The Portland Sentinel picks up the news that the builder of several row houses around town is planning to build a nine house subdivision at the vacant lot on NE 26th and Alberta. Via the Concordia Neighborhood Association:
Guy Bryant of GPB Construction and Development has informed us that he will be building nine row houses, some facing Alberta, the others, NE 26th, all with garages in back or off the alley.
The area is zoned for either commercial or residential construction, and this subdivision will be solely residential with no storefronts on the streets.
I asked Bryant for some drawings of the planned development, but he said it was too early to put any designs out publicly. He doesn’t plan to break ground this year on the project, but will present some designs to the neighborhood association at their next meeting (September 3rd, 7PM, at the Kennedy School) if you want to get a peak at what’s coming. Bryant’s other work around town looks like pretty straight-forward, contemporary homes. High-quality construction, but bland designs in my opinion:
- via Google Earth
- Bryant’s Hawthorne Row
- GPB Construction
- Piedmont Row in NW
Despite the economy, several new housing-construction projects are moving forward in underutilized lots along the formerly-blighted street now lauded for its plentiful felt-hat stores. Just ten blocks west, “Alberta Central” is taking over an abandoned church.
Alberta’s artists are going to have less vacant space to play with in coming years. But for now, the future home of the Alberta Row is home to a Last Thursday art installation:
Given the off chance that the developer might be reading this thread…
I’ve seen the Hawthorne Row houses since they were constructed, and although the design is overall just fine by me (except for the too-many driveways problem, which is an issue that all developments of this nature must confront), my eye is always distracted by the rain gutter installation… the downspouts are quite visible and stick out from the structure.
It’s not so bad in the Google Earth photo, but in reality the gutters just really seem like an afterthought.
I know, I know, most typical residential construction feature tacked-on gutters… I can’t put my finger on it, but there’s just something odd about the appearance of the gutters on this particular set of traditional rowhouses.
Am I nuts?
(Yes, I am, but I mean in regard to this specific issue. 🙂 )
The douche bags cometh.
constantly promoting your neighborhood as an “Arts District” is the quickest way to make sure it becomes too expensive for artists.
Alberta Central makes me ill– it’s a smug rich-people-only apartment building / shopping monstrosity like all the rest, but plopped down in a used-to-be-cool neighborhood. Gross. The authenticity-by-way-of-condo-ownership grab continues as planned, recession or not.
Every young native I know already thinks Alberta is a joke, and I can’t say my opinion differs much.
Alberta Central doesn’t include any housing as far as I know, but yes, it is a monstrosity. Alberta is no longer an authentic place. It has finally crossed over into self-conscious gentrification.
1 – 2 – 3 oh shit. Alberta St. is now The Pearl.
Ah, I’d only seen the sign / illustration at the construction site.
These projects look really hideous. This developer really, really needs to work with a legitimate architect to design some better units that aren’t trite looking an inappropriately scaled. I don’t mean to villify the developer, but he should understand that good design has an economic value. People would rather live in places that aren’t ugly, places that have lots of natural light and a contemporary look and feel.
Brian–you’re right, but you know what? These places will sell. That’s the problem. Shit gets built, and it gets sold. If people just stopped buying crap design, more developers would go to at least *some* effort to make their projects look good. So long as people will buy, why bother?
Sorry guys, but you can’t stop gentrification halfway through. Areas start bad, become safer, artists and other cheap-rent searchers move in, cafes come to serve them, restaurants follow, house prices go up, and you end up with condos. See: San Francisco, New York, etc etc. Some areas cope better than others (I hope Alberta ends up more like Hawthorne and less like Belmont), but the process is inevitable. Unless, of course, you can show me lots of examples of places that are still inhabited by the poor artists after twenty years…
Personally, I refuse to feel guilty about gentrified neighborhoods. They’re safer, have better facilities, have just as good a sense of community, etc (I don’t buy into the whole “poorer areas have good community feel” crap – unless your idea of community is the Gresham gangs…). And people who have been there since forever end up making a killing when their house price soars, so no need to feel sorry for them.
White liberal guilt only gets you so far before it runs into contradictions, condescension and hypocrisy.
Uh oh, Stu, you’re going to get excommunicated for that one. While I agree with most of what you say, there’s one problem: “the people who have been there since forever” oftentimes do not actually own their own homes–they rent. So what happens is that their landlord makes a killing selling the rental, but they get the boot, and now have to pay higher rent for something else that is often farther away. Those are the folks I feel sorry for. The 24 year olds who whine about “gentrification” simply because they hate the thought of working a 9 to 5 to pay higher rent? Not so much.