Why the Pearl District Works: Part III Community

The Pearl District is a product of Portland’s unique brand of civic stewardship.  According to Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam, Portland is three times as civic-minded as other American cities (Putnam, Feldstein, Better Together: Restoring the American Community).  In 1973, Mayor Neil Goldschmidt institutionalized local grass roots democracy when he established the Office of Neighborhoods Association.  With formal backing, the city’s emergent neighborhood activism enlivened the planning process.  Granted the power to prioritize public improvement projects in the 1980s, the 75 neighborhood associations played a key role in the city adopting a series of path-breaking plans.  In 1993 a small group of stakeholders formed what became the Pearl District Neighborhood Association (PDNA), a committed cohort intent on turning a raw unfinished part of the city into a neighborhood.

Neilson Abeel chaired the group.  A native New Yorker knowledgeable of both real estate and historic renovation, Abeel purchased a 3-story 19,000 square foot building on the edge of the historic district in 1992.  He felt like a pioneer staking a claim.  There were few residents, buildings were in disrepair, and trains ran regularly to the Weinhard Brewery.  But investors were coming to the fore.  The next year, a 1905 warehouse was converted into the first condominiums, City Lofts.  This investment galvanized the creation of a Neighborhood Association to give voice to a common vision.

Between 1994 and 1998 the PDNA played an integral role in the 4 plans, 3 policy documents, and 2 assessment studies city agencies prepared for the Pearl District.  After the city council adopted the River District Special Design Guidelines in 1995, the PDNA formed the Planning and Transportation Committee.  It had a compliment of experts such as Tom Harvey, a Portland State University urban geography professor.  “A stalwart worker,” Abeel recounted, “he brought a high degree of professionalism as well as enthusiasm.” Design reviews resembled graduate studios.  Projects were critiqued and even eviscerated, but with the understanding that the goal was to create quality components that would synergize a well-integrated community.  The give and take was productive, especially in setting the groundwork for the Hoyt Street Properties Master Development Agreement.  Adopted in 1997, it established a series of contingent obligations between the city’s funding of public improvements and Homer Williams, the developer who owned 34 acres of abandoned rail property. 

Riverfront District Open Space Plan

The urbanism Williams produced marked a turning point, as the dense, pedestrian-oriented mixed-use neighborhood the River District Vision Plan anticipated came into being.  In 2000, Williams and Abeel were appointed to the steering committee charged with creating a vision and action plan for the fast-developing Pearl District.  John Carroll, the developer of three definitive projects (Chown Pella, the Elizabeth, and the Gregory), chaired the group.  The next year the city council adopted the Pearl District Development Plan, which extended the framework set forth in the Special Design Guidelines. Its goal was to integrate transit, parking, housing, and the arts to spark economic development and create a definitive sense of place.  Gateways and definitive edges would delienate the district, while historic preservation and a park system were the keys to making the dense urban neighborhood livable.  Perhaps most important, the plan identified the Pearl District as a distinct neighborhood committed to creating “a healthy, engaging, and intriguing community.”  Its next phase of development was crucial, and the PDNA was charged with ensuring the “careful collaboration of all of the stakeholders who call this district their home.”

In 2002, Patricia Gardner replaced Abeel as chair of the PDNA.  An architect, Gardner brought a steady hand and professional acumen to the design review process. In 2006 she led residents though a six-month process that secured a plan to redevelop Centennial Mills, the four-acre waterfront site the city purchased in 2000.  The goal was to turn the property and its historical buildings into a focal point of the neighborhood, it would be a special place that celebrated the past, embraced sustainability, complimented nearby parks, and provided connections to the waterfront.

The Centennial Mills Framework Plan was an exemplar work, and it marks the high point of collaboration between the PDNA and city agencies.  The project has since moved from potential icon to potential boondoggle, which has wilted the PDNA’s trust in the city.  Jordan Schnizter, the developer of the most recent Centennial Mills plan jettisoned by the Portland Development Agency, reinforced this point in January at a crowded public meeting. “The city has lost its way,” he concluded.

As the Pearl District approaches build out, the pioneering spirit of 20 years ago has given way to ordering and regulating an established neighborhood.  Conflict has intensified, as there are no simple solutions to homelessness, securing open space, historic preservation, and limiting the size and scale of new buildings.  In its attempt to find common ground, the PDNA draws on an exceptional set of documents.  They are more than a blueprint to guide development, they constitute a moral code to ensure that livability, equity, and profits co-exist.

Patricia Gardner recently stepped down from the chairmanship of the PDNA Planning & Transportation Committee.  The new co-chairs, Kate Washington and Reza Farhoodi, are young, sharp and well-versed in planning.  They are also the stewards of a moral maxim. The Pearl District is Portland’s laboratory, and its future development will determine if the city’s unique civic thread will fray or be tied into a new model of urban life.