The same old song
I see that the bureaucrats running Portland's "urban renewal" machinery are still out there selling the story that someday the site of the old Main Post Office is going to be part of a wonderful, "vibrant" residential neighborhood, instead of part of the dangerous, drug-infested tent camp zone that it is today. The "Broadway Corridor," they're calling it.
The business writers at the O can't wait to parrot back what the bureaucrats are saying, of course. It's so much easier than critical thinking.
They've been pitching that story for a long, long time now. Every time they get a phone call from somebody to ask about it, they announce that "talks are under way." It's been five or six years of "talks," and nothing's happened.
It's a shame what they have done. They took a perfectly good postal facility, one that provided dozens, if not hundreds, of good-paying union jobs, and they ran it out of town. Where once there were lots of foot traffic and people driving in and out of the parking lot to do their Post Office business, now there's nothing but an empty lot surrounded by a collection of street junkies living in tents.
God forbid they should put an organized homeless camp there. That would be admitting the obvious failure.
No sir, someday it's going to be shiny apartment bunkers with a couple of cell phone stores and a weed shop. "Vibrant"! Someday. Maybe. Talks have resumed.
"They took a perfectly good postal facility, one that provided dozens, if not hundreds, of good-paying union jobs, and they ran it out of town" - I think it's more accurate to say they offered cash-strapped USPS an offer they couldn't refuse: a free facility by the airport backed on tax-payer dollars.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.linns.com/news/postal-updates/usps-mail-processing-plant-set-open-soon-portland.html
"Portland Mayor Vera Katz initiated the city’s efforts in the spring of 1995 with a letter urging the federal agency to vacate its downtown processing plant and move to another location, allowing the city to “realize the vision of the River District” by selling the postal site to developers."
"Under the plan, Portland would pay the Postal Service $88 million for its downtown facility and the Postal Service would pay $69 million for the new site 5½ miles away near the airport."
And without hindsight, if you were looking at the booming Pearl District and the "success" of the south waterfront in the early 2000's, this all made perfect sense. But today we can't get get Zidell built. It was just absolutely terrible timing.
I stand by what I wrote. It was all a bad idea from the get-go.
DeleteSeems like they were close to getting something going recently but ran the developer out of town by micromanaging the project to fit our always-growing laundry list of “equity” concerns.
ReplyDeleteWhat a joke. Who would want to invest money in Portland these days, much less at that site. With all the street addicts around there, how does anything there but a homeless camp make any sense?
ReplyDeleteJust check another "FAIL" box, growing by the day.....Portland FAILS abound in all categories.
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