July 17, 2003
Betting On South Waterfront (Bonus: About That 'Blank Canvas')
In the most recent Sunday Oregonian, architecture columnist Randy Gragg backs the South Waterfront plan:
It doesn't have enough affordable housing, critics of the massive South Waterfront project declared. The developers are paying too little and the city too much. Tall buildings will block longtime residents' views in the neighborhoods just up the hill. All the new people living, working and visiting in the area will clog the district's roads.
But a line-by-line reading of the South Waterfront Central District Project Development Agreement yields a lot to appreciate, chiefly the complexity of the handshake. The agreement is classic Portland "I'll-do-this-if-you-do-that" public/private partnership, but of a scale and complexity previously unknown.
Be sure to read the entire thing to see where Gragg is coming from. But I was curious about what he thought about the comments of the previously mentioned architect involvedi n the project. So I emailed Gragg to ask. Here is his response:
Stuart drew some pictures of a city that helped the developer conceptualize plans, but mostly helped the developer sell the project. My understanding is that the more influential design work was done by Busby & Associates out of Vancouver B.C. who did wind, light, view studies and figured out the placement of the towers proposed. Stuart didn't do himself any favors with that article, because anyone who knows the project knows what a minor role he played. The Trib's business profiles tend to transcribe whatever the subject says unchallenged.
As far as the "approach" you speak of, it's typical of early conceptual stages of a project. It's mostly brainstorming and what those in the biz call "eyewash." What gets built likely will only bare passing similarity to the pictures. The days of South Auditorium District master planning where the result looks exactly like the pictures are long over.