In February, after the city and developers found out about Ikea's interest in opening one of its 400,000-sf stores in Portland, the development plan for the area was quickly revised to correct a miscalculation regarding the retail component of the master-planned development. The original plan--for 400,000 sf of retail in buildings no larger than 60,000 sf--was not successful, they said, because it was essentially a neighborhood shopping center without a neighborhood due to its proximity to the airport.

The revised plan--which calls for 800,000 sf of retail including one retailer anchor with a 205,000-sf footprint (Ikea's preferred footprint), another with a 185,000-sf footprint and a third with a 90,000-sf footprint--allows for the kind of destination retailers that should draw enough customers from the region to create a market for smaller retailers such as coffee shops bookstores and restaurants. That, in turn, should give companies a reason to relocate their employees to the area, sparking prelease commitments that the developers could then use to obtain construction financing for the project's 1.15-million-sf office component.

The office component was cut back from the original 1.32 million sf to allow for the expansion of the retail component. For the same reason, the number of hotel rooms in Cascade Station was cut back from 1,200 to 250 and plans for a 24-screen movie theater were scrapped altogether. A gas station fronting Airport Way remains part of the plan. The changes were approved by the Portland City Council in February but weren't reflected in the Portland Development Commission's six-year-old development agreement with Cascade Station Development--a joint venture of Bechtel Corp. and Trammell Crow Co.-- until June.