2603 NE 7th Ave at NE Russell.

While I was getting my haircut yesterday we started talking about all the real estate developments and building sites across Portland. We talked about SE Division St and how it has changed drastically, just in the short time that I've ben living in Portland. R then asked me if I knew anything about the site on NE 7th, I'd heard nothing about it. Well, a friend of hers lives on NE 7th and the old abandoned service station (pictured here) was sold in May to some property developers who are proposing an 8 storey apartment building, 82 apartments.

The service station site has been empty for years, I looked at the city records on the site (it was built in 1927) and there are nuisance complaints filed on this property going back to October 2000, so 14 years at least this site has been a pain in the butt for the neighbors. NE 7th is on the eastern most edge of the Irvington neighborhood (which is an historic district) and the start of the Eliot neighborhood, so the east side of the street is Irvington and the west side is Eliot. NE 7th is a fairly busy road but still residential and two blocks west lies NE MLK Jr. Blvd., which is a main thoroughfare. So this empty site is a prime spot, close to downtown but quiet and residential enough. However, an 8 storey building would be ENORMOUS in this neighborhood and would tower over the 1 - 3 storey homes that are here. In the lot right next door to this is a very modern minimalist row of 3 storey town houses which look really cool and complement the mix of architecture in the neighborhood but they'd be completely dwarfed by what's proposed for right next door.

The Eliot neighborhood has some kind of petition going, unfortunately they've chosen to put it on a closed site on Facebook which isn't readily accessible to everyone - the link is via the King Neighborhood Assocation's FB page which I found via The Oregonian. I hope they decide to reach out to other neighborhood associations like King and Irvington and hopefully they are successful in negotiating a smaller build with the developers and the city. The neighbors are happy to be rid of the service station yet unhappily faced with a potential giant landing in their midst.

Portland is growing rapidly so these developments are needed and change is hard but a balance needs to be found. More pictures here of the site with different views, in a couple of the shots you can see the modern build referenced above that successfully coexists with some of the older homes.

I realize this is probably of little interest to others but I like to use blip to record some of the ongoing changes in NE Portland and Portland in general.