Having given new life to a desolate industrial area, the Pearl District literally defines renaissance: taken from the Old French word “renaistre” to be born again. At the same time it is a work in progress, a neighborhood struggling to capitalize investments and create a civic identity.
Fortunately, Portland’s civic foundation is rooted in the American Renaissance, the early 20th century movement that ordered the industrial city on classical lines and around nature. The Olmsted Brothers
1903 Park Plan provided a template, which was more than an exercise in aesthetics. John Charles Olmsted designed a park system to develop, he wrote, “healthfulness, morality, intelligence, and business prosperity.” Intertwining nature and profit is inimical to American city planning, and the Pearl District is based on a neo-classical blueprint straight out of the American Renaissance.
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| Iconic 1909 Plan for Madison, Wisconsin |
The 1992 River District Vision extended NW 10th and 11th Avenues to align Powells Bookstore, the focal point of the district’s southern boundary, with a civic terminus, a park on the Willamette River. Placing important institutions on linear routes that terminated at parks with commanding views is not only a cardinal principle of Renaissance urbanism, it is an exemplar of a turning point in western civilization.
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| 1992 River District Vision |
During the Italian Renaissance gardens and cities were designed with spaces devoted to contemplating scenic landscape vistas. This experirence was foreign to medieval sensibilities, which were formed by imposing gothic cathedrals, such as Notre Dame, that guided the eye to the heavens and the contemplation of a godly realm. Employing the humanist logic of the Ancient Greeks and Romans, Italian Renaissance designers celebrated earthly nature and, in the early 20th century, American city planners did the same. Today the Pearl District is on the cusp of that history—for good or bad.
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| View from Gambaria Garden to Florence |
Centennial Mills has long been envisioned as a community focal point for the Pearl District. Yet, the Portland Development Commission’s (PDC) current plan for the site eviscerates its Renaissance potential. A narrow path provides access to a 50-foot greenway bounding the riverfront, but there is no attendant public space—a direct negation of the Pearl District Development Plan to develop the riverfront “as an engaging public space” with “open space and other public uses.”
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| PDC Plan for Centennial Mills |
The PDC’s defining “public space” is a horse shelter, which covers 30 percent of the property and houses 16 animals on land valued at $2.7 million. Waste is endemic to this investment. The horses produce 136 tons of manure per year (enough to fill a line of dump trucks stretching across the Broadway Brige), while their accomodations yields a negligible return for taxpayers. Providing a place of repose for humans, however, would ensure a priceless return.
Currently, the lack of pedestrian traffic on NW 10th and 11th Avenues north of Overton has developers resistant to building retail. Extending the park experience that begins at Jamison Square to the Willamette River would mitigate this problem. Pedestrian access is the key. Plans exist to bridge the railroad, and the structure, like Manhattan’s High Line, should offer a visceral experience.
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| High Line |
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| Rendering of Pedestiran Overpass to Centennial Mills |
The High Line documents the civic and financial gains that accrue when an industrial landscape is transformed into a green connection. It attracts four millions visitors a year, and half are tourists. Each increment of 5,000 additional tourists equates to a demand for 400 square feet of retail space. Tourists spend $48 on average when visiting a regimen of parks, such as Jamison Square, Fields Park, and Centennial Mills would provide. Active parks also activate human relationships, the essential ingredient for creating more cohesive neighborhoods. Engaged residents help "reduce a city's cost for policing, fire protection and criminal justice," the Trust for Public Land reports.
http://www.thehighline.org
Financing public space is a challenge. Both the High Line and the revival of Central Park were funded by private-public partnerships. Fortunately, Portland has a legacy on this front. After a scheme to develop Portland’s West Hills foundered in 1944, a City Club Committee of 50 was formed to establish the “Forest Park” the Olmsted Brothers identified in their 1903 park plan. The group recognized that, "No use to which this tract of land could be put would begin to be as sensible or as profitable to the city as that of making it a public park."
Can the same civic verve create a definitive
public space on Willamette River? Centennial Mills is a test of Renaissance resolve because providing for parks measures, John Charles Olmsted wrote, a city’s “degree of civilization.”
I indebted to Streetsense.com for their stellar research. On the value of parks and tourism see: Trust for Public Lands, Measuring the Economic Value of a Park System
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