Last month, Lauren Golden Jones tells neighbors at a Madison South Neighborhood Association meeting about Madison Marketplace, a proposed 12.5-acre shopping center development along 82nd Avenue across from Madison High School. STAFF/2016

Last month, Lauren Golden Jones tells neighbors at a Madison South Neighborhood Association meeting about Madison Marketplace, a proposed 12.5-acre shopping center development along 82nd Avenue across from Madison High School.
STAFF/2016

There may eventually be a shopping center across the street from James Madison High School on Northeast 82nd Avenue, and Capstone Partners may be its developer. Lauren Golden Jones, Capstone Partners development manager, shared the company’s concept at a meeting of the Madison South Neighborhood Association on Aug. 9.

Jones was talking about the 12.5-acre space that wraps around Great Floors between the Lumberyard Bike Park (which hosted the meeting) on Northeast Russell Street, the mini-mall on Northeast Siskiyou Street, and the Dharma Rain Zen Center to the east. It is, according to The Oregonian, “among the largest undeveloped tracts left in east Portland.” At present, there is a boarded-up building that looks like a former bar, a partially burned wooden wall, brown grass and scrubby underbrush on the site. A communications tower in one corner hosts a predatory bird and an old sign offers miniature golf.

In place of that, Jones sees Madison Marketplace: a large anchor store at the rear and two slightly smaller adjacent premises, along with two freestanding buildings with drive-through capabilities—and ample parking.

This vision is far from becoming reality, however. Investors and tenants have to be found, and the property has to be purchased. Judging by Capstone Partners’ track record, that may be the easy part. The company, which consists of four people in Portland and four in Seattle, developed the Grant Park Village apartments at Northeast 32nd Avenue and Weidler Street and Slabtown Marketplace on Northwest Raleigh Street, among other things, and has worked with a variety of institutional investors.

The site is owned by Portland businessman and property manager Mike Hashem, who has publicly expressed his desire to sell it in the past.

But this site, in Jones’ words, is “wicked.”

Stormwater will be a major challenge for the developer. The site and its surrounding territory, a total of 26 acres, was used as a gravel quarry from at least 1936 to 1972, when it was converted into a landfill, taking in two million square yards of building demolition debris, vegetation and—in violation of DEQ permit requirements—household garbage until 1982. Elevated levels of methane were found in soil near the site as early as 1979. Petroleum constituents and chlorinated solvents have been detected as well. Now a methane extraction system is in place, but a quandary remains. The DEQ prohibits stormwater infiltration on a landfill. The city, however, requires stormwater infiltration on-site. Therefore, the underground vaults used for infiltration can only be located on a section of land along the avenue in the corner closest to the high school, which prevents building there, since construction has to be anchored on 80-foot pilings (the depth of the landfill). The lack of streetside construction, in turn, reduces pedestrian friendliness.

Another issue is the large area devoted to parking. Jones explained that retailers see the location as suburban, which means that they expect 4.5 parking spaces for every 1,000 square feet of retail space. The complex will have more than 60,000 square feet of retail space. That means a lot of parking. It also means that a city conditional use permit will be needed for the project, which entails demonstrating that it will not have a negative impact on the neighborhood.

A member of the 82nd Avenue Coalition suggested that a bus turnout and an improved crosswalk would be desirable. Madison High School Principal Petra Callin seconded this idea.

Madison South Neighborhood Association chairman Dave Smith said that his organization “supports the project and encourages ideas … We would like to see this go through to fruition.” That much, at least, bodes well for Capstone Partners. In 2007, local residents successfully blocked a Canadian firm from creating a shopping center on the site, fearing that a Walmart would go in. Hashem told The Oregonian in 2009 that Lowe’s had a strong interest in opening a store there.