August 01, 2004
Burnside Bridgehead And The Depot Debate
Revelopment Project Receives Sudden Burst Of Coverage
In the past couple of weeks, several items have appeared regarding the Burnside Bridgehead redevelopment and the potential for siting a Home Depot at that location. It wasn't worth pointing them out when there was just a single story, but now that there's four different pieces that have accumulated, it seems apt.
First, we go back an entire week to an article in The Sunday Oregonian about the questions raised by a potential Home Depot in the Central Eastside:
Most agree that replacing the homeless shelter and surrounding buildings with a snazzy new complex would make for a grander gateway. But this tempting proposal has spawned a larger debate.
If a major retailer such as Home Depot prevails in an upcoming competitive proposal process, would that spark investment benefiting area businesses? Or would that mark a step toward homogenizing the district's historic and independent flair?
This debate about convenience and cost versus creativity and community is unfolding in cities across the country. Large retailers are migrating in from the outskirts. They're building urbanely designed stores that offer the benefits of big -- one-stop shopping and plentiful selection -- without the suburban box appearance.
The article offers comments from the Portland Development Commission, neighborhood businesses (on both sides of the issue), and Home Depot. One commenter seemed more concerned with raising questions about the development including housing than with anything else, but we thought that was half the point of mixed-use development -- which this project is supposed to be.
Then there's this Friday's Portland Tribune, whose headline communicates that the forthcoming Request for Proposals (which was urged by the Central Eastside Urban Renewal Advisory Committee) is intended to "big box" retailers. This was most assurdely not the intention of the RFP, which is meant to be neutral on the subject of "big box" or no "big box." But the Tribune article only mentions such large-scale retailers.
Continuing along chronologically, an editorial in yesterday's Oregonian came out in favor of a Home Depot:
Our hunch is that Home Depot would help, not hurt, most of these enterprises in much the same way a big department store such as Meier & Frank helps draw shoppers to small independent shops downtown. It's not hard to imagine a Portland homeowner picking up a few things at Home Depot on Burnside before stopping at nearby specialty shops to buy high-end light fixtures and some chrome-plated door hinges not sold at the chain store.
While the editorial also mentions to RFP (as did the Sunday Oregonian and Portland Tribune articles, not one of these three pieces bothers to also mention that currently underway are traffic and market impact analyses on the matter of a large-scale retailer settling in at the Burnside Bridgehead site. So hunches are all well and good, but it would be nice, if The Oregonian were going to run with the hunches, if they would also mention that more quantitative data as to these questions were on the way.
Finally, Jon Croix responds to the editorial on his comparatively new weblog, taking the opposing side and arguing that "the City and the Portland Development Commission should be creating incentives for production companies to take advantage of the unique opportunity for industrial use and exposure the Central Eastside presents."
But since we're playing hunches on this matter, we admit to being a little suspicious that this project suddenly is receiving so much attention -- especially since that attention is fixated on the "big box" potential to the point of incomplete reporting, and to the exclusion of relevant facts. It makes us wonder if there isn't a public relations push going on right now to undercut any real consideration of responses to the RFP that might not include "big box" retail.
Comments (1)
jon croix on 02 Aug 2004
B!X,
RE: your statement wondering if there was a public relations push to help undercut alternative proposals in the RFP, I think you may be on to something.
From the beginning this has felt like a decision in search of a process and not a process in search of a decision.