July 14, 2004
General Consensus On RFP For Burnside Bridgehead
Document To Be Finalized And Issued Next Month
When last we checked in with this story, the executive director of the Portland Development Commissioner had okayed the issuance of a Request for Proposals regarding development of the so-called Burnside Bridgehead project -- a move urged by an advisory committee for the Central Eastside Urban Renewal Area.
Monday evening, that committee held its monthly meeting, at which representatives presented their draft RFP (pdf) for public and committee discussion. For some context, you can also view the presentation provided at the meeting.
Originally, we had intended a rather lengthy item on this, and we might come back to it later (there are some bits about the traffic and market impact analyses underway that we think are important to cover), but for now one of the remarkable things (in a City where so many people seem to question the validity of current public involvement practices) is that more than one person in attendance commended the PDC staff responsible for the language of the RFP, noting that it indeed was what had been talked about and requested at the previous committee meeting.
That's not to say there weren't comments and questions about the RFP. But the vast majority of these fall easily into the category of language and intentions which simply required clarifying.
What this all means, for the moment, is that after the controversy over the initial proposal and its focus on "big box" retail (read: Home Depot) at the site, the City will now be requesting new proposals from developers, a process which very well may yield concepts for the site which do not involve "big box" retail. That's not a given or a guarantee, of course, but it's a far distance from where this issue began. In many ways, the manner in which this process has played itself out to date seems at least somewhat like a model for such things.
For all of how much observers of City processes see things break down, it's been somewhat startling to see how responsive the PDC players involved with this project have been to the concerns raised. It's just one aspect of this approach, but our favorite example continues to be the inclusion in the discussion of the fact that the Burnside Skatepark is directly adjacent to the Burnside Bridgehead location.
(In fact, see this item on that skatepark site for their views of Monday's meeting.)
How responsive have the players been? Well, the following is written into the RFP itself: "The design is required to be snesitive to adjacent uses - Union Arms, Skateboard Park, etc."
Developers interested in instituting a major project intended to both help revitalize the Central Eastside and create a link (or gateway) between opposing sides of the Willamette River are expressly being told that they must abide by the needs of a skate park. If that isn't an example of the mythic "Portland Way" in action, we don't know what is.
Interesting as well was discussion over public involvement once there are finalists under consideration, and once a developer is actually selected. Much of this came down to the aforementioned clarification of language -- for example, changing language which indicated a developer must participate in "up to three" community meetings to make it clear that what the City and community actually wants to require is participation in at least three such sessions. That change was seized upon by audience and PDC staffers alike.
It remains to be seen just what sorts of responses the RFP will generate, and what they will or will not involve for the site. But we continue to be somewhat amazed at how smoothly the sides here -- often considered to be "opposing" sides -- came together and agreed on a direction and process for this.
We don't mean to go all pollyannaish here. This is a major development project, and you never know what's going to come back in response to the RFP, and whether or not there will be consenus as to which path to pursue. But our point, we suppose is this: We certainly hope that the RFP results in a project that finds consensus support -- because that would be the final validation of a process that seemingly has played out far more productively than that to which so many of us have become accustomed.