November 25th, 2009
Murmurs • Our Reporting, Our Words.0 comments
November 25th, 2009
Dr. Know0 comments
November 25th, 2009
Letters to the Editor • Inbox0 comments
November 25th, 2009
Lost A Space | The new cannabis cafe’s neighbors are ticked. But not about the pot.0 comments
November 25th, 2009
Contract Killers | What’s holding up a deal between Portland Public Schools and teachers?1 comment
November 25th, 2009
Reasonable Doubts | Five Portlanders take the police union’s beanbag-video challenge.0 comments
November 25th, 2009
A Donor By Any Other Name | Corporate interests use associations to pass money to Oregon’s anti-tax campaign.2 comments
November 25th, 2009
Cover Story • Trail Mix | This holiday weekend, give thanks for your other family: The Blazers.0 comments
November 25th, 2009
Ask the Editor • What Were We Thinking? | WW Editor Mark Zusman answers your questions about our coverage.0 comments
November 18th, 2009
Murmurs • Going Rogue Each Week4 comments
 STRIKE OR SPARE? Where will developer John Plew put these beloved bowlers when he remakes Grand Central Bowl? IMAGE: LEAHNASH.COM |
[September 27th, 2006] It took two sets of developers, nearly a year of chasing permits, and much sweet-talking of skeptical bankers, but the project to redevelop the former Grand Central Bowl in inner Southeast Portland has finally begun.
John Plew, president of Foresight Development, says the final product, Grand Central Market, will be a mixed-use adult destination when it opens next summer, with 10 or so "urban retailers" (like coffee shops, bakeries and places to buy hand-printed T-shirts) ringing a 12-lane bowling alley complete with a full-scale restaurant and two bars.
Foresight bought the building for $3 million in November 2005, after Gerding/Edlen Development gave up on a similar scheme for the property at Southeast 8th Avenue and Belmont Street.
Hard-hatted contractors entered for the first time last week, sinking hammers into plaster to restore Grand Central's past glory. Not the glory most Portlanders remember—the bowling alley that flourished from the 1950s until it closed in 2004—but an even more distant heyday, when the building housed a public market beginning in 1929, Plew says.
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The $6.3 million redevelopment project will let developers win a place for the project on the National Register of Historic Places—and thus keep breaks on its Multnomah County property taxes. But tearing down some of the alley's vestiges risks angering locals who place the structure right up there with the Lovejoy Columns on their list of Portland landmarks.
Some of the sacrifices won't be missed—like the aluminum siding used to "modernize" the building in the 1960s. But if Plew can't find a way to save the plaster-and-paint bowlers who adorn the entrance, there may be hell to pay. The figures—brightly colored 3-D silhouettes—are not exactly beautiful. But to many, they qualify as art.
Author Katherine Dunn lovingly characterized them in a 1985 WW article as "Portland's answer to the Sistine Chapel ceiling and the mosaics of Pompeii."
Plew says he wants to remove the bowlers and install them inside the lanes, but he's unsure how to manage the task.
RECENT COMMENTS ON “Bowling Green”
it's a shame what concept entertainment is doing to portland. they are a great business if you are a owner, but if you work for them it's a different story. the over priced nightclub's they own are ...
