• Jeff Yarbrough

For more than 30 years, inner Southeast Portland residents have agitated for a community center in their part of town. Ever since Portland Public Schools moved out of Washington High School on SE 15th and Stark six years ago, neighbors have eyed the plum piece of property and historic school that has sat vacant. At a public meeting last night, the Portland Parks Department and SERA Architects publicly presented two plans for finally building a community center at Washington High School. But neither plan is perfect: one involves buying Washington High from Portland Public Schools (PPS) and demolishing the interior to build a community center inside, the second plan would build on the grassy acres next to the high school building, leaving the decaying school in the hands of PPS.

• Two WaHi options: click to enlarge!

• For the children! Cute signs at last night's meeting.

Opinion at the meeting last night was divided on the idea of "gutting and stuffing" Washington High, which is up for Historic Landmark designation this month (and, by the way, if the school gets it, the gutting plan is off). The Buckman neighborhood association voted to support the gutting option because putting the community center within the walls of the old building will save land, "reduce neighborhood impact" and reuse a beautiful but neglected building. Also, as advisory committee chair Susan Lindsay put it, if Parks does not buy the school from PPS, there's the distinct possibility it will molder vacant for another decade. “I’m fearful that the building will be razed, or sit there for ten years in disrepair," said Lindsay last night, bluntly adding that PPS "has sat on properties" rather than turn them over to cities or neighborhoods.

After the meeting wrapped up, Kerns resident Mary Francillon filled out the community opinion survey as other residents looked over plans and asked questions. On the survey section asking which plan she supports, Francillon had crossed out the middle option, "Either one is great!" and scrawled in, "Neither one is good enough!" "I think the building should be saved," explained Francillon, "But I'm afraid to see it sit there for decades."

More on this story below the cut! PLUS: Should Portland Public Schools hand over Washington High to the city for free so it can become a community center?

• Sean Breslin
• Historic lumberjack, brand new stump.

Turns out the city is axing 21 trees from the neighborhood as part of the redevelopment of Kenton's main street, North Denver. The old, leafy trees will be replaced with 49 new ones that are of more "business friendly" varieties.

The citizen advisory committee to the Portland Development Commission's Downtown Kenton Redevelopment Project recommended that the city widen the sidewalks along N Denver from 10 feet wide to 15 feet wide to make the area for pedestrian friendly. But, says Portland Transportation staffer Kathryn Levine, widening the sidewalk would have meant the current trees would be in the middle of the pedestrian path. The group okayed cutting down and replacing the 21 trees. "I don't know of any projects that have moved trees of that size," says Levine.

According to the streetscape committee's report, "In recent years, there have been persistent complaints from business and property owners about the current street trees in Downtown Kenton. These trees are red maples, dense columnar trees that, in some cases, block signage and/or historic facades. While many in the district appreciate the maples’ striking Fall color, the broad leaves (which tend to drop ‘all at once’ within a fairly tight time period) cause some backup of the storm sewer."

Levine says that although she has had one complaint about the city cutting down the trees, "Within the advisory committee there was agreement to move forward with the project and that meant removing the trees."

The new trees, Honey Locust and Redwood Ash, meet criteria for trees that "meet the needs of the district," including "avoiding excessive litter" and having "‘business-friendly’ airy leaf/branch patterns".

Little by little, building by building, Old Town is catching up with the rest of downtown. Its newest addition? The Oregon College of Oriental Medicine (OCOM), slated to move into the old Globe Hotel building in fall of 2010.

The building, also known as Import Plaza, is being gutted on the inside and updated to fit earthquake codes, but its historical façade will remain. Only a few cosmetic changes, such as new window frames (the current ones are in various stages of deterioration) and a new coat of paint to more closely match the original color of the Globe Hotel, will be implemented.

The Portland Historic Landmark Commission approved the design for the 98-year-old building submitted by architect Greg Vohs, of Ankrom Moisan Associated Architects, which includes a 4,200 square-foot penthouse addition. The original design, which featured a sloped roof, was rejected because the commission felt it did not keep in character with Old Town.

“We redesigned it to make it much more utilitarian,” Vohs said of the approved, flat-roofed design.

OCOM’s new location at NW Couch and 1st Avenue will join Mercy Corps in the Skidmore Fountain Building and the University of Oregon in the White Stag Building in Old Town Chinatown, representing the community’s effort to revitalize the historic neighborhood, known now primarily for its cabarets and as a safe haven for the homeless.

“I think [the move] is really going to change the dynamic down there. With OCOM, University of Oregon, and Mercy Corps…it’s going to make it a different place. There will be more people on the street during the daytime,” Vohs said.

The Globe Hotel building will also house one or two retail spaces on the ground floor and potentially a community events space, as well. In addition to OCAM’s classrooms and offices, there will be an Oriental medicine clinic open to the public six days a week.

Note: The “Import Plaza” sign that still rotates above the building is being preserved but changed to read “OCOM.” So far, this has not spurred controversy on the scale of the White Stag/Made in Oregon sign. Yet.

Michael Gaeta, OCOM’s president, was not available for comment.

-Rachael Marcus

A blow for Commissioner Randy Leonard and other backers of the Beavers ballpark in Lents: of the roughly 230 Portlanders who turned up to the big Lents urban renewal meeting tonight, 70 percent said they saw no benefits at all in constructing a stadium in Lents Park.

The city employed some nifty electronic polling to gauge the opinions of the packed, sometimes hostile audience — other results of a brief Q&A showed that three times as many neighbors think urban renewal dollars should go toward promoting smart transit and green space than think the money should be invested in turning Lents into “an entertainment destination.”

Updates and photos - plus video of Merritt Paulson withstanding the force of 200 “Boo!”s - tomorrow morning.

The villain in the great Lents baseball debate is now a single word: "misinformation."

Since the ballpark plan is essentially a private-public business deal that's being hammered out somewhat publicly — with the Urban Renewal Advisory Committee (URAC) deciding whether they should pony up money for the city to invest in a Lents' Beavers ballpark — there has been a lot of confusion and vagaries on all sides. Tonight out at Mt. Scott Community Center from 4-6PM, the city is holding an open house, hoping that several tables of friendly city planners can answer many of the neighbors' burning questions about what all this $42.3 million hubbub is about. Nick Fish and Randy Leonard are even skipping tonight's council meeting to line up with neighbors on opposite sides of the Lents meeting.

URAC member Brian Agee called today to say he was still undecided on the plan, but that his email is filling up with ill-informed, polarized rants from both sides. "I've got an inbox full of, 'Don't do it! They're going to plow over the whole park!' And then I've heard some unrealistic economic projections."

So, for the record, here are much-debated topics and some quick answers. Feel free to check out the five hours of open house/public meeting for the long answers! Bring me a grilledcheeseburger if you come, thnx.

1. Is the Urban Renewal Advisory Committee (URAC) voting tonight on whether to spend $42.3 million in urban renewal funds on building a ballpark? No! Contrary to certain press releases the URAC decided to table a vote on the controversial proposal until next week. Tonight they'll just take public input and ask questions.

More quick Q&A below the cut! Including: Um, aren't two of the proposed options illegal?

Forty Lents neighbors squeezed into the mirrored banquet hall at the New Copper Penny lounge last night, eager to discuss the controversial stadium deal with the Lents Neighborhood Association (LNA) Board. Unfortunately, it took 37 minutes for enough LNA board members to show up (six out of eleven) that the event could be considered an official meeting. Talk about starting off on a bad foot.

The only real agenda point of the meeting sounded mundane: to decide whether or not to schedule an official neighborhood association vote on the stadium deal. Not the vote itself - just whether to schedule a vote.

But that decision unleashed 30 minutes of rowdy debate between the neighbors and six board members. The Urban Renewal Advisory Committee is scheduled to vote next Thursday on whether to use $42.3 million in Lents urban renewal funds to build the Beavers stadium in their area and, as of yet, the neighborhood association has avoided taking a yay or nay vote on the project. Commissioners Randy Leonard and Mayor Adams say they will follow the lead of neighbors on the deal.

"What I hear the neighbors saying is we want to have input on the decision. If there's the remote possibility that the URAC is going to vote next week, then we need to vote before then," opined neighbor Gustavo Lanzas from the middle of the crowd. Some neighbors, including Lanzas, say pro-stadium Board Chair Damien Chakwin has intentionally avoided a neighborhood vote on the deal out of fear that it would turn out negative. Citing these beliefs and Chakwin's "divisive" demeanor, board member Jeff Rose has been pressuring Chakwin to step down. The mood in the crowded room was tense.

Chakwin says he is not trying to avoid a vote, but that the board needs more time to gauge neighborhood opinion on the deal. "There's 20,000 people, a whole neighborhood and a whole lot of money hanging on this. To make a knee jerk reaction is bad no matter which way you go," he explained, saying the board would go door-to-door before the vote to get input. Anti-stadium group Friends of Lents Park has already been going door-to-door over the past weeks — they have collected just over 400 signatures on their stop-the-stadium petition (pdf). Yesterday the group obtained a study (pdf) from Commissioner Saltzman's office revealing that a Triple-A stadium in Lents would have dismal attendance.

Chakwin and the board eventually agreed to schedule an emergency neighborhood association meeting and take a formal vote before the URAC meets.

So where were the five missing board members at the most popular board meeting in recent history? At least one was over at that locus-of-energy the Hollywood Senior Center, defending the stadium to Multnomah County Democrats. According to BlueOregon, the Dems basically shut down the little old lady LNA secretary.

As the Lents neighbors talked it out in the New Copper Penny and the Democrats debated in the Senior Center, Commissioner Amanda Fritz released her own harsh words on the stadium via a letter sent to her fellow commissioners (pdf). "Providing a $15 million loan to the Lents URA is the same as using General Fund resources to fund the stadium. This is a fundamental violation of the promise at the beginning of this process, that there would be no impact to the General Fund," Fritz writes.

The URAC meets next Thursday at Mt. Scott Community Center (5530 SE 72nd Ave), with an open house from 4-6PM and special meeting from 7-9PM. The group is scheduled to vote on the deal... assuming Leonard and friends hammer out an actual deal by then. As of last week, six of the 15 URAC members were on record with the Merc against the plan.

Say hello to Portland's other recall campaign. Smoking a cigarette last night on the bench in the small brick plaza of Lents Town Center, Lents Neighborhood Association member Jeffrey Rose held a recall petition with two signatures on it. "I pride myself on my diplomacy, but I've just had it," says Rose. "It's been a real up and down roller coaster ride with him." Rose isn't talking about Mayor Adams — his recall campaign is directed at pro-stadium Lents Neighborhood Association chair Damien Chakwin, whose gruff demeanor Rose says has driven people away from involvement in neighborhood discussions over whether to use $42.3 million in urban renewal funds to build the new Beavers Triple-A ballpark in Lents.

Across the street from where Rose sat on the bench, City Commissioner Randy Leonard ate dinner with Urban Renewal Advisory Committee Chair Cora Potter and anti-stadium politico Steve Novick at miniscule Mexican restaurant El Pato Feliz ("The Happy Duck"). As Rose smoked his cigarette, a handful of neighbors collected in the plaza, all stopping to discuss the stadium and muse on what conversation could be going on over tacos at The Happy Duck. Staunchly anti-stadium Urban Renewal Advisory Committee member John Mulvey rolled up on a blue Schwinn, planning to grab some dinner from El Pato. The Mexican restaurant is apparently the place to be in Lents - it's the only place to get food around the downtrodden town center that is not a bar or a gas station.

"Oh look, they're leaving," someone said, pointing across the street at Novick, Potter and Leonard as they exited the restaurant. The trio took a stroll around the block, checking out the two vacant storefronts next to El Pato. Now that the taqueria was clear, Rose and I headed over to take some pictures and get some tacos. Soon, though, the group wandered back and stopped to talk to Rose as he leaned against the sign emblazoned with an excited yellow duck.

"Get a taco and I'll talk to you," said Leonard to me. "Buy a taco - this is about economic development." Tacos at El Pato are only $1 and also delicious — not a bad price to pay for a conversation with Leonard. I ducked inside, bought two and headed back out again to ask what the three had talked about during the meeting social dinner.

"Chimichangas," said Leonard. "I learned a lot about chimichangas." It took a while for the conversation to come around from chimichangas to the $49 million baseball stadium, but eventually Leonard opined on what would happen in Lents if they build the ballpark — more Portlanders would discover El Pato and the Town Center's sociable brick plaza. "People will start coming back even when there's not a game. That's the simple formula for why a ballpark works. It draws people here and they'll see the difference between the reality and the perception."

"But when would they ever see this?" asked Novick, pointing out that the most convenient way to drive to the ballpark doesn't run through Lents Town Center. "What I'm afraid would happen is people would just park at the ballpark, eat a hot dog and not ever come down here at all."

A study completed this week at the request of City Council swing vote Dan Saltzman backs up Novick's concerns. "Most of the post and pre-game activity would most likely occur on site rather than in the surrounding neighborhood thereby increasing the potential for food and beverage revenue within the stadium," the report concludes.

The study by HVS International (pdf) also shows that the attendance for the Lents Triple-A park (projected at 3,222 ticket buyers per game) will likely be half the average attendance of the nation's other Triple-A parks. Because of low attendance, the study concludes that revenues for the stadium would decline 13 percent for the first five years.

More taco talk from Randy Leonard plus more on the recall campaign - below the cut.

Big news is breaking on the $50 million Lents Stadium deal and in a bizarre turn of events, Lents Mexican restaurant El Pato Feliz is at the center of it all. Three separate groups involved in deciding the future of the Lents Triple-A stadium deal all decided to meet tonight at "The Happy Duck" tonight at the same time.

First, commissioner Randy Leonard arranged a meeting at El Pato Feliz with Urban Renewal Advisory Committee Chair Cora Potter and stadium deal critic Steve Novick. No press invited, thank you.

THEN organizers for stadium opposition group Friends of Lents Park independently decided to meet there, hot on the heels of the news that the Oregon Legislature approved skimming stadium funding from player's salaries in tight vote this afternoon. Governor Kulongoski has said he will NOT VOTE SIGN the bill and if it does not pass, the proposed budget scenarios for the stadium will need to be rewritten. When Friends of Lents Park organizer Nick Christensen showed up to El Pato and saw Leonard and Novick, he quickly decided to relocate the meeting to a nearby bar.

BUT Leonard and friends still will not be alone! Lents neighborhood association (LNA) member Jeff Rose announced this afternoon that he is launching a recall campaign of outspokenly pro-stadium LNA chair Damien Chakwin. Rose decided to collect signatures tonight at - you guessed it - El Pato Feliz. This is what happens when a neighborhood has no leather-chaired cigar bars for political insiders to occupy! Rose says Chawkin's "rude and gruff" demeanor has caused division within the neighborhood and alienated people who disagree with Chakwin on the stadium deal and other issues. "The best person to be leading the neighborhood association is someone who's a uniter. And he just doesn't do a very good job at that," says Rose.

The Portland Development Commission released some numbers yesterday that neighbors have been waiting for - three budget scenarios for the Lents Beaver's stadium deal. The power is in the hands of the Lents Urban Renewal Committee to decide whether they should delay $42.3 million in planned projects and use the money to fund one big, hopefully catalytic project for the neighborhood, the new Triple-A stadium. Now, at least, they have some semi-solid numbers to work with.

One of the most controversial parts of the budget is cutting the area's required 30 percent set-aside for affordable housing. Deal supporters point out that the neighborhood already has a large amount of affordable housing, critics say funneling money from homeowner and rent-assistance programs to the stadium will hurt seniors and other low-income people.

So the PDC wrote up three draft budget ideas. The budget spells out exactly what services Lents would lose by funding the stadium and essentially asks the neighbors to choose between funding affordable housing or partially funding all other urban renewal projects.

If the urban renewal committee decides to fund the stadium and its current rate of affordable housing, its will have to slice all parks projects, street paving projects and storefront improvement plans. "PDC would likely have no tools to assist small businesses or do business recruitment and retention," the budget says. Yikes.

That budget is especially alarming because major economists agree that stadium projects only revitalize neighborhoods when coupled with overall neighborhood development projects — exactly the kind of projects the city would be cutting.

More on the budget below the cut.

Mayor Adams and Commissioner Leonard have said they will follow the lead of Lents neighbors on whether to use $42 million in urban renewal funds to build a new Beavers Triple-A stadium in the downtrodden Southeast neighborhood. Based on neighborhood venting last night, the neighborhood's vote will be a very close call.

About 150 people sat on lawn chairs and blankets at the first meet-up to oppose the stadium. Reclining in the warm evening on grass around the Lents Park gazebo, the event looked more like a family recital than an opposition rally. But when "Friends of Lents Park" organizers invited anyone onto Park's cement stage, handing them a microphone and a two minute time limit - oh, the rhetoric was passionate.

"The track, the soccer field, trees - those are all things that will be lost, probably if the stadium comes here," said Urban Renewal Advisory Committee (URAC) member John Mulvey. "The cash cow that's making the whole thing go, the whole deal, is your urban renewal dollars." Six of the 15 people on the URAC are on record with the Mercury against the current deal and several others are undecided. If those six people plus two of undecideds wind up voting against the deal, the mayor's office says it will give up trying to find a new home for the Beavers in Portland.

Friends of Lents Park organizer Kris Lake was clear about the picnic-protest's intentions. "I'm hoping to convince the URAC and the city commissioners that we need to look for a different place for the Beavers," she says. I asked Lake to respond to comments I'd received from a URAC member who was afraid to come out in support of the stadium because, "As soon as your name gets out there that you support it, there's a very vocal group that hounds you." Lake feels just the opposite — for a long time, pro-stadium neighborhood leaders had shut down dissent, she says.

Thirty eight neighbors took the stage to rant about the deal, many reiterating an "anti-change-keep-the-park-how-it-is!" message to loud applause. Early on, a man with a large tattoo of the statue of Liberty on his leg spoke up in favor of the new stadium - he handled a heckler and received a smattering of claps at the end of his allotted two minutes. "I'm not excited about the bill they're gonna hand us, but if we can put something here, maybe it will help clean up the problems we've already got," said the man, Erik Benson.

The only politician who spoke on stage was the influential and ubiquitous Steve Novick, who encouraged neighbors to call Dan Saltzman immediately with their concerns. "Dan Saltzman is the key vote. If you have time tonight, pick up the phone and call 823-4157 and say, 'Dan Saltzman, please vote against this proposition.'"

"I know that Randy's heart is in the right place, but every study and experience shows that a ballpark alone does not revitalize the neighborhood," said Novick offstage. When I pointed out that the mayor and Leonard's office have recently pitched the stadium as a project to improve Lents' amenities - not a cut and dry quantifiable economic boost, Novick responded. "I think it's taking away $40 million that could be used for amenities and using it for a ballpark."

Something about this—perhaps the worst free pile I've seen in NE Portland yet—screams Memorial Day. Someone got up in the sunny morning, did a little work in the garden, half-assed the finish and decided instead to leave the garbage in the street.

The growing trend of "free" piles is getting out of hand. Since when did laziness become a form of charity? All these dirty old box-springs, tracking closet doors from the 70's and broken ink-jet printers are junk only Homer Simpson would take home. ("Old newspapers!? Coat-hangers?! Expired medicine! Quick you fool, get them in the house!")

Does this happen in other cities?

“We’re here to get the facts,” said Lents Neighborhood Association chair Damien Chakwin to over 70 neighbors who packed into the Lents Elementary School cafeteria tonight to discuss the Beavers ballpark possible slated for their neighborhood. “We should get some information before we make a decision.”

Sadly, there were few facts for the neighbors to discuss. The city and stadium-backer Merritt Paulson have not hammered out the financial details of the ballpark, so despite strong feelings on all sides of the issue, the neighborhood had no final plans to discuss. In a draft budget released last week, Lents Urban Renewal Area would kick in $42 million to build the Beavers a stadium Lents after major league soccer displaces them from PGE Park.

Commissioner Randy Leonard started out the night with a ringing endorsement of the idea: “Putting in a Triple-A stadium is the best thing we could ever possibly do for the neighborhood.” Neighbors were more skeptical.

When a neighbor asked Leonard to get specific about the “nebulous economic development” the stadium would bring, Leonard responded, “Your language betrays your position. The benefit isn’t nebulous at all.”
“Could you point me to something that has concrete details about this?” the neighbor pressed. Beavers’ rep Greg Peden responded: stadium construction would produce 300 union jobs over two years and create approximately 250 permanent jobs running the stadium.
“Then is information out there that will definitively say what the impact of this stadium would be?” another neighbor asked.
“Yes,” replied Leonard, simply. When asked after the meeting what definitive evidence he was referring to, Leonard pointed to the Stanford study of San Diego’s stadium (which another Stanford economist refutes here), a study of a Sacramento stadium (which he couldn't remember the name of) and a study Urban Renewal Advisory Committee chair Cora Potter mentioned during the meeting.

But Potter says that study — in which PDC consultants analyzed Lents businesses — does not definitively show what impact the stadium could have on Lents. The truth is that currently no hard data exists that lays out the economic impact of a stadium on Lents. The PDC just recently commissioned this type of study from consulting group EcoNorthwest and asked them to condense their typically several-month timeline into a couple weeks, hoping that the urban renewal committee will have some actual data to look at before it votes on whether to put $42 million toward the stadium.

In a straw vote at the end of the at-times tense and rowdy two hour meeting, about half of the neighbors opposed the stadium. A smattering of neighbors supported the stadium and a fair number in the middle were undecided — waiting to decide until more solid information surfaces.

An epic tenant-landlord battle erupted last week in the heart of inner Southeast, finally ending five years of tension behind the scenes at the popular, bright yellow coffeeshop Floyd's. But not before involving a midnight stake out, the police and, yes, a weeks-long secret exodus. It's a crazy story no matter which side tells it.

It all started five years ago when Jack Inglis and his wife Cris Chapman opened Floyd's coffee shop in the tiny drive thru cafe space in King Harvest Natural Foods on SE 15th and Morrison. The owner of King Harvest, Howard Durand, become Floyd's next-door neighbor and landlord. At the beginning of their tenure, the two small business owners signed what everyone agreed was a flimsy lease - just a piece of paper that said they would work out some of the big details, like utilities, after six months. Well, six months rolled around and business was booming at Floyd's. Durand tried to start charging for utilities and that's when Inglis says "the nastiest border war in the closest proximity" began.

The whole damn story below the cut.

Remember when we wrote about the Hollywood neighborhood meeting in January where a Northeast neighbor burst into tears over the plans to destroy the iconic Pagoda restaurant and make way for a bland KeyBank building? Local architect John Perkins vowed he would find a way to save the landmark.

Well, last week Perkins completed his research on the building and came to two tragic conclusions.

Tragic conclusion #1: It would cost $76,000 to remove the wood-and aluminum pagoda intact. Wait, if the pagoda is not crafted of pure jade, how did it become that amazing green-blue color?

Tragic conclusion #2: The pagoda's "brilliant color" comes from lead-based paint.

Well shit. Perkins is now looking into whether the Pagoda's design can be incorporated into a nearby bus shelter. KeyBank offered to donate the restaurant's neon sign but isn't willing to rethink its boring, corporate design for the building that involves scrapping the whole faux Oriental motif.