Design Advice has been offered for the Clay + Tiffany Apartments, a 163′-9″ tall student housing tower being developed by non-profit College Housing Northwest (CHNW) in collaboration with Mainland Northwest, LLC. The sixteen story building, designed by SERA Architects, will include 252 “group living” studio apartments with shared kitchens, as well as 3 one-bedroom units and 3 two-bedroom units. A retail space is proposed at the ground level. No vehicular parking parking is proposed.
The project site is a quarter block at SW 11th at SW Clay and 11th Avenue. It is currently occupied by two apartments buildings, owned by CHNW: the 1909 Morgan Apartments, at 1110 SW Clay St; and the 1908 Claypoole Annex apartments, at 1519 SW 11th Ave. Both were surveyed as part of Portland’s 1984 Historic Resources Inventory, and given a Rank of III, indicating that they “may be eligible for listing in the National Register as part of a Historic District.”
Three other buildings by SERA architects are or will be located on the same block: the 11 Marché Apartments; the SW 12th & Market apartments; and the Cameron Apartments.
The building is arranged in an L-shape plan, with a exterior courtyard proposed at level 2 in the center of the block. Proposed materials for the building include fiber cement panels in three colors; vinyl windows; and aluminum storefront glazing.
A memo to the Design Commission, published before the April 13th advisory hearing, outlined potential areas for discussion, including: the materials and facade articulation; ground floor active uses; floor heights at the ground level; the location of the loading area; and the location of proposed outdoor amenity areas. While the project received overall support for its scale and massing there was general agreement that further refinement of the elevations is required. The Commission suggested that there was an opportunity to present a stronger expression at the corner, where the building program includes double height spaces at the common kitchens and gathering spaces.
A second Design Advice hearing is currently scheduled for June 8th. In order to gain approval the project will be required to go through a Type III Design Review, with public hearings before the Design Commission.
Drawings
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- Plan – Context
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- Plan – Level 1
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- Plan – Level 2
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- Plan – Levels 3, 7, 11 & 15
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- Plan – Levels 4, 8, 12 & 16
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- Plan – Levels 5, 9 & 13
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- Plan – Levels 6, 10 & 14
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- Plan – Roof
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- Elevation – East (SW 11th Ave)
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- Elevation – North (SW Clay St)
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- Elevation – West (Courtyard)
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- Elevation – South (Courtyard)
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- Section
So they’re going to evict dozens of people and tear down a multi-story apartment building to build a slightly taller apartment building. Meanwhile there are many surface parking lots and shabby one-story buildings in that area. How does this make sense?
I strongly agree, and I believe we need policy tools to avoid canabalizing existing buildings that are providing low cost housing while there are still lower hanging fruit to be picked. There need to be carrots and sticks to incentivizing redeveloping very underutilized sites and disincentivizing demolition of existing multifamily buildings, provided they are minimally viable, safe, etc.
Not that I’m super attached to the apartments this will replace, but shouldn’t we redevelop all the surface parking lots and one story buildings before we go about demolishing medium sized apartments to construct bigger ones?
I think the City would have to increase taxes on those surface parking lots to provide a bit more incentive to redevelop.
Not to mention that building looks awful
Look on the bright side – it looks better than the quasi-brutalist 60s/70s era monolith behind it 😉
here we go again…lol another one dimesional peice of crap that lacks any creativity that looks like everything else being built in this city
use the empty lot down across from the backside of safeway where plaid pantry is instead and make aesthetic changes to the exhisting building
Yes. If I were king, we could have a tax on sites in the central city core that less than half (just throwing out an arbitrary number) of their allowable FAR.
It would be nice if someone had chosen to upgrade the existing buildings seismically and otherwise, like the Trinity Place Apartments have been. But that’s not CHNW, I guess.
Same box different finishes…yawn
This is disgusting! How does the city allow for beautiful old brick buildings that are still in use be torn down only to be replaced by this uninspired UGLY box that will be dated in 15 years? SHAME. Is it too late to protest to the city about this?
I used to live in the Clay St. apartments. It was overrun with cockroaches to an extent I can’t begin to describe, and the kitchen floor fell through to where I could see into the neighbor’s apartment. The landlord didn’t fix it and I wound up moving out. Perhaps it looks like a beautiful building to people walking by, but the smells and decay from within are horrible. I’d welcome it being replaced with livable units.
I have never ONCE seen cockroaches inside, nor outside. The apartments have been managed by CHNW and, like most of their apartments, are kept really well maintained. I’m not sure when you lived in them but destroying a building simply because of bad management doesn’t seem like an appropriate response. But look, you got your wish and we have an high-income tan box! Good job.
….they’re destroying a beautiful building to build an ugly slightly taller building?