Portland Bayside

[FrankLloydMike]

I've been in contact with the developer Jonathan Cox on several occasions and according to him, Maritime Landing is their "top priority." There is also an article I wrote coming out in Portland Magazine this week (maybe it's out today, too) which has a little quote from Federated in it about their project. The article is on making Portland more urban. Thanks for posting the above, Grittys.

Please post a link to this article if you find one--I'd love to read it.

 

[Patrick]

Please post a link to this article if you find one--I'd love to read it.

Some of the articles are available online, like this one http://www.portlandmonthly.com/portmag/2011/03/lost-horizon/

I was just interviewed for that one, not the author.

But others are not, like my article on skyscrapers in Portland (used loosedly, obviously).

I don;t know if this one is, but if it is I'll certainly post it. There are a lot of really cool renderings of before and afters of how to urbanize strip malls etc. in it.

 

[Corey]

Pearl Place II update:

I think this is the most accurate rendering of the final product, via the Avesta website:

I echo the sentiment that it would have been great to have more interaction with the street with. Although it currently faces a scrapyard on Lancaster Street, I am hopeful that this will be a more lively neighborhood eventually.

 

[Patrick]

Pearl Place II update:

I think this is the most accurate rendering of the final product, via the Avesta website:

I echo the sentiment that it would have been great to have more interaction with the street with. Although it currently faces a scrapyard on Lancaster Street, I am hopeful that this will be a more lively neighborhood eventually.

Thanks for the update, I saw this yesterday. I think the concern was drawn shades if the units were lower to the street. Easy fix: raise it a half level (a whole level is too high off the street and creates a brick wall to passersby). The centralized entrance is no good and goes to show that architects are not urban designers (although they can be), nor vice versa for that matter. Multidisciplinary design and project teams are essential. An FBC could solve this, though, regardless of who designs it.

 

[FrankLloydMike]

More interaction would be good for sure, but it looks better in this rendering than previously. I'm not sure if the design has changed, or just the perspective, but it looks less like it's turning its back to the street than before. A retail spot on that corner would be better, but that entrance is a big improvement (in design or perspective) over the stairs to the second-story entry that appear to still be in place. Something about the slope makes it look less offputing, too. It's a good looking building.

 

[Corey]

Pearl Place updates...

Instead of building a big new parking garage almost across the street from this for the whole Federated Companies project, I wonder if the owner of this garage has considered adding a few floors of parking to this structure? How it is currently set back from the road also leaves room for for mixed-use development right along the street. Maybe I will bring this up in the "Design a Better Portland" thread.

 

[Patrick]

I agree that would be a much more efficient use of land. If I am not mistaken, that garage is owned by John Cacoulidis, development proposer from such projects as the Spring Point and Press Herald skyscrapers. If I had to guess, I would say that private property rights would complicate that sort of arrangement (because it would require purchasing the garage from Cacoulidis or sharing the income with him), but also may have structural hurdles related to whether or not that garage can in fact be expanded upon. There even may be a marketing basis to having the garage in the same location as the units (drive in, enter secured unit), which applies to residences, offices, retail and hotel use. People like parking where they are going, although ironically they will walk for miles inside a shopping mall, which to my mind speaks volumes about the necessity of enhancing streetscapes for more than aesthetic reasons, to become attractive and inviting and well lit places.

A smart move I might consider is for Cacoulidis (or whoever owns this small garage) to consider leasing spaces in the new garage, and then building a more productive use on the land where the garage now sits (which will probably happen at some point, if this neighborhood takes off the way it has potential to).

 

[Matt68]

Thanks For Pearl Place II Pictures Corey

 

[Corey]

A beautiful day today.

 

[Corey]

 

[Corey]

Photographic update from today:

 

[PortlandArch]

Last night the council approved tax increment financing for credit enhancement for Opechee (Fore India Middle) and Village at Ocean Gate (Bay House), which means Bay House will be starting in 6 weeks or sooner, or else it looses its contract zone (which allows for taller height). So look for some BIG changes in that neighborhood soon. Also, in the fall, the Cit is commencing a new planning study for the India Street neighborhood (like the Eastern Waterfront plan, only up the hill because that plan really applies to the waterfront parcels and up to just south of the Bay House, but doesn't include anything north of that).

http://www.pressherald.com/news/council-oks-tax-breaks-for-2-projects_2012-08-07.html

 

[Matt68]

Thanks fo Pearl Place II Pics Corey. I really like this project. Keep em coming

 

[PortlandArch]

This is a terrible project. While it may add housing (great), and may look good from a dense-city perspective (good for aesthetics), it will add nothing to this neighborhood while taking away much. The people who live here will in all likelihood walk straight up to the COngress/Old Port areas, rather than into Bayside (for now, at least), and anyone walking bt will be met with a giant blank wall around nearly the entire perimeter. That's bad for urbanism, bad for community, bad for Bayside.

Does parking really need to be accommodated here? If I'm not mistaken, this is low income housing, and other projects like that have designed buildings on the peninsula with parking waivers and responsible first floors. What's the difference here? Also, other low income projects have designed first floor residential (out by the loop by Amtrak, next to Logan Place, there is one). This type of design should be banned. I know this sounds a little harsh, but I went by the building today and couldn't believe how dominating that brick wall at street level is. I'll reserve final thoughts until the project is complete but I don't like what I am seeing so far in this project/building.

 

[John_French]

Making good use of the wide-angle lens Corey.

 

[grittys457]

I'm sorry but I'm really sick of Avesta housing in this city. They seem like just a big scam to me. They're getting funding to building more expensive housing for lower income people. I know a guy working on phase two right now. Said phase one had gotten invested with bedbugs and they had to bring in all these special trucks the other day that pump the heat up to like 140 degress in each apartment to kill the bugs.

Please for the love of God no more low income housing in neighborhoods we're trying to rebuild and rebrand please. And yes that is harsh but that is the truth. They've already destroyed most of the housing in riverton and kennedy park, why build buildings this expensive to just have the cabinet doors ripped off to store live chickens or new stoves that will be used as wood stoves and destroyed.

 

[John_French]

I'm sorry but I'm really sick of Avesta housing in this city. They seem like just a big scam to me. They're getting funding to building more expensive housing for lower income people. I know a guy working on phase two right now. Said phase one had gotten invested with bedbugs and they had to bring in all these special trucks the other day that pump the heat up to like 140 degress in each apartment to kill the bugs.

Please for the love of God no more low income housing in neighborhoods we're trying to rebuild and rebrand please. And yes that is harsh but that is the truth. They've already destroyed most of the housing in riverton and kennedy park, why build buildings this expensive to just have the cabinet doors ripped off to store live chickens or new stoves that will be used as wood stoves and destroyed.

I agree with you wholeheartedly on that statement. Once the properties are "destroyed", the taxpayers will fund another rehab to make them pretty again.
Anyone who has driven down Franklin Street in the winter only has to look over at the Bayside Terrace complex, and see the windows wide open because the places are too hot. Money going out the window after it leaves the taxpayers pockets.

 

[Patrick]

I agree with you wholeheartedly on that statement. Once the properties are "destroyed", the taxpayers will fund another rehab to make them pretty again.
Anyone who has driven down Franklin Street in the winter only has to look over at the Bayside Terrace complex, and see the windows wide open because the places are too hot. Money going out the window after it leaves the taxpayers pockets.

Especially in this State, and in this economy, where people work hard and get little pecuniary gain from it, the tendency to complain about subsidized housing which is not being used in a way we would normally expect to see our money be spent is understandable. However, I think if you take a hard look at the numbers, housing of this sort saves money from a net perspective. The same is true for places like Logan Place or Florence House (especially for these places, actually). For instance, if a homeless alcoholic stumbles into the ER for intoxication, he or she cannot be turned away by a not for profit (tax exempt) hospital. Part of the ‘social good’ these places provide in exchange for tax exemption is this type of open door policy. Guess what costs a lot? Treating those people. Guess who pays for it? Everyone else. One study found it would actually be cheaper to pay for a chronic ER visiting homeless alcoholic patient to have a condominium than it would be to foot the bill in higher pass-thru rates to everyone else. But then the ethical dilemma kicks in. I’m not talking ethics, though, just numbers here. The same may be true for affordable (as opposed to fully subsidized) housing. There have always been people that are not making much of themselves and are not ultra productive members of society, and this changes overtime. In fact, the perceived ‘low class’ people of today might have been the most educated people around 1,000 years ago. They may still be more educated than societal leaders in some struggling countries. So, the status of these people is only relatively bad, not so in absolute terms. And, more importantly, they are the ones who accept the necessary service sector jobs that support the industries the more well-heeled people enjoy (restaurants come to mind). True, some don’t work at all, but all of the aforementioned jobs which are worked at draw from this class of people. Locate their housing outside of the city, and the places that depend on them either evaporate or the roads to get them here are used more (expensive again). So, while I see your perspective, the net gain here may still be more than one is led to believe by a simple examination of the ROI on the structure itself based on the use to which it is being put and the care with which it (and its fuel resources) are being handled. Also, visit any city which caters exclusively to the rich, and you’ll find (I assume, anyway) that it is much less exciting/interesting than those cities which welcome and house a variety of people. Portsmouth, NH and Burlington, VT are two good examples. They feel more like Freeport than Boston. Freeport is probably the best example. Is that a city? No, it’s a hollywood stage set. These people have their value to the city, direct or indirect. My beef is with the building design (terrible).

 

[Corey]

I agree with the concerns about Pearl Place. It is built like a bunker with all the brick at the ground level. I think the designers built it without thinking at all of the possible future neighborhood, and instead looked around for the current environment for inspiration (a hideous parking garage on one side a recently closed scrap metal yard on the other). And that former scrap yard is the planned site for a new parking garage, right? Or maybe it's the next lot over towards Marginal Way. The fact sheet for Pearl Place notes that the average commute for residents is under three miles, which does make an argument for having less parking and perhaps figuring out a way to directly tie in mass transit into the project or something.

Subsidized housing is a big topic and one that I'm not sure how to talk about in a paragraph or less. It seems like there should be a way of providing affordable housing instead of building huge housing projects (such as Pearl Place) that separate lower-income families from the rest of the city. Just like "mixed-use" makes sense from an urbanist perspective when determining uses for a building, "mixed-income" makes sense to me when it comes to housing and more successful neighborhoods. Segregating people geographically based on income seems to do more harm than good. And as the only "big city" around, it seems like providing housing to lower-income folk is a burden that most of the state pushes onto Portland's shoulders, similar to the related issue of homelessness. I'm not sure what the answer is.


Edit - 1,000th post!

 

[Corey]