Portland needs a Linchpins Anonymous
The real estate people in Portland really are ga-ga. Check out this doozy, in the middle of a deep economic trough and nothing but a jobless recovery in sight, if that:
Nevertheless, LAB hopes to turn the former industrial site-comprised of warehouses, grain elevators and a seven-story flour mill, all built between 1910 and 1940-into a culinary attraction, with restaurants, a farmer’s market, wine shops and even light food manufacturing.Oh yeah, there's a winner. They'd probably be better off leveling the lot and rolling in some $4 burrito carts.
It ain't just the pilings that are rotten -- it's the business plan, too.
Of course, if people want to throw their money at pipedreams, it's nobody else's business. But this is Portland; I smell public funds and tons of bureaucrat time here. I shudder to ask.
| Posted at 5:59 AM | Permalink |
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Comments (11)
Mushkila Kabeer!
Posted by Abe | December 21, 2009 7:15 AM
Hey, careful! He only needs to get Samdy excited about it and its a done deal.
Posted by Steve | December 21, 2009 7:23 AM
And the best part is that they'll never have to show up with the money to make this happen. Like far too many similar projects around the country, the only ones that happen are the ones finished at the beginning of the boom. This one will find a few suckers willing to throw in a few million, and then you'll never hear from the developers again unless they're seen in Carnival in Rio.
Posted by Texas Triffid Ranch | December 21, 2009 8:14 AM
"Sadeghi and Aeh both declined to give an estimated project cost, though Sadeghi noted it’s been estimated at $55 million."
Aaah, I'm getting sentimental. Wasn't 55 million one of the final tram numbers?
You know you've had a lot of projects when the same budget numbers start showing up again.
Posted by Bill McDonald | December 21, 2009 8:26 AM
Oh Jack, this is in the Pearl. Pearlites never run out of money to spend at frivolous markets.
They moved from NY or LA to their little play pen neighborhood specifically so that they could afford to throw money around forever.
Posted by Snards | December 21, 2009 8:50 AM
Add another gem to the crown of the Portland Development Commission.
Posted by john rettig | December 21, 2009 9:00 AM
Well maybe this will go better than SoWat and we can hope PDC spending will end-up NoWay.
Posted by LucsAdvo | December 21, 2009 12:38 PM
The names of the developers sound familiar. These guys may have been the same ones who tried to stiff my wife and her sibs over property in SE PDX. They almost succeeded until they ran a very nasty real estate attorney who represented the estate. Then things got squared away very quickly - even stuck them with all the legal bills and closed down that particular operation in short order. But it sounds like they are back toying with bigger numbers. Heaven help us all. I prefer lynch pins myself.
Posted by mrfearless47 | December 21, 2009 5:18 PM
Sadeghi was a guy that started up Quicksilver or was in the early stages after he worked for Jantzen.
Of course, once he made a lot of money he thinks he can do no wrong. His biggest thing is being the anti-mall person (whatever that means.)
Having said all of that, this project is gonna need a lot of public money, but its in the right location for Sam to get worked up about.
Posted by Steve | December 22, 2009 7:50 AM
I wonder if Centennial Mills would have been developed decades ago if the property wasn't owned by PDC and if public subsidies weren't common. Now, everyone waits for a subsidy, and PDC owns so many properties that the only way to develop any significant project is to go through them. In that way, PDC acts as a gatekeeper, letting in developers who play, and protecting them from the competition by developers outside that PDC/developer partnership. Not only does this arrangement stifle development, and cause any development that does happen to require large infusions of tax revenue, it also seems unconstitutional to have a government use its authority to insulate its own partnerships from private competition.
Posted by James | December 22, 2009 8:03 AM
I wonder if SoWhat would have been developed starting back in the late 80s if the PDC didn't get involved with all their subsidies? Schnitzer, Zidell, Pegasus and others wanted to develop before Mayor Katz, Goldschmidt and Sam stepped in and promised our taxpayer monies with PDC's controls.
Posted by Jerry | December 22, 2009 10:20 PM