Lents Neighbors Take Grassroots Approach to Economic Development

When freelance graphic designer Adam Simmons bought a home in Lents town center with a store front attached, Lents Creative was born. But the process of starting the business involved a tangled mess of websites along with massive amount of information to sift through. Simmons realized there needed to be an easier way.

“There needed to be a centralized place for information for business owners or potential developers to have a one-stop shopping place where they can find out about benefits of setting up shop [in Lents town center], “ Simmons says.

The solution? Lents town center’s website. The website, which Simmons says is about 85 percent complete, has a business directory, property map, a toolkit for help with business assistance programs, and listings for available properties. Events, business news and information on historic Lents can also be accessed from this site.

The website helps accomplish the Lents Town Center Business District Strategy’s goal of encouraging commercial development. The ultimate goal is to retain, expand and attract businesses to the Lents town center.

Lents town center stretches from Johnson Creek to Lents Park and from Zenger Farm to 82nd Avenue and is divided by Interstate 205. The Portland Development Commission made the Lents town center an urban renewal area in 1998 and has invested $65.2 million over the last decade.

The area has become more vibrant and populated in that time, but it still needs improvement, as there are still many vacant lots. The town center has businesses such as Tidee Didee Diaper Service and Riley’s Tavern but lacks a grocery store. “The town center’s time is well overdue,” Simmons says.

The website has a rather large “wish list” of residents’ requests for more businesses and services. The list includes a natural foods grocery store, a bank or credit union, a brewpub and a bottle shop, among others.

The group who created the website, with the assistance of Lents Creative, goes by Lents Biz. It is also known as CAC, but the formal name is the Lents Town Center Business Development Strategy Citizens' Advisory Committee. It was formed by the Portland Development Commission in 2010.

Cora Potter, a resident of Lents for six years and former chair of the Urban Renewal Advisory Committee, helped build the Lentz Biz website. She says, “When the city of Portland was working on putting together the framework for the neighborhood economic development they were adopting, we were actually kind of the guinea pig test that PDC was using to see if they tried to get together more of grassroots citizen group to work on issues of neighborhood economic development.”

Bernie Kerosky, a project manager for PDC, says that technically Lents Biz is not a business association. “It is currently sponsored by PDC,” Kerosky says, “but the hope is [that,] in the future, it will become an independent, self-sustaining organization. It may or may not become a formal business association.”

Potter says, “We’re going to act like a small town, we’re going to market ourselves and we’re going to do something for the business community here.” With added help of the Lents town center website, of course.