Schnitzer Family Donates Waterfront Land to OHSU

PORTLAND-Oregon Health & Science University received the largest gift in its 117-year history Tuesday when the Schnitzer family donated 20 acres of former industrial land in the city’s new South Waterfront district. Valued as high as $35 million, the land donation ensures that OHSU will be able to meet its growth needs without having to grow outside the city.The land is located on the south side of the Marquam Bridge in the northern district of the 130-acre South Waterfront Area. OHSU says the land eventually will house a new dental school, medical and nursing education facilities and possibly a pharmacy school. The land is a few blocks north of where a tram will connect OHSU’s land-locked campus on Marquam Hill to the waterfront. The tram is located in the central district. The university last year acquired land there and already has broken ground on a $145-million building for outpatient treatment, laboratory and office space.Last summer OHSU and private investors including local developer Homer Williams hammered out an agreement with the city for $1.4-billion of development in the 31-acre central district. The central district is located between the Ross Island Bridge and Bancroft Street. Under the agreement, OHSU’s project will be complemented with high rise residential buildings that city officials hope will lure the wealthy back from the suburbs, strengthening the tax base and helping the city to afford the public money that will be spent to pay for the necessary infrastructure to move people in and out of the new district. In addition to the tram and new streets, the infrastructure will include an extension of the city’s streetcar line into the area from Downtown.Preliminary plans call for the central district to hold some 2,700 condominium and apartment units in towers rising between 250 feet and 325 feet, making them some of the tallest buildings in Portland. The height is in part in exchange for the extension of the city’s public riverfront greenway into the area and in part a way to maximize tax revenue from the condominiums, as the apartments will likely get tax breaks and OHSU’s development will not be taxable at all because it is a nonprofit entity. The agreement outlines $440 million in private investment in direct new building development for the first phase of the three-phase central district agreement and $103 million in public infrastructure projects. At build out, the Central District will have received $1.3 billion in private investment, according to the Portland Development Commission, the city’s urban renewal agency, which is directing the development and hammering out the necessary agreements.