Freeway Expansion Plan Drafted – Eliot in Crosshairs?

Posted on by Mike Warwick

This column has described the NE Quadrant Planning process over the past 20 months of Stakeholder Advisory Committee (SAC) meetings.  That portion of the Central City Plan is nearing its end with the SAC’s adoption of the Facility Plan.  The process has been driven by the desire of ODOT to expand I-5 between I-405 and I-84 and PDOT’s hope of leveraging federal freeway dollars for surface street improvements.  Because the City’s hope depends on federal money, this hope has always been a house of cards and remains so.

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Land Use 101

Posted on by Mike Warwick

The NE Quadrant planning process is part of the Central City Plan, which is part of the longer term Comprehensive Plan.  Each of these plans are required by State law and need to be updated every 20 to 25 years.  Now that the transportation component of the Quadrant plan is ending, the land use component will wrap up over the summer.  This will only cover Eliot land use issues in Lower Albina and along Broadway.  The rest of Eliot (and the City) will be covered in the Comp Plan, due in two years.

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NE Quadrant Update

Posted on by Mike Warwick

Lori Simpson and I have represented Eliot in a joint State/City effort to plan the NE quadrant of the as part of the larger Central City Plan.  The Central City includes all of downtown as well as the Southeast Industrial area and our quadrant that is the area from the river east to 15th, south of Broadway to I-84, including Lower Albina and part of Eliot west of Williams south of Russell.  The process is near its end after 15 months of meetings.  This link provides access to the formal proceedings, which are well worth reviewing: http://www.portlandonline.com/bps/index.cfm?c=53257.

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Box Lift Building Opens with New and Old Businesses

Posted on by Angela Kremer
Boxlift Building

If you’ve walked or driven down MLK towards Broadway at night you may have noticed the illuminating lights of the rehabbed green building known as the Boxlift Building.  The olive green building recently was completely renovated through a financial and technical assistance from the Portland Development Commission.  The Boxlift, located two blocks north of the future Streetcar and a block from Tiny’s at Tillamook, signals a key piece in the walkable, mainstreet feeling on this section of Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.  The remaining 7000 (+/-) square feet of space to be leased in the building, offers a question for Eliot: does Martin Luther King start to act as meeting places that link Eliot residents to Irvington and Boise?  Can residents finally enjoy destinations in Eliot by safely crossing through busy, car-dominated streets?

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NE Quadrant Planning Update

Posted on by Mike Warwick

The NE Quadrant Plan has two primary purposes; to evaluate options to enhance I-5 performance (meaning expand) between I-84 and I-405, and to update the Central City Plan (including revising zoning as necessary). This is a lot of work for both City and State staff and for the Citizen Advisors (CAC) from each of the neighborhood association and other stakeholders. As a result, the process has frequent meetings of separate “transportation” and “land use” subcommittees of the CAC that discuss options in-between roughly monthly CAC meetings and quarterly public Open Houses.

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Land Use News For Winter 2012

Posted on by Mike Warwick

New Construction Means New Residents

Proposed Development for the corner of Rodney (top view) and Graham (Bottom View)

Two new residential in-fill developments are moving forward in Eliot.  The first one is rising on the site of the former Morning Star Baptist Church.  While it was sad to see the church leave the neighborhood, the vacant lot wasn’t a welcome replacement.  Now several duplex-style townhomes are being built on the site.  These will soon be joined by five single homes on the parking lot of the former Cox and Cox funeral home (Graham and Rodney).  Despite the sour real estate market, Eliot remains an attractive location and the builders of both projects claim they have had no problem selling these types of homes elsewhere.

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Central City Plan—NE Quadrant

Posted on by Mike Warwick
Map of Central City Plan NE Quadrant

The recession has slowed development activities in Eliot so the major land use action involves City plans for the NE Quadrant as part of the Central City Plan update.  The Central City Plan covers the downtown area east of the West Hills as well as our area of NE (Lower Albina, Lloyd District, Rose Quarter, and points in-between).   The NE Quadrant plan is the first to be developed of the four quadrants in the Central City.  The plan is a partnership between the City and the State because the Department of Transportation wants to improve freeway capacity on I-5 between I-84 and I-405 and needs to replace ramps and overpasses to do so.  That will require changes to surface streets so it makes sense to plan for that within the Central City Plan update.  The proposed freeway changes are expected to be “temporary,” which means sufficient for the next 20 to 30 years only.  The freeway element has dictated that the Plan process proceed on two tracks, one for freeway improvements and one for land use.

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Editorial – MLK Gateway Project Status

Posted on by Clint Lundmark

The other day while walking to work I passed by the triangle where MLK and Grand come together at Hancock.  I noticed the sign announcing construction for the new gateway project to begin Spring 2011.  Then I recalled all the hubabalu about the project last May.  I was angry that our neighborhood lost out on a positive change due to the whining of a few.

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Children’s Hospital on its way to February 2012 opening

Posted on by Eliot Neighborhood

By Maegan Vidal

Construction on The Children's Hospital first floor main lobby

Only 8 months away from opening its doors in February 2012, the new home for The Children’s Hospital at Legacy Emanuel is 70 percent complete. The hospital will better care for the community by dramatically increasing its capacity to serve kids and families. The new home is nearly four times the size of the current hospital, with nine-stories, 334,000 square-feet and 165 beds. Physicians, nurses and staff will be able to provide holistic care in a world-class family-centered healing environment for the growing number of children in our community with medical needs.

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From Vacant to Vibrant

Posted on by Kirsten Jenkins
The stage at Boise Eliot Village Square

If you have driven by the SE corner of Fremont and Williams lately, you can see that something very colorful and exciting is happening there.

It is the Boise Eliot Village Square and it will be a public market place with live music, theatre, gospel on Sunday’s and some democracy and educational forums as well. The public market will be open on Friday and Saturday 12-8 and Sunday 12-6.

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Imagining a Different Course for MAX

Posted on by Allan Rudwick
Proposed Alignments of the Yellow line through Eliot. From the 1998 Draft EIS.

In 2001, a light rail line opened with service between the Portland Expo Center and downtown Portland. This service could have included service to residential Eliot and Legacy Emanuel Hospital with two stops on the east side of I-5. Imagine a dense commercial and residential corridor linking MLK with lower Albina along Russell Street. Vancouver Avenue would have been one block from the MAX, thriving with new businesses housed there. In southern Eliot, imagine the parking lots between MLK and the Broadway Bridge supporting residential or commercial buildings and lower Eliot with parking problems all day every day instead of just during Blazers games. Imagine pedestrian-scale connections around the Broadway/Williams intersection, connecting places that you want to visit, shop, or use to get from point A to B. Would Eliot have been better served?

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Planners Planning

Posted on by Mike Warwick

The First Course

The Portland Plan planning process continues as does the Central City and Rose Quarter Plans.  The Portland Plan process focuses on an updated vision of what residents want Portland to be like in 25 years.  That kind of process allows for setting goals that include government and the private sector, such as high school graduation and employment rates, access to fresh, local food for city residents, and so on.  The Central City Plan is focused on specific land use and transportation actions that are expected to be taken in the next 25 years to accommodate goals that are more dependent on future development, such as providing housing and employment in the core of the city, which includes the Lloyd District and parts of the Eliot neighborhood.  The Rose Quarter Plan process is focused on two specific areas in the inner eastside; the Rose Quarter and the area north of it centered on the school district property known as the Blanchard Block.

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Land Use and Transportation Update for Spring 2011

Posted on by Mike Warwick

A rumor is circulating that the owner of the old Roth auto lot on the northwest corner of MLK and Tillamook has leased to a sex superstore operator who is planning a 24-hour operation at the site.  Historically, such uses that are allowed by zoning (this is) and that don’t require any building exceptions (this may not), are impossible to stop.  Nevertheless, neighbors in Eliot and Irvington are exploring options to stop the lease.

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