Daily Journal of Commerce Photo
Next Pearl park’s got potential
Daily Journal of Commerce
by Alison Ryan
03/26/2007
The grass is green. Other than that, the future site of the third Pearl District park doesn't have an awful lot going for it right now. Cement trucks and heavy machinery sidle daily through the Northwest 11th Avenue site, which acts now as a staging area for the Encore condominium project. Across Northwest Naito Parkway, the faded hulk of the former Centennial Mills looms.
But soon enough, the site's grass will be even greener.
The city of Portland has pushed the process for The Fields, as the to-be-designed park is called, to the starting line by issuing a request for proposals for design and construction services. Potential respondents got an early glimpse of the site, and the project in context, during a pre-submittal meeting last Friday. And the city's hopes for what could be, said George Lozovoy, Parks and Recreation project manager, are high.
"Parks has a high level of expectation," Lozovoy said, "for high quality, high-level design."
The vision of the future park, captured in a 2002 framework study by Peter Walker and Partners Landscape Architecture, has its gaze trained on pure recreation. The Walker-designed Jamison Square's shallow waters and smooth bocce-perfect spaces are the neighborhood's community gathering space. The urban wetland and grass shelves of Tanner Springs, designed by Dreiseitl/Waterscapes and Greenworks P.C., offer room for contemplation. But The Fields, as the community's third and biggest park, will be the Pearl's place for working up a sweat: ball-tossing, tag-playing and fetch-making.
And the Portland Development Commission anticipates that eventually there will be children around to make the most of the three-acre site. Affordable, family-size rental housing is planned for Station Place Lot 5, said Steven Shain, a PDC development manager, and a request for proposals for the development is anticipated to go out in April.
"There will be a host of children through here," he said.
In fact, nearly everything that the potential team members saw on Friday will soon change. The Encore is going up, and the steps of its ground-level townhouse units are designed to cascade down into the park; the building's main entry will also face the park. In fact, Leslie Cliffe of BOORA Architects told the potential responders, the park is at the forefront of design.
"(The Encore) is really designed to engage the park directly, and to be an element within the park," she said.
Centennial Mills, too, will emerge as something different. The PDC plans to issue a nationwide request for qualifications this week, Shain said, for creative redevelopment of the site. Though a framework for the site lists possible ideas, such as a museum or a "working" waterfront of river-related industry and activity, part of the process will be bringing a variety of ideas to the table. The RFQ, Shain said, will likely lead to seven teams being selected for an initial interview, which will lead to the selection of three finalists.
Industry interest in the $3 million Fields project is big. Last Friday's non-mandatory meeting drew a crowd of about 30. As of Friday, 134 people had downloaded the RFP from the city's website.
Public interest in planning the park is expected to be big, too. A citizen advisory committee is being formed. The RFP puts "meaningful community involvement in the design process" as a key objective. And the community activity that surrounded the design of Tanner Springs, Lozovoy said, is a good model.
"Greenworks and Dreiseitl set the bar really high, as far as public participation goes," he said.
Proposals are due April 12, with a shortlist expected by April 17. The city hopes a yet-to-be picked selection committee will recommend a finalist by the end of April. And construction is anticipated to begin in May 2008, with estimated completion by November 2008.
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