Neighborhood Notes

Long before the Pearl District became the home of high-rise condos, boutique art galleries and multi-hyphenate, fusion cuisine, it was a nondescript industrial area. For the new 62,000-square-foot Overton office-retail, mixed-use complex, developers say they’ll keep that “neo-industrial” look.

“It’s a real edgy, semi-industrial office plaza,” said Maria Duncan, a broker on the project for Melvin Mark Brokerage, adding the building is meant to retain the historical character of the area.

By Design Commission decree, the four-story complex at Northwest 14th Avenue and Overton Street will keep its industrial-looking resolve. In a report to the Design Commission filed over the summer, the city’s Bureau of Development Services recommended the project “have a more industrial feel.” The report stressed that the building cannot feel “residential.”

Read more at Daily Journal of Commerce