
03/23/2007
Under an awning outside the Merchant Hotel on Northwest Second Avenue and Northwest Davis Street, five of the city's most recognizable businesspeople huddle as a massive hailstorm passes through the city.
Anne Naito-Campbell of developer Bill Naito Co., Brad Malsin and Pete Eggspuehler of Beam Development, Michael Gaeta of the Oregon College of Oriental Medicine, and John Hamilton of architecture firm Ankrom Moisan have gathered in front of the Merchant Hotel in the heart of Old Town/Chinatown for a walking tour halted by the weather.
They all have a vested interest in the area. Naito-Campbell's family heritage is in this part of town, she says. And Naito-Campbell and Malsin are teamed to start master planning a nine-block revitalization of one of Portland's most lifeless districts. Gaeta has agreed to be an anchor tenant, taking about 30,000 square feet in what would be a newly constructed space, and Ankrom Moisan is eyeing the neighborhood to relocate its 280 employees.
Some Portlanders may think of Old Town/Chinatown as a haven for the homeless, an area that is less-than-hospitable, noisy with MAX cars, more desolate and dirtier than the rest of downtown Portland. But the group waiting out the storm on a Tuesday afternoon anticipates breathing new life into the neighborhood in the next few years.
DJC: A lot of people see this area as blighted. Would you call it blighted right now?
Anne Naito-Campbell: I would say it's an opportune area. I wouldn't say it's blighted. It's a great opportunity for growth. This is the last area really in downtown that is aching for development.
DJC: Have there been concerns that redevelopment would take away from the culture that is here now?
Naito-Campbell: Well, the fear of any renovation project is that tenants' rents will go up and they will be displaced. But it's important to keep what is here and to embellish it.
This, the Estate Hotel (at 225 N.W. Couch), is one of the buildings that's on our radar. It currently houses Central City Concern. When the renovated Estate Hotel next door opens up in November, tenants will relocate and it will then make this building one of the key sites, hopefully, of our development plan. It is also the gateway building. This is the entry building, so it could be something wonderful. Then, if the Burnside/Couch couplet happens, this is where the turn will be, so it will be the first thing that people see.
DJC: Central City Concern has been working on this area since the 1970s; yet it seems like one of the most difficult places to revitalize. Why do you think that is?
Naito-Campbell: I think everything in life has a timeline, and this is now our time.
DJC: I've also heard people say when new development is announced, "This won't be another Pearl District." People love the Pearl District but they're afraid of another one being built. Why is that?
Brad Malsin: I think a lot of it is the homogenization of places like the Pearl or South Waterfront, where you get a significant amount of market-rate housing that eliminates a lot of people from being part of the neighborhood. This district has the greatest opportunity to engage the history of the city and at the same time recreate itself in a more functional way.
DJC: Do you see yourselves as catalysts for organic change, or do you want a stake in the look, feel and growth of the area?
Malsin: We want to see a controlled, organic redevelopment, a blend where we're pushing things forward. We have a real sense of the historic inventory of buildings. At the same time we want to add appropriate new construction that will densify and activate the streets and bring more bodies here. What's here is fine. I'm a New Yorker, so this is normal for me. People are afraid of the urban setting, so to speak. But this is the urban setting.
DJC: Do you think Portlanders can warm up to that?
Malsin: There are a lot of people coming here from a lot of places. But people who have been here for a long time will engage it if other people engage it. Saturday Market is successful. The University of Oregon going into the White Stag is in the works. The momentum that has already started, we're going to take that and drive it forward but in a very well-planned, conscientious way to make sure that we as a team approach the community to preserve what's here from the surface side, from the street side, from a historic side, but also to add a lot of activity. We want a 24-7 type of environment here.
DJC: Do you fear that it could fail? I mean, you think of Portland Development Commission, which wanted to revitalize this area, and its efforts didn't work out exactly as planned, to the point where they had to move into the building that they rehabbed (at 222 N.W. Fifth Avenue).
Malsin: I'm not fully sure what the model is that PDC used, but I have my own experience both in downtown and the Central Eastside. The Naitos have their experience, and we're bringing anchor tenants with us, so we're hedging our bets here. We're adding to what's already started. With our anchor tenants and the kind of following that the Naitos and Beam have, we won't have that kind of issue.
DJC: (To Michael Gaeta) What appealed to you when you heard Naito and Beam were teaming up? What made you decide that you wanted to be an anchor tenant here?
Gaeta: To bring the College of Oriental Medicine here to Old Town/Chinatown was a natural fit for us. To be part of the team that's going to help revitalize and reinvigorate this area was very exciting to us.
DJC: Is there a fear on your part that the culture of this area will be depleted with new construction?
Gaeta: I would actually say the opposite. For instance, half our faculty is from China. I would see this as adding to that culture.
DJC: Are there fears that faculty and students will consider this a dangerous part of town?
Gaeta: We've been reassured that any of those issues will be addressed. To be quite frank, many of our students are involved in over 7,000 patient visits a year working with a number of folks from the homeless community and the drug rehab community. So we see that as an opportunity to provide services in this area that aren't being addressed right now.
Malsin: We don't envision this district as for everyone. If somebody wants the ivory tower sort of thing, they're going to go to South Waterfront or the Pearl maybe. But somebody who really wants to engage the community and have that urban experience, that gritty experience, that real-life experience that you get in New York, San Francisco and Chicago, they'll come here.
DJC: (To Jeff Hamilton) You're looking to move to this area. Why?
Hamilton: We've been on Southwest Macadam for about 15 or 16 years, and we're in four buildings now. We've grown from 20 people to 280 now, so we've been looking for a couple of years to move. It takes a while to find the right solution. This opportunity came up. It's a historic center; it's got a lot of diversity. Everybody in our office loves the idea of moving here.
DJC: Are there any negative concerns from employees?
Hamilton: Not so far. Of course, not everybody knows about it yet. We're studying a couple of other opportunities, but this one is in the lead. We're hoping to make our minds up by the middle of April.
DJC: Why do you feel it's been one of the last places to be revitalized?
Hamilton: It's a hard thing to talk about, but the lack of social services, for sure. The parking lots are empty. There's been more development in other neighborhoods that have had city support. So now, if we can just get some momentum, this neighborhood can take off. But it's going to take some tenants coming in.
DJC: What would come in the way of this not happening?
Naito-Campbell: No, we're not going to go there. It's negative.
Malsin: To be perfectly honest, we're not going to let anything stand in our way. Anne is alluding to the fact that we are not going to be deterred from getting this done.
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