UPDATED 11/16/2011
Four years ago, representatives from Con-way, Inc, the freight and logistics company with corporate offices in Portland's industrially historic Slabtown neighborhood, began meeting with local residents and representatives from the Northwest District Association (NWDA) to discuss a vision to revitalize Slabtown through urban design.
Although there is no set timeframe, NWDA President Ron Walters recently indicated that public meetings to openly discuss that plan could begin as early as this summer.
This comes on the heels of the NWDA's adoption of the Slabtown Urban Design Concept (UDC), a multi-year proposal adopted in late 2010, which Walters describes as community-driven—a vision of how Slabtown's residents would like to see their neighborhood developed.
Walters points out that representatives from Con-way, the area's largest landowner, have been supportive of the UDC.
In fact, Craig Boretz, Con-way's vice president of corporate development, has been involved with shaping the UDC since the beginning. And their stake in it is no small one. According to Boretz, Con-way owns approximately 20 acres in Slabtown, which he estimates as comprising less than half of the neighborhood. Of those 20 acres, he says, Con-way is considering developing 15 of them.
But Walters is quick to point out that the UDC is not a "prescriptive" measure but a large, conceptual one to be used as a tool to be used in the upcoming deliberations.
"It's not meant to be a plan," Walters says. "No [zoning] code is taken into account." Zoning, he says, will be overseen by the city if it chooses to amend the NWDA's Master Plan to include the UDC in the coming years.
Ultimately, the plan serves to provide assurance to Con-way and future developers so that "development can occur with maximum possible flexibility and minimum uncertainty, risk, and delays."
At 26 pages, the UDC includes text but is largely made up of graphical representations, drafted by University of Oregon students, to give residents a visual frame of reference.
Included in the UDC are proposals for sustainable, green eco-housing, green streets, parks, squares, plazas, a community center, mass transit, underground parking, a space for a farmers' market and even a local art museum and community theater. It ends by projecting an influx into the neighborhood of up to 11,000 additional residents living in 6,500 units, with the addition of 20,000 workers and 3,000 parking spaces.
There are also representations of residential units like apartments and condos. After all, Walters reasons, what developers would simply choose to develop available land for a public park?
But he points out that future Slabtown residents would be lured by such neighborhood features. "Parks and squares are attractive to [Con-way] as well."
In fact, because Slabtown's residents and its largest landowners are working in concert, it's possible to have a "win-win" situation by amending building height variances for housing developments by an extra floor or two in order to maintain density while freeing up developable space for parks and squares.
"What it allows us to do," Walters says, "is to start thinking about optimizing an entire area."
While neither Walters nor Boretz could pinpoint an exact date at which public meetings could begin, Walters says that "progress is being made and all the right people are at the table."
The next step, he says, is to get the city's assistance to guide the various neighborhood agencies and developers though the process of effectively and efficiently amending the master plan.
UPDATE 11/16/2011: "Con-way Inches Closer to Slabtown Redevelopment"
By Chad Walsh, NeighborhoodNotes.com
UPDATE 8/29/2011: "Con-way Presents Slabtown Proposal to City Officials"
By Chad Walsh, NeighborhoodNotes.com
