What to do with the Burnside Bridgehead?
An interesting story on that subject here, although unfortunately it's illustrated with a photo of an office building site at the distant Oregon Convention Center. As for the Burnside site itself, the kids at Portland State are suggesting:
Members of No Vacancy, however, feel the site could be best used for artistic uses – such as an outdoor gallery. It could also be used for other applications, Meier said, such as food carts, outdoor music, outdoor movies, skateboarding, bike camps for kids, green technology demonstrations and mobile gardening.Whatever -- beats an empty lot.
| Posted at 8:58 PM | Permalink |
|
Comments (10)
An urban walmart would fit in great there!
Posted by Anthony | April 27, 2009 9:17 PM
I am sure it never dawned on people to put their baseball cathedral to Merrit Paulson on that site. Empty lot in need of development, centrally located, close to the Rose Quarter ... nah, let's spend twice as much and tear down the Coliseum instead!
Posted by Mike (the other one) | April 27, 2009 9:51 PM
I know, let's get Don Mazziotti and Lew Bowers from the PDC to plan for a Home Depot on that site. Then they can do "public involvement" and wonder why later the neighborhood and business groups are freaking the F out.
Then, we'll get Council involved and they will demand PDC go back to the drawing board. There will be a big public hoo-ha, including "emergency" community charettes on the weekends to ask the public what they want. An RFP will be issued, and a committee will decide a developer. Then PDC can ignore that committee's recommendations and another community freak out will ensue. Then Council will intervene and tell both developers they have to "play nice" and do the deal together.
Then the whole thing will fall apart and remain stagnant, one developer will pull out, the City will have spent millions in the process, Don Mazziotti will "resign" from PDC and become a consultant for Paulson, et al. while Lew Bowers continues to "manage" projects at PDC.
Wow. That really sums it up doesn't it? Heck, let's just do it all over again.
And I'm sure that "outdoor theater" will really recoup the millions and millions of TIF the City spent on non-income generating projects like the streetcar in the Central Eastside URA. I'd love to see the proforma on that one.
This City is retarded.
Posted by YouKnowIt | April 27, 2009 10:11 PM
Community gardens.
Posted by George Anonymuncule Seldes | April 27, 2009 10:34 PM
Another Dignity Village !!!!!
Posted by Fonzi | April 27, 2009 10:45 PM
Actually, we had that there. It was a homeless relief center called Baloney Joe's.
Now we have Baloney Randy's Street Toilet and an empty lot.
Posted by Jack Bog | April 27, 2009 10:46 PM
Baloney Randy's Street Toilet
I liiiiike it!
It needs a sign. So we can tell all the visitors who come to admire the "...Oregon" sign.
Posted by godfry | April 28, 2009 12:20 AM
I actually liked it when they had Boloney Joes and the Union gas station on the corner. Now we have a nice empty trash filled lot that's been that way for almost a decade.
Posted by Dave A. | April 28, 2009 6:54 AM
The major problem with putting a ball park there is assigning credit for the good idea.
Posted by David E Gilmore | April 28, 2009 7:27 AM
I think that office building in the photo is a block away at NE 3rd and Couch, and the "Bridgehead" site in question is in the foreground of the picture.
Posted by PMG | April 28, 2009 7:32 AM