This might be the last year for Lloyd Center. There’s a plan for what’s next, but a community that’s grown in the mall in recent years isn’t happy with it or the process of deciding Lloyd Center’s future.
Urban Renaissance, the real estate development group that partly owns the mall, has a vision for what comes after demolition. The group’s Lloyd Center Central City Master Plan wipes the venerable mall from the map in favor of development that will be familiar to most Portlanders: an intersecting street grid with green space and mixed-used architecture.
One of the plan’s central points is that Lloyd Center is “inward facing” and “auto-oriented.” The current structure interrupts the street grid and continuity of the neighborhood, and shows the outside world massive concrete walls instead of human-scaled shops and apartments. Future development would potentially change that, replacing the Lloyd Center “superblock” with a more conventional grid.
However, many of the people and businesses who have made Lloyd Center their workplace and/or third place are not happy with the plan.
