Could a repeat of last year’s snowpocalypse be right around the corner? The streets may be drivable, but that hasn’t stopped the cold from leaving a trail of destruction, this time right down the block from the Mercury offices! The O reported that an industrial building collapsed in Northeast Portland, so I walked over to […]
Neighborhoods
Posted inCity Hall
Portland Plan: Pins and Polite Public Process… and What Homeless People?
First of all, we need to establish a club called “Pounding Pints of IPA to Prepare for Public Portland Plan Presentations.” We will drink. Then we will attend public meetings. We will find the city’s Powerpoint presentations not only tolerable but highly amusing. It might have been the pint of something Belgian I had before […]
Posted inNeighborhoods
City Debates Gutting Vacant Washington High
Jeff Yarbrough For more than 30 years, inner Southeast Portland residents have agitated for a community center in their part of town. Ever since Portland Public Schools moved out of Washington High School on SE 15th and Stark six years ago, neighbors have eyed the plum piece of property and historic school that has sat […]
Posted inNeighborhoods
City Axes Kenton Trees, Plants More “Business-Friendly” Species
Sean Breslin Historic lumberjack, brand new stump. An upset reader named Nick called in yesterday from the streets of Kenton, where he watched city-contracted lumberjacks cut down trees near the neighborhood’s statue of Paul Bunyan. “They’re littering the streets with huge branches!” he cried. Turns out the city is axing 21 trees from the neighborhood […]
Posted inNeighborhoods
Old Town’s Soon-to-Be New Resident
Little by little, building by building, Old Town is catching up with the rest of downtown. Its newest addition? The Oregon College of Oriental Medicine (OCOM), slated to move into the old Globe Hotel building in fall of 2010. OCOM’s new headquarters in the Globe Hotel building (Ankrom Moisan Associated Architects) The building, also known […]
Posted inNeighborhoods
Big Transit, Big Building, Big $$$
In this week’s paper, I reported on a fight between neighbors, the city and the developer who’s building the four-story Albert Apartment building on the old N. Williams House of Sound site. Neighbors are upset about a variety of things with the project — some lament the gentrification of the area, others that the building […]
Posted inPortland
Pagodaless
No more Pagoda for you, Hollywood! The project to erase one of the neighborhood’s iconic buildings is well underway. Now you see it. Now you don’t! As reported previously, Key Bank purchased the historic unhistoric building after the restaurant closed in January. They plan to remove every trace of the original style and make it […]
Posted inNews
The Lents Uprising: Video
Shot last night: WHAT DO ANGRY NEIGHBORS LOOK LIKE? THEY LOOK LIKE THIS… And here’s a statement just issued by the mayor: First, I want to acknowledge all the hard work that community members, City staff, the citizens serving on the Lents Urban Renewal Advisory Committee, and our partner, Merritt Paulson, have invested into evaluating […]
Posted inNeighborhoods
Ouch.
A blow for Commissioner Randy Leonard and other backers of the Beavers ballpark in Lents: of the roughly 230 Portlanders who turned up to the big Lents urban renewal meeting tonight, 70 percent said they saw no benefits at all in constructing a stadium in Lents Park. The city employed some nifty electronic polling to […]
Posted inNeighborhoods
Live in Lents! Not a Vote, but a Big Debate.
The villain in the great Lents baseball debate is now a single word: “misinformation.” Since the ballpark plan is essentially a private-public business deal that’s being hammered out somewhat publicly — with the Urban Renewal Advisory Committee (URAC) deciding whether they should pony up money for the city to invest in a Lents’ Beavers ballpark […]
Posted inEvents
It’s Official: Lents Stadium Deal Unveils This Thursday
We reported it last week but a city press release this morning makes Thursday’s stadium deal debut official: And hot on its heels is an announcement from anti-stadium deal group Friends of Lents Park proclaiming a protest rally outside the Mount Scott Community Center at 5PM. Friends of Lents Park leader Nick Christensen says it’s […]
Posted inNeighborhoods
Fritz, Neighbors, Democrats Slam Stadium Deal
Forty Lents neighbors squeezed into the mirrored banquet hall at the New Copper Penny lounge last night, eager to discuss the controversial stadium deal with the Lents Neighborhood Association (LNA) Board. Unfortunately, it took 37 minutes for enough LNA board members to show up (six out of eleven) that the event could be considered an […]