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LEE PERLMAN
THE MID-COUNTY MEMO
The Portland Development Commission, aided by a team of consultants and a citizen advisory committee, is planning the future redevelopment of Central Gateway, otherwise known as Prunedale.
The I-205 freeway, Northeast Glisan and Southeast Stark streets, and 102nd Avenue bound the area called Prunedale — roughly. Most of it is zoned EXD, a designation allowing almost any use except heavy industry. Pockets have high-density commercial and residential development zones — RH, RX and CX. The land itself in the Prunedale area has single-family housing — much of it absentee-owned — low-intensity commercial and industrial uses, a massive junkyard, and vacant space. At one and the same time, it offers the greatest opportunities for major redevelopment in Gateway, and the greatest obstacles in doing so.
As the consultant team and city staff pointed out at a workshop last month, Gateway is designated a regional center, expected to absorb a large amount of the housing and job growth planned for the city in the decades to come. It boasts a central location, access to two freeways, two light rail lines and two light rail stations (with more to come), the Portland Adventist Medical Center and two shopping centers. It currently has 150 active businesses, of which 52 are restaurants of one sort or another.
Adventist’s presence gives the area a potential “niche” for medical offices, consultant Steve Ferrarini said, and for less-expensive class B office space. The area ranks third as a potential development site for such facilities, behind Clackamas Town Center and the developing Cascade Station, and ahead of Lents and Gresham. There is a market for owner-occupied housing, but only at prices of $250,000 or less, and for rental units, but with demand diminishing as income level rises.
“We’ve talked to property owners, and they feel that the prevailing rents aren’t high enough to justify the costs of development now,” consultant Sumner Sharpe said. “Some, like Gordon (Jones), are moving ahead.”
PDC’s Sara King said the area in general, and especially the central area, needs infrastructure — new portions of streets at the Northeast Davis and Flanders street and 100th and 101st avenue rights of way, upgrading of streets elsewhere, redesign of intersections at East Burnside Street at several locations to allow better traffic flow, sidewalks, paths and parks. Unfortunately so far, there is little of the tax increment funding for this purpose the urban renewal district was intended to generate. (The best alternative for now may be Local Improvement Districts, whereby local property owners agree to tax themselves to finance roads and other public improvements.) Finally, despite the advantages listed above, the central area has little currently on the ground to attract development and little sense of identity in a positive way. As Sharpe put it, “There’s no there there.”
Those at the workshop brought up another issue — property is divided into many small holdings. “I’m not sure if I’m the beneficiary of the zoning or cursed by it,” one man said. “Most of the parcels here are small. I have a couple of derelict houses. What can I do with them? Building a high rise (on one lot) doesn’t make sense. You’d need a lot of property to make it pencil out.”
PDC is looking at creating a “catalyst” project that, as Sharpe said, “Changes the public perception of the area, raises the bar, increases regional appeal, and creates a new sense of place.” Could the new Oregon Clinic corporate headquarters, now nearing completion at the Gateway Transit Center, fulfill the role?
Joe Rinella, a homeowner living on Northeast 103rd Avenue, renewed his long-standing complaint that high-density zoning in the central area negatively affected adjacent single-family homes. He quoted King, whom he described as “a nice person, and very direct,” as saying that if she were in Rinella’s situation she would move out.
Woodland Park Neighborhood Association Chair Alesia Reese took a more moderate tone, saying, “We want to keep the area looking like Gateway, not a Pearl District placed in Gateway. We want to keep the open feel Gateway has.”
The 50 people present proposed — among other things — more aggressive public relations to show off the area’s potential for good development.
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