Little village
Quite a few readers took an interest in my post of yesterday about the outrageous scam unfolding in the West End section of downtown Portland. As exposed by Willamette Weed, it's a rehab of an old flophouse into "affordable housing" at the mere cost of $1300 a square foot.
How could this happen? The readers ask. I don't know. But as with everything else in this big small town, there are some interesting dots you could connect.
Who is the City Council member who's pushing the deal against all common sense? Carmen Rubio.
Who is the contractor who will do the platinum-priced remodeling work? Walsh Construction Co.
Who was one of the founders of Walsh Construction Co.? The late Tom Walsh.
Who is Tom Walsh's daughter-in-law? Serena Cruz Walsh.
Who is Serena Cruz Walsh's former employee and good buddy? Carmen Rubio.
Mind the gap ... between cost and performance.
ReplyDelete13 is a lucky number for some folks...
ReplyDeleteFlop houses were affordable housing just without the amenities. Where are the 'flop house's residents going to go? I don't think they have thought this through
ReplyDeleteBrilliant! Always follow the money.
ReplyDeleteIt ain’t who you are it’s who you know
Carmen Rubio is and always has been less than worthless. She’s the living embodiment of the Peter Principle. Now we find out she’s corrupt too…the Latinx JoAnn.
ReplyDeleteShe needs to go… Problem is that by the time her term is up, there will be JoAnn, Candace Avalos, AJ McCreary & Cameron Whitten & 8 other woketards to take her place under the new, improved rule of the 25%ers.
The Peter Principle so accurately represents all I have observed in local governments.
DeleteSo who was the genius who thought that a remodel worthy of a five star hotel room would survive more than two or three “residents” tops? Will the city require a security deposit in case of damages? No need to answer that one.
ReplyDeleteAnd does the 300k plus for each room also figure in for administration costs to run this place? I guess that will be “The Royal Scam part II.”
Thought about this type of real estate investment fifteen years ago. The price to upgrade in those days began at 50k a room. Of course, I couldn’t dip into the public coffers.
ReplyDeleteMr Bogdanski,
ReplyDeleteYou would know that the PDC purchased the building in 2001. That was Mayor Katz time following Mayor Clark's initiative to preserve low cost SROs. You could look up the Commissioner in charge.
In 2010 it was transferred to the Portland Housing Bureau under Commissioner Fish. Then it was transferred to Home Forward. Home Forward, which classifies the building as age 51 and over, with its own board put together the financing plan and tasked the architects.
So Home Forward directed the architects to create a $1300/sf result, including seismic. It would likely be an historic preservation job.
As of January 1, Commissioner Rubio has the Housing Bureau. Rather than a grand conspiracy, I would suspect she is supporting a whole series of decisions by several housing players over 20 years with this building.
If you like, you could go over the public permits and find the board minutes of Home Forward. It is not very lawyerly to construct this level of gossamer guilt-by-association.
Don’t doubt it. However, the Zebra still has stripes
DeleteWhatever the history may have been, this boondoggle can still be shut down. But it won’t be. Ask yourself why.
DeleteWell, that answers that question. I'd always wondered who on council would drop into Dan Saltzman's role. Now, we have it. It's Carmen Rubio. I guess I should not be surprised. I'll now have to watch carefully to see how this all sorts out under the structure.
ReplyDeleteAnd who was Tom Walsh's sister? Dee Walsh, who ran Reach Community Development for years.
ReplyDelete