So the Business Journal has this item this morning, officially declaring Community Partners for Affordable Housing’s proposal the choice for the eventual redevelopment of the Jerome F Sears Army Reserve Center.
Here’s a link to the article, but there will certainly be more press (and has already been much press) about this.
Between this and the Watershed development, CPAH’s going to be responsible for a lot of our resident’s housing in a few years….
Today, Jr. V was at the SW Community Center for a few hours at his friend James’ birthday party. Since it is such a gorgeous day, after I finally cut my lawn Mrs. V and I decided to walk over and get him. We headed down through the woods to the park, and up around to the Community Center, noticing several folks laid out on the grass, soaking up the sun. Yes, a mid-60’s day in October can’t be wasted since the rain is surely coming back soon.
I noticed something though on the way back - although real estate prices seem to be just as sky-high as they ever were around here, more and more properties that once were for sale, are now for rent. This seems to be a particular feature of Jeff Parker’s properties, since I understand that he often buys houses from the owners and then resells, instead of just brokering a sale. But this development is more widespread than just Jeff’s business. “For Rent” signs, conspicuously missing from in front of Village properties of late, have been making something of a comeback.
No profound insights here, feel free to provide them in the comments. Just an observation.
On another subject, seems like there are more pumpkin patches than usual around the neighborhood this year, and our neighbor just had a massive pumpkin harvest out of her very successful patch today. We are admitted pumpkin seed junkies, and we’ll have to pick up a few pumpkins before they disappear to make way for Christmas holiday decorations, already creeping into the aisles of the stores.
A Village resident left the following quote as part of a long comment on Sam Adams’ blog, as a follow up to the transportation meeting on Tuesday night. Since the poster didn’t leave his full name, I’m leaving this anonymous although I know who the speaker is in this case - feel free to ping me if you want me to attach your name to this.
Currently there is a pre plan application for new condominiums in Multnomah Village. The plan calls for the removal of two small homes with 18 new condo units and street level store frontage being added. In this plan it calls for only 17 parking spaces, 4 of which are on street. With recent improvements in the village the Business corridor lost 4 parking spaces in this area. So with 18 residential units and store frontage and only 17 parking spaces where will the cars go that people will have? because we don’t have light rail and we have bus service only on the 1/2hr, they will park on the gravel unimproved streets, on neighbors lawns and along the major unimproved edges of the arterial right of way’s. Think about NW 23rd without curb and gutter. That is what we will have soon if something isn’t done. There are several options to solve this: Force extended infrastructure installation by the developer, Add a parking garage to offset the increased added traffic (probably not popular thing with the city or the residents for that matter, but a way to solve a problem. A great location in Multnomah Village is the parking lot next to the Multnomah Center. A two or three level garage could be put there without impacting any views, and in my mind would actually enhance the site as it is a bit ratty today. Add Trolley, Light Rail or substantially increased bus service and of course sidewalks or walking paths that extend well beyond the arterials.
I’ve been meaning to post about this potential new devleopment, but haven’t had access to sufficient information, but the resident I’m quoting is right to be concerned about the impact on traffic and parking if this development goes forward as planned. FYI the site that’s being talked about here is the gravel road bit between Troy and Multnomah Blvd to the side of Abby’s Auto Body. What is that, 37th? Either way, it’s one of our “unimproved streets”. I’ll post more info as it becomes available because we Village residents want to make sure that this developer puts in the necessary infrastructure improvements to help alleviate the traffic and parking issues a development of this scale, in this location, will cause.
PDF document, 182K, click to download or view.
As you probably know, the Jerome F Sears Army Reserve property is being surplused by the US Government. There have been numerous meetings and plans surrounding this site. PDC came to the last Neighborhood Association meeting and gave us an overview of the process of screening and selecting potential development proposals for this site. This is the update sheet handed out by the PDC representative at the last MNA meeting.
The website for keeping track of what’s going on here is www.pdc.us/dod, and you can sign up for email alerts at the site. This is a large parcel of property, and there’s LOTS of potential options for its future. If you’re interested in the potential develeopment of this site after it’s vacated by the Army, check out this PDF and sign up for the emails. It appears that we (the Multnomah Neighborhood Association) will be able to have something of a voice in this process, as long as people show up to be heard.
The PDC project manager is:
David Sheern
Portland Development Commission
Associate Project Coordinator - Housing Department
503-823-4103
sheernd@pdc.us
This post appears in the June issue of the Multnomah Village Post, on stands now:
I’ve been involved in several conversations lately about the sky-high price of real estate in Portland these days. We’ve lived in the Village a long time now, and when we moved in, there were plenty of choices under $200,000. Our big struggle was finding something we could live in for around $150,000. Man, those were the days!
I guess the days of being able to start off your life by buying a house in the Village, unless you happen to be pulling down a major salary, are pretty much at an end. Lately it seems that there has been a dramatic rise in weird house/lot layouts (flag lots anyone?) that allow builders to jam as much house as possible onto what once would have been a pretty standard single lot. The unusual thing about this is that many of these houses are selling for half a million bucks!
The thing that made this topic really lucent, to me lately, is the new house on the corner of SW Vermont and SW 35th. Those of you that have been around for a while will remember that ONE house once occupied that lot, which is now divided into two. The first house that was built sold for over $400,00, but there was this odd space between it and SW 35th. It didn’t seem big enough for a second house…. However, soon enough construction began and now the first house is sandwiched between a property on the left, and this rather large new house between it and 35th. In fact, the two houses share a driveway! How’d you like to live in someone else’s driveway for over $550,000? ‘Cause that’s what it will cost you. I’m pretty sure the owner of the first property is none too happy about this arrangement. It will take the place a while to sell, but it will sell.
Have you spent any time on Portland Maps? (http://www.portlandmaps.com). It’s an instructive site. My own property history on there shows a jump from 70,000 (in 1989) to 160,000 when we bought it, and when we sell the price will be well in excess of $300,000 to be sure. If we didn’t own already, the sheer amount of $500,000 properties immediately surrounding our house might put me off from looking for housing in the Village, or trigger a diatribe against the proverbial Californians who are driving our property values up, but now it just triggers a feeling of relief that we got in while we could. Even so – it’s a little unnerving to realize that the only single family home we can really afford in the Village is the one we’re already in.
I suppose that I have come to accept that $500,000 is a pretty standard price for a newly-constructed house near the Village. Occasionally we’ll come across a real eye-popper at $700,000 or thereabouts. Granted 500-700K isn’t “as much as it used to be”, but those figures still set me back a little. I mean, I’ve got what I consider to be a well-paying job, and I cannot imagine having to come up with the amount of money that the combination of a mortgage payment and the property taxes would equal, on a monthly basis. What are these folks doing for a living, and where did I go wrong?
The fact of the matter is, I’m pretty satisfied with our little house. Sure. It’d be nice to have a driveway and a garage, and traffic gets a little busy sometimes here on 35th, but on the bright side, I’ll probably never be able to say again that our house has doubled in value, when we finally do move someday. Mrs. V is constantly tempted by new houses, and I agree that “they” are building some pretty nice places these days, but being within 2 blocks of the Village main drag is worth a lot of money to me. And apparently, a lot more money to more and more people.
I’ve made several comments lately about how the type of development that’s taking place in the Village is changing. We were in a row house phase for a short time, and there was much angst about that, but now it seems like there’s two types of development. Multi-unit housing, and Big Expensive Homes. These days, if a single-family house gets torn down, seems like you’re most likely to get a whole building full of condos in it’s place…. Here’s an example of another multi-unit building, going sort of next to Grand Central Bakery on what will likely be one of the worst streets to have to drive to and from home on in the Village. Having a big bunch of people living there will be OK, but those people parking cars and turning out onto either 35th or that other street is REALLY going to cause some adventurous traffic. The intersection there by Marco’s on 35th is already somewhat dicey….
Still - I just had a conversation yesterday with a friend who was wondering about condo availability in the Village - so there’s certainly no lack of available customers for these places. Another couple of years and we’re going to have a LOT of people living ’round here.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that….
So I was clicking around on Village related weblinks today and dropped by the Multnomah Village Lofts website, since construction is moving along apace. Their website actually exists now, instead of being just a placeholder, so I checked out the floorplans. Each plan has a name…
There’s a floor plan on the top floor called “The Villager”. Think I should buy it? It could be the ‘blog World Headquarters!
Unit H floorplan, “The Villager”
Parking and getting in and of of the lots over there is going to be an adventure, especially after the six additional townhouse units go in, but it looks like these units are going to be nice. I’m not looking at the prices, but a few more 400K shared-wall units won’t hurt my property value, unless you know, they’re next door.
No, this isn’t a rant about renters, in fact we’re kind of feeling sorry for them at this moment. Of course, that assumes that there are any renters LEFT in the Village and environs. We hear from Mrs. V’s friend down at John’s Market that the Multnomah Village Townhouses are going condo. That’s the funky little wooden shingle mansardish roofed complex immediately east of the viaduct, right next door to the auto repair place. Word is that they’re going to be $279,000. Now 2BR/2BA and 1100 square feet for 279K is a good price if you’re talking about a house in the Village, but for an apartment? One of those apartments?! I think not, thanks. Man, we really got a steal of a deal when we bought our house almost ten years ago for less that 200K - that kind of price would be like winning the lottery now. To think that it takes almost 300 grand to get into a condo under the bridge right off of Multnomah Boulevard? I definitely feel for anyone trying to get started as a homeowner these days, and I know what we all think about apartment complexes and renters, but can’t we preserve SOME space for people that choose to or have to rent? Part of the charm of the Village has been it’s accessibility. I’d hate to think of us losing that, ’cause we are, bit by bit.
It’s not that I’m anti-change. In fact I’m likely more pro-business than 80% of the neighborhood, and I am behind the idea of people owning their own homes and condos (for the tax benefits if nothing else) but it’s been hard to see the prices climb so high in Portland (and everywhere else). I had enough trouble getting into a house, how is my son going to do it?
So, several months ago, a couple of freshly-scrubbed Jr. Executive types visited the Multnomah Neighborhood Association meeting to present an “idea” being proposed for a condo development in the Village. This is located kind of diagonally across from the Multnomah Art Center, twoards the stoplight on 31st. Two older houses were to be removed to make the space. We never heard anything again. Last month, we noticed that the houses had been torn down. Last night, I noticed the above-pictured signs, up on the fence of what is now a construction site.
So much for the neighborhood review process.
Which brings me to mention an issue I have with the Neighborhood Association structure as a whole. There have been rumblings in the Portland-area media this year about how the City is trying to cut the neighborhood associations out of the already convoluted process of development, etc. This is certainly an example of that - since there’s no way that a development of this size would have little to no impact on the neighborhood. It gives one the feeling that the neighborhood association is not much more than a discussion roundtable for local residents - and not the arm of local government that many people assume the NA’s to be. This is not the only recent case of this sort of thing. Is there really such a thing as neighborhood-level influence on local government? I’d say that recent developments point to the answer being “no”.
For now, I’ll leave the politicking to Jack Bog.
The website is non-existent, just a paceholder page with no info, but for the record - it is here.
Although different companies are involved (so far as I can tell) the design looks very familiar….
Longtime readers may remember this post [The Multnomah Villager: Police action]… Well, here’s how the whole series of events has played out. No, I don’t know what became of any of the residents, but the house has moved on to bigger and better things.
Some time ago now, the renters left and the house began an extensive renovation. New roof - new pretty much everything. Landscaping, new turf, new windows, carport was freshened up and a very short time ago a for sale sign went up on the former den of iniquity. We eagerly awaited the information flyers to find out how much it was going to be. rumors were rampant of a hefty price. Several nieghbors strolled across the street to grab a flyer when they went up.
$499,000!
This was like 3 weeks ago. At the end of last week, I noticed a “sale pending” sticker up on the sign. This neighborhood’s getting expensive. At this rate, the 2-and-a-half story place back there off of 36th is going to be 800 grand.