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  #21  
Old Posted Jun 18, 2008, 4:46 PM
IHEARTPDX IHEARTPDX is offline
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Originally Posted by downtownpdx View Post
Renovated transit mall - new light rail line, new artwork, brick pavers, new transit shelters, better lighting, etc.; luxury hotel opening across the street from Rite Aid; Marriot Courtyard opening 3 blocks away on 6th; three major storefront facelifts on 5th/6th within 2 blocks, including possible renovation of the Rite Aid; new hotel starting construction soon at Alder & Park. This is activity just within 3 blocks of Rite Aid, so new towers or not, I think this area will be just fine.
These changes will definitely make a difference in atmosphere, but any lasting transformation could only occur if there is an investment in the area by residents who live in the area. Until we get a few residential towers in and around "Fright aid" and pioneer square, the area will (IMHO) continue to be a place where people come to work, stay at a hotel, shop and then leave. It's the "leaving" part that needs to be remedied.
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  #22  
Old Posted Jun 18, 2008, 5:00 PM
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alexjon alexjon is offline
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I love Fright-Aid

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  #23  
Old Posted Jun 19, 2008, 1:02 AM
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Originally Posted by IHEARTPDX View Post
These changes will definitely make a difference in atmosphere, but any lasting transformation could only occur if there is an investment in the area by residents who live in the area. Until we get a few residential towers in and around "Fright aid" and pioneer square, the area will (IMHO) continue to be a place where people come to work, stay at a hotel, shop and then leave. It's the "leaving" part that needs to be remedied.
I totally agree, although the additional foot traffic can't hurt, with more hotel guests walking around at night for dinner, shopping, etc. I think if we want to see residential in this part of town, (and we are, actually, pretty nearby with Park Avenue West and the ZGF tower), the city has to make public investments to make the area more attractive in the first place.

Prettier streets don't solve the problem of homelessness, of course, but the combined public/private redevelopment occurring will get the ball rolling for revitalization. I saw a recent letter to the editor in The Oregonian by a guy from San Francisco, remarking how both cities have highly visible homeless populations, but it feels more noticeable here because the streets aren't as busy. The city has to continue making downtown a vital place with 24/7 street activity, and I think it's making good progress with the new transit mall and the accompanying storefront renovations, landscaping, etc. Sometimes the private investment won't happen w/o public projects laying the groundwork.
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  #24  
Old Posted Dec 7, 2009, 4:09 AM
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tworivers tworivers is offline
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*bump*

Is anyone here capable of modeling what downtown might look today like if the SOWA towers had been magically planted on some of our surface parking lots instead of where they are now?

I've been wondering more and more about this lately... about whether or not building residential towers down there (condos in particular being a risky-ish proposition in and of themselves) was a mistake, and how big a mistake it might turn out to be depending on our obviously uncertain future. What if the city had negotiated some sort of similarly-complex deal with the Goodmans to incent them to build residential towers on some of their land downtown?

Here's my thinking:

1. If the towers were downtown, they might have relieved some of the recession's damage on DT retailers. The closer large concentrations of people live to retail and cultural institutions, the greater the possible synergy.

2. The infrastructure costs would have been minimal, seeing as the roads, sidewalks, parks, sewers are already in place.

3. Overbuilding so much residential space in SOWA has, presumably, reduced development pressure downtown, possibly for years. Exactly what you wouldn't want to do if you wanted to increase the pressure to develop all of DT's lifeless vacant/parking lots, not to even mention the garages.

4. The condos/apts themselves, being right downtown, might have lost less of their value in the recession simply due to their proximity, vs. the liability of their current location and lack of services and access.

5. Everyone, including me, complains that Portland lacks the 24-7 buzz that "bigger" cities have. To my mind, if we had used the great 2000-2008 building boom to focus (via creative private-public partnership, just like SOWA) residential tower-building in the central city, we'd be buzzier downtown to a tangible degree. I would add that if the Fire Station 1 deal had gone through and if Randy Leonard hadn't killed the Oak Tower, those projects also would have added more people-commerce-culture energy and bustle downtown...

6. Lastly, just from an aesthetic and urban-fabric perspective, it strikes me as odd that a city with so many surface lots in its central core, as well as very low residential density (the thing that makes cities like SF seem so vibrant) and such high aspirations, would expend so much energy to build the density where we did. Our urban core should have, and easily could have, absorbed, and been made richer, by all that development south of the Ross Island Bridge.

Just some questions I've been throwing around in my head. But I'd love to see a rendering of what DT PDX would have looked like with those nice contemporary residential towers sprinkled around...
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  #25  
Old Posted Dec 7, 2009, 6:57 AM
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Okstate Okstate is offline
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^Most of the residents in SoWa moved there b/c it was NOT in downtown. The downtown residential market IMO was/is not affected much by SoWa as they are two completely different types of lifestyle. This district may not have the buzz we'd wished for but when it comes to adding people to the downtown periphery I am all for it. I agree with some other forumers on here that Portland had too much Vancouver envy when forming their vision of SoWa. More than likely this type of development in Portland will slow to a crawl for decades to come. I personally think Portland is most comfortable with density in the form of the Northwest district. Vacancies are always relatively low there.

Having said all that...I too would love to see a photoshopped "SoWa in Downtown" picture!

Last edited by Okstate; Dec 7, 2009 at 7:18 AM.
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  #26  
Old Posted Dec 8, 2009, 10:25 PM
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MR. Cosmopolitan MR. Cosmopolitan is offline
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Large condominiums in Downtown would be excellent. But I don't think that there are enough residents in the PDX that are willing to live in this kind of environment presently.

I think that it would be a good idea to encourage the more successful medium density development (eg. Mississippi) in large magnitudes around the downtown as well; this would take more people out of the suburbs and bring more life to the downtown streets.

Maybe doing this would increase the interest of more people to live on the downtown itself.
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