A Changing Portland

[puerco]

HaHa! My old apartment burned down decades ago! I hope no one's still paying rent!

[58rhodes]

Originally Posted by puerco

I got tired of reading all the back & forth between PDXDENSITY and everyone else. I can understand where PDX is coming from. When I moved out of my parents' home in Irvington at the age of 18 I headed straight to NW Portland because at the time it was the most urbanized part of the city. I loved being able to walk everywhere & to have a choice of a few different buses in my neighborhood.
When I was a kid I used to walk to Lloyd Center & downtown all of the time. I have never lived in the suburbs & never would. Sitting in traffic all day just to go to the grocery or drug store is insanity to me.
I was born at the old St. Vincent Hospital in 1949. I've witness Portland go through a lot of changes & think the added density coming into the city is a good thing.
I'm now living on Nob Hill close to the Financial District in San Francisco. Out of 49 units in my apartment building only 1 person owns a car. Density makes that possible.

Portland is still very far off from having that much population growth.

[MarkDaMan]

Jon Bell: ‘Progress’ pushes out Portland favorites
Feb 5, 2016, 3:00am PST
Jon Bell
Staff Reporter
Portland Business Journal

http://www.bizjournals.com/portland/...favorites.html

Looking to grab a stiff late-night drink at a storied dive on Southeast Hawthorne, sip a glass of wine on a scenic riverfront Portland patio or take in some jazz at the city’s most revered jazz club?

Your days are numbered — at least if you were thinking of Sewick’s bar on Hawthorne, the Veritable Quandary in downtown or Jimmy Mak’s over in Old Town Chinatown.

In the past few weeks, the three Portland establishments, notable as much for their longevity as they are for their singular offerings and loyal patrons, have been swept up — or soon-to-be torn down as the case may be — by the seemingly unstoppable development machine coursing through the Rose City. All three are in the process of selling and will be leveled to make way for new real estate projects.

In the case of the Veritable Quandary, owner Dennis King decided selling his restaurant to Multnomah County so the county can build a new 18-story courthouse downtown was the right move to make after 45 years in business.

“We had to get out of the way of progress,” he said.

The VQ will likely remain open through the summer, then shutter for good.

For Sewick’s, known for cheap and stiff drinks without a lot of nonsense, the end will come this month after the owner sold the building to a developer for $1.4 million. In its place will rise a 46-unit mixed-use apartment building with 2,700 square feet of retail space on the ground floor. The developer is Urban Development Group, which has been busy all over Portland in recent years.

And even though Jimmy Mak’s is going the same route as Sewick’s — the building owners sold to a developer who’s planning an 11- to 14-story residential development — the iconic jazz club won’t go silent for good. The club plans to stay open into the summer and it’s currently looking for a new home in the neighborhood.

Throw in the Lotus Cardroom and Café, a downtown bar and restaurant that opened during Prohibition and that will likely be torn down for a new office and hotel development, and you’d be forgiven for worrying that your favorite place is next on the list. The way things are going in Portland these days, it just might be.

Jon covers real estate for the Portland Business Journal. Sign up for his daily newsletter to hear about new projects and get behind-the-scenes looks at Portland's rapidly changing built environment.