This Week in the Mercury
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Fashion / Build Out More Dirt on New Rose Quarter Developer
Posted by Sarah Mirk on Wed, Apr 15, 2009 at 2:22 PM
Remember the shiny shiny suburban images of entertainment districts built around the nation by proposed Rose Quarter redeveloper Cordish Company? In case you forgot: 
Collage via Portland Spaces
Well it's not just their designs that have been bad in other cities - we blogged yesterday about complaints that Cordish strongarmed public officials in both Kansas City and Louisville. Now get this: in Kansas City's Power and Light District (the Cordish project Portland's Rose Quarter Live! is supposed to most resemble) the company got in hot water for instituting a dress code that was "hysterically racist" according to citizen complaints.
The dress code for the bars-theaters-restaurants district banned white t-shirts, baggy pants, men wearing necklaces and shorts that hung below the top of one's calf. Many Kansas City citizens and a majority of City Council members felt the ban on very specific clothing items clearly discriminated against black people.
The ACLU got involved and after a heated City Council meeting (which involved a former city councilwoman shouting at the African-American Cordish rep, "You want to invite us down to picket you? I'm embarrassed black people stand up here and advocate discrimination!") the city banned restrictive dress codes in developments that receive taxpayer assistance.
Portland has not yet signed any deal with Cordish, but the redevelopment plan is moving swiftly forward. A study (pdf) commissioned by the City of Toronto found that municipalities partnering with Cordish to create a Live! style project fund 30 percent of the development with public money, on average.
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Are you KIDDING me? Ya know what? Sam, step down. Developers, leave town. People of Portland, get out in the streets and in the corridors of city halls and protect the only decent city left in America from the profiteers who intend to ruin our hometown.
Fourth Street Live in Louisville is an abomination. It's absolutely hideous and defames any of the city's wealth of character and charm.
Guys, are you on some kind of vendetta? You know as well as I do that Cordish has said up front they wouldn't be creating the same crap here as they did in KC--and Randy Leonard will demand it, as he told me.
As for dress codes, are you sure no bars in Portland have a similar dress code, without apparent outrage from the Merc?
Looking at these Cordish developments is scary: they somehow own (or control?) the "entertainment zone" as a corporation? So now we're building an outdoor strip of nightclubs (greenwashed of course!) that behaves like a mall?
We've already got PBA-funded private cops abusing their power on downtown streets with little or no accountability. And now we're leveling half the Rose Quarter to create a pseudo-public Fremont Street Experience-style abomination? What the fuck, Sam Adams? What the fuck, Randy Leonard? And every other one of you fucks. Fuck!
oh my god
i can not believe i am saying this
but
at this moment
i miss tom potter and his "lack of" visioning.
Listen, if we are ever going to be a world-class soccer city, like Columbus, we are going to need more Fuddruckers.
Columbus has 27 different Fuddruckers within its city limits!
I'm sure Cordish has said a lot of things up front. They probably said the same things before they built their developments in Louisville and Kansas City, and almost 30 other places.
Cordish is a "multi-billion dollar global conglomerate" (quote from their website).
http://cordish.com/
Do you really think that they all of a sudden have changed the way they do business? Do you want that mentality driving redevelopment in Portland? Don't we have enough of that already, both here and stamped elsewhere across the country (and let's not forget Dubai, which is now making a fast retreat on development).
Do some basic research on the Google, eh? It takes seconds to find this stuff, like this...
http://www.pitch.com/2009-04-02/news/here-…
http://www.pitch.com/2008-02-14/news/drunk…
"As for dress codes, are you sure no bars in Portland have a similar dress code, without apparent outrage from the Merc?"
torridjoe, as someone who regularly blogs while on the clock at a taxpayer-funded agency, you certainly understand the difference between a private club and one that was built with public dollars. Right?
"But I really really REALLY like soccer!"
I'll go down there wearing whatever I damn well please.
Where was the outrage when they shit up the pearl and bridgetown village?
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