The ODOT properties are key to the city's ongoing redevelopment of the east bank, which started with a riverfront esplanade that now provides views of Downtown from across the river. The properties fill the gap between the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry and the south end of the new Eastbank Esplanade, adjacent the Hawthorne Bridge and an old fire station that is being converted for use as a waterfront restaurant.
As part of its east bank plans, PDC staff last October recommended renovating the two-story, high-ceilinged Holman Moving and Storage building and leasing it up to businesses and organizations with river-related operations. The plan was to build a dock and then lease out the majority of the ground floor as a light watercraft center. The first-floor mezzanine and the second floor were to be leased out as office space.
Since that time, cost estimates to permit the dock, operate the building and abate asbestos have increased and would-be light watercraft users have reduced their space requirements, causing the original plan to bleed red ink. Now the PDC has approved a plan that calls for spending $688,000, just enough to prepare the ground floor for a light watercraft center and construct a dock. The first-floor mezzanine and the second floor would remain vacant.
The alternative option not chosen by the PDC was to mothball the building altogether and not build the dock. According to a PDC staff report, neither option is a profitable one. Mothballing the building would have lost the city about $300,000 over the next decade. The path chosen will lose the city closer to $400,000, according to the staff report, but it will have the dock as a new public amenity that "activates" the area and sets the stage for development of Crescent Park, which is planned as a major feature of the new east bank experience.
The assumptions for the costs associated with the chosen option include light watercraft users paying $0.40 per sf per month for 14,300 sf on the ground floor and other ground floor users paying at least $0.20 per sf per month for the remaining ground-level space.
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