City Buys Warehouse Site to Raze, Redevelop

PORTLAND-The City of Portland’s urban renewal agency, the Portland Development Commission has acquired the Grant Warehouse site on Northeast Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard with plans to replace the existing building with a residential-over-retail development.

The 16,200-sf site is located near the intersection of MLK Boulevard and Fremont Avenue and is seen as a key commercial redevelopment “node.” The property holds a 19,000-sf building that had been used by the previous owner as a metallurgical laboratory to recover precious metals from waste received from other facilities.

In late 1998 and early 1999, an Environmental Protection Agency investigation found more than 10,000 containers in the building, including 55-gallon drums of industrial wastes. After tests demonstrated high concentrations of heavy metals in deteriorating containers, the EPA determined there was imminent threat to human health and the environment and began emergency abatement action.