Street of dreams make history, turns to condos for '09 show instead of houses

[MarkDaMan]

Friday, March 20, 2009
Street of Dreams switches to condominiums
2009 showcase will take place in Pearl District
Portland Business Journal - by Wendy Culverwell Business Journal staff writer

The Home Builders Association of Metropolitan Portland will conduct its annual showcase of luxury homes in the Pearl District this year after losing the Lake Oswego site it intended to develop for the 2009 NW Natural Street of Dreams.

The association will announce today that this year’s Street of Dreams will take place in recently finished Pearl District condominiums instead of the usual lineup of custom-built homes packed with eye-popping amenities and price tags to match.

The 2009 edition will concentrate on recently completed condos.

It didn’t make sense to inject new construction into an overbuilt market, said Eric Stride, show operations manager for the Home Builders Association.

Stride declined to release more details until today.

The Street of Dreams is the oldest and largest of the events produced by the Home Builders Association and is credited with spawning the national mania for the concept. It has been held annually in Portland for 33 years.

Luxury home builders use it to demonstrate the latest in home design and construction technology. Thousands of visitors pay an admission fee to gawk at over-the-top bathrooms, doggy spas, theater-quality media rooms and bedrooms the size of gymnasiums.

But with seven-figure price tags, Street of Dreams homes have been slow to sell in recent years, cooling builder interest.

The 2008 show featured six homes, down from nine or more in previous years. Despite the economy, five of the six homes sold.

Portland joins countless other cities with scaled back home shows this year. The residential real estate crisis and related credit crisis have dried up interest in organizing and financing the complicated events.

“The big problem right now is that lenders are really in a state of crisis and aren’t lending for construction,” said Bryan Ashbaugh, CEO and co-owner of Street of Dreams Inc., a private Woodinville, Wash., firm that has organized 82 shows in 26 years since it formed in 1986.

Ashbaugh said the company’s best year was 2006, when it staged five major shows. As the real estate market dried up, so did demand for Street of Dreams events.

None are booked for 2009.

The company, though, has contracts for nearly a dozen shows in 2010 and beyond. Ashbaugh said developers are depending on an end to the recession soon.

“It is absolutely inevitable there will be a turnaround,” he said.

wculverwell@bizjournals.com | 503-219-3415
http://portland.bizjournals.com/port...ml?t=printable

[NewUrbanist]

Thank goodness. The Street of Dreams project was a joke and a complete slap in the face for Oregonians who pride themselves in living sustainably and developing community. Plus they were gaudy, tacky creations in suburbia. At least homes in Dunthorpe has classic styling and identifable architectural styles.

The Street of Dreams homes looked like they were put together in a mad architect's lab - add a dash of portico here, a porte-cochere there, some craftsman paneling over here, a truckload of unsustainable countertops, and a little Hollywood infinity pool and spa there. Maybe within the limits of a condo, builders will be able to showcase their ability to create dynamic spaces in a smaller footprint.

[smendesPDX]

omg get over it! The Street of Dreams a fun show that showcases a lot of local businesses and its a great way for people to get ideas for their own home. And not everyone is going to want to live in the city. SOME PEOPLE CANT AFFORD IT, and SOME PEOPLE HAVE KIDS AND WANT THEM TO HAVE A YARD TO PLAY IN AND GO TO A GREAT SCHOOL. Quit hating on the suburbs. Without them there would be no city. Not everyone wants to be trendy city posers who sip lattes and buy groceries at an inner city Safeway with bums.

[dkealoha]

Ok everyone needs to calm down...

I'm happy that the Street of Dreams is trying something different. smendesPDX, like you said "SOME PEOPLE CAN'T AFFORD" the city, but also, who the hell can afford some giant mcmansion in the suburbs? Either way, most of us will never be able to afford a street of dreams condo or house or anything, but it's fun to look at and "dream" about as the title implies.

[Okstate]

Originally Posted by smendesPDX

: not everyone is going to want to live in the city. SOME PEOPLE CANT AFFORD IT, and SOME PEOPLE HAVE KIDS AND WANT THEM TO HAVE A YARD TO PLAY IN AND GO TO A GREAT SCHOOL. Quit hating on the suburbs. Without them there would be no city. Not everyone wants to be trendy city posers who sip lattes and buy groceries at an inner city Safeway with bums.

-by "the city" do you mean Portland city limits or Portland downtown? I understand that not everyone wants to live downtown...i don't understand the other though (if that's what you meant).

-Can't afford it? Maybe instead of a 3,000 sq ft. home they could only "afford" a 1,200 sq ft. home? Really unless you have more than 2 kids I don't see this affecting quality of life by a great deal. Of course that's subjective.

-When did having a city park nearby not fulfill the same thing as a back yard? I grew up with a huge backyard (as did everyone in my neighborhood) & kids got bored of their yards after utilizing them for a very little span of their life...unless they had a pool or some huge mega thousand dollar playground equipment (which still pales in comparison to city playground equipment).

-Portland Monthly did a study on all the schools in the metro region & rated Chapman/Lincoln as some of the most acceptable of all school districts based on grades. I don't know how much more "downtown" you can get than that.

-Cities did exist before suburbs

-Don't the suburban types sip lattes & act like their britches are a little bigger than reality as well?

-The Pearl Safeway (my grocery store where my family of 3 shops) has less "bums" than any Safeway i've ever seen in the burbs.

[dkealoha]

Originally Posted by Okstate

-Don't the suburban types sip lattes & act like their britches are a little bigger than reality as well?

This is why I left the Pearl... I guarantee you most of the snobs filling restaurants and bars in the Pearl do NOT live there.

[Okstate]

^ I don't know if i've already said this to you but I was looking into the Kearney Plaza Apts. & asked the manager what the noise on weekends was like b/c I had a contact that said it was an issue. She went on to say she'd never heard one peep of noise in her apt. in her life. Sounds like they will say anything right now to fill those units. As for the people not living there (Pearl), I think the same could easily be said for all of NW Portland. The only authentic street IMO is NW Thurman west of 23rd (which has a Kenny & Zukes opening this month by the way).

End rant:
I wonder which condos they will be touring?

[smendesPDX]

I had too much coffee on that previous post...appologies if I offended anyone. I just feel for the local vendors who participate in the Street of Dreams and look forward to a happier housing market.

[Okstate]

^ I think the people that were saying "yea, it won't be in the burbs this year" weren't really calling out the suburbs or the innovative local vendors as much as they were glad the specific type of suburban homes that were normally chosen. What I think you were trying to convey is something many family types (myself included) feel at times about downtown. I personally would love for Portland to step it up a notch with Transit oriented development on a much larger level than your typical Orenco. I mean they have just a small handful of restaurants/services at their disposal. If there were more options I would be very inclined to move to such a place. It's all about the chicken or the egg model, which comes first.