RFP Nears for Next RiverPlace Parcel

PORTLAND, OR-The city’s urban renewal agency, the Portland Development Commission, says it will issue a request for proposals from developers this month for a 1.1-acre parcel in RiverPlace. With construction now under way for the Strand Condominiums, the parcel known as Lot #8 represents one of the two last pieces of land in the mixed-use waterfront district located immediately north of the Marquam Bridge on the west bank of the Willamette River.Kia Selley, the PDC’s project manager for the development, tells GlobeSt.com that development of the property may include residential or office space or both. Regardless, it is required to have street-level retail space. “Our program for the site is very flexible,” she says.The 46,645-sf site has an FAR of 4:1, with a potential 3:1 FAR bonus. Not accounting for the bonus, the site could hold 186,580 sf in buildings as tall as 150 feet, she says. With the FAR bonus, achievable if the project includes certain public amenities, the site could hold about 326,000 sf, she says. The site is zoned CXdg, which stands for Central Commercial with design review and greenway overlays. The last two letters mean that any project proposal must go before the city’s design review commission and that development will have to be set back from the river to accommodate continuation of the city’s riverfront greenway.After lot #8, there is one more RiverPlace property to be developed, lot #3, an approximately two-acre site at the corner of SW River Parkway and SW Moody Avenue, next to Pacificorp’s Lincoln substation. The PDC expects to issue an RFP for the property “in a year or so,” according to an agency source. Property taxes from the Strand development and these last RiverPlace parcels will be used to fund the installation of infrastructure for the new riverfront redevelopment area south of the Marquam Bridge. The 130-acre South Waterfront area is planned for $2 billion worth of development. Construction is under way on the first two buildings in the South Waterfront’s 38-acre Central District, a medical building for Oregon Health Sciences University and the area’s first condominium development. Ultimately, the Central District will 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.