The Block 216 tower had its first Type III Design Review hearing last Thursday. Cart owners have been told they might need to vacate the 10th & Alder lot as soon as May.
With the surface parking lots currently home to downtown food carts being replaced by developments that include the Moxy Hotel and Block 216, advocates have called for a ‘culinary corridor’ along the midtown Park Blocks right of way.
The Southeast Examiner looked at the “phantom laundromat” at 2731 SE Belmont St. A building permit for a 5-story 46 unit apartment building on site is currently ‘approved to issue’, however a demolition permit for the existing structure has expired.
As the first buildings subject to the city’s inclusionary housing ordinance come online, the Daily Journal of Commerce looked at how different developers are complying with the mandate*.
Excess land from MAX construction could become affordable housing, writes the Oregonian.
The Business Tribune looked at the “projects aplenty” at Portland State University, including the Fourth and Montgomery Building and the Neuberger Hall Renovation.
Lonely Planet wrote about the KEX Portland, the “ultra-chic Icelandic hostel” planned at the Burnside Bridgehead.
Portland Monthly wrote about the Garlington Center, which brings health care and housing under one roof.
Fearing rent control, Portland developers are backing Loretta Smith, reports the Oregonian.
*This article will be unlocked for the rest of this week. After this week it will only be viewable by DJC subscribers.
With two different downtown food cart pods being displaced soon but this and other projects, maybe it’s time for Portland to up its game with respect to food cart design standards before they populate new sites, and especially public sites like the Parks Blocks. While some of them are really quite nice, many others are simply trashy structures with blue plastic tarps and that look like someone went dumpster diving at Home Depot to get random wood pieces for construction. The architectural community in Portland and on this blog obsesses greatly over the built environment in this city, yet there seems to be little effort to improve the types of food services it allows on public spaces.
I understand that the laissez faire attitude towards food carts has fostered a lot of food innovation here in Portland and that is a great thing. I too enjoy stopping by my favorite food carts for for Gyros and Pad Thai. But I think we are to the point where we can up our game in Portland. Maybe the local architectural community can hold some design contests for food carts. And if we are going to devote public parks space to this sort of thing the perhaps a better approach would be for the city to have the basic food cart shells designed and installed with proper power and such and then lease them out to occupants.
I don’t have the answers. I’m just putting it out there that I think we can do a lot better with food cart design in public spaces. The signage, shelter from the rain, materials, appearance when open and when closed, etc. etc. If we are going to obsess about every last detail to do with the elevation of a new building on a public street, we can at least give some attention to other elements on the same street that seem to be almost as long lasting.