Build Out

DJC File this development news under “LOLOMG!” The Church of Scientology payed $6.4 million to buy the Sherlock Building downtown, with plans to make the historic building their new Portland headquarters. As Aaron Spencer at the DJC reports, that’s hilarious. Right across the street from the church whose founder declared homosexuality to be a “sexual […]

This isn’t 100 percent completely confirmed, but reliable sources have told me that the Portland Storage sign that rises before commuters every time they cross the Morrison Bridge has been sold to Clear Channel. According to two people who rent space in the building, the sign will be painted over and Clear Channel will use […]

David Reamer A deadline has been announced. Construction on an affordable housing complex in South Waterfront will begin in November 2010, after 10 years of urban renewal money building the district, affordable housing projects falling through and promises of a mixed-income, diverse neighborhood seeming more and more like fantasy. As I wrote about last month […]

Mark Searcy The meticulously timelined process for redeveloping Memorial Coliseum is on infinite hold, according to the Portland Development Commission. Mayor Sam Adams directed the three finalists proposing plans for how to repurpose the “Glass Palace” to do probably the last thing the three competitors wanted to do: work together. The new TrailBlazers–Doug Obletz–Veterans Memorial […]

As the date nears to pick one of the three final groups vying to redevelop Memorial Coliseum, debate is heating up. Five members of the Rose Quarter citizen advisory committee have split with the rest of the 31-member committee, saying the process to choose the future of Memorial Coliseum is “seriously flawed.” The small group […]

Progressive action alert group Onward Oregon sent out an email blast this weekend encouraging its thousands of members to hit city council with letters against the Trail Blazers’ Jumptown plans for the Rose Quarter and Memorial Coliseum. Mark Searcy City Council will debate the Memorial Coliseum’s Request for Proposals this Wednesday. There are three ideas […]

Block 33, foreground, is a parking lot instead of affordable housing. A city-funded development at the South Waterfront’s Block 33 was supposed to create 400 affordable housing units. Since the plan fell through last month, Block 33 is now a muddy gravel parking lot and South Waterfront still has exactly zero units of affordable housing. […]

South Waterfront has zero units of affordable housing in part because the Portland Development Commission prioritized first investing in big projects that were supposed to create jobs and tax revenue in the district, like the John Ross condo tower. DAVE BOW Now that investment is going belly-up. The Portland Business Journal <a href="http://portland.bizjournals.com/portland/stories/2010/03/15/story1.html”>reports that unsold […]

One of the top three applicants for the redevelopment of Memorial Coliseum has asked the city to put the brakes on the process until it figures out whether the Trail Blazers’ special Memorial Coliseum contract makes other reuse pitches impossible. Mark Searcy Seems like a pretty basic thing to resolve, right? Doug Obletz’s Memorial Athletic […]

Soon. Soon Metro’s esteemed seven-person Council will vote on the urban-rural reserves plan which has been two years in the making. Soon the arduous, long-debated plan for the future of Portland’s development will come to a merciful end. “This is the 169th opportunity to testify,” noted President David Bragdon to the crowd at today’s vote. […]