Commissioner Erik Sten is negotiating hard for one of two possible sites for a $30m permanent day access center for the homeless in Old Town Chinatown—and says he expects ink on a contract to be dry in the next two weeks. He hopes to have doors open at the center by 2009.

There’s a story in this week’s paper about the center, but here are the two possible sites. One is currently a car park on 4th and Glisan, owned by the Goodman family—who have never sold a property in downtown Portland. And the other is on the block kitty corner from the car park, where the Blanchet House and Dirty Duck bar are, currently. Much of this block is owned by the Portland Development Commission. Here’s a map:DAY ACCESS CENTER: Possible sites…

That the negotiations are nearing a conclusion is exciting news for those who have been pushing for the permanent day access center all along—the mayor’s Street Access For Everyone (SAFE) committee has managed to fund a temporary center at SW 13th and Alder, but it’s already overflowing, and more space is needed.

“I think we’ll get to a conclusion about whether to buy the parking lot in the next couple of weeks,” says Sten. “Our stated goal was to get a site by fall. And if we can’t get that block, then we’ll move to the block which now has the Dirty Duck and the Blanchet House on it—PDC owns much of it.”

Transition Projects, Inc has been lined up to run the center—it currently runs a center on 4th and Glisan behind the Greyhound bus station. But at this point, plans for what services the center may incorporate are unclear. We’ll have far more on this story from all sides, as it develops over the coming weeks.