For a moment last week, it was as if the Y2K bug had belatedly hit and rolled back the civic clocks 25 years. There was Neil Goldschmidt, standing in front of reporters, announcing a downtown revitalization plan so bold and seemingly far-fetched that had any other private citizen been in front of the microphones, it would have been laughable.
But Goldschmidt is no ordinary citizen. The former mayor, elected in '72, saved downtown. His fingerprints are evident on light rail, the transit mall, Waterfront Park and, most notably, Pioneer Courthouse Square. It's a staggering legacy, but Goldschmidt has some unfinished business.
Goldschmidt wants to connect the existing South Park Blocks, which end at Salmon Street, to the North Park Blocks across Burnside with a five-block, retail-focused promenade similar to the famed Ramblas in Barcelona. He says the motivation for linking the park blocks (long advocated by city planners) came after he helped save one of the undeveloped blocks (between Taylor and Yamhill) from becoming a 12-story parking garage in 1998. In that last-minute deal, Tom Moyer purchased the block from the Goodman family and donated it to a foundation that will turn it over to the city for park space.
To get public control of the remaining blocks will require even more complicated deal-making, the likes of which haven't been seen downtown for about a quarter century.
Last Thursday he met with WW's news staff to walk them through the concept and talk about the challenges and opportunities it presents. Here are some excerpts from that conversation.
Willamette Week: The catalyst for your involvement was the Goodman family's proposal to put up a parking garage near the existing Park Blocks, something they said was allowed under the downtown plan you created when mayor.
Neil Goldschmidt: I'm not here to argue about the premise, but none of us ever imagined it would permit an 11-story garage. The bulk, mass and just the ugliness of it in that corner, it sort of put a dead stop to the question of whether Park Blocks could ever be finished. So, for a lot of reasons we had a lot of civic opposition. I had a team that was in the city planning office in the '70--all of whom are now retired--and we went into a City Council which, with the exception of Mike Lindberg, had a very institutional memory, and we said,'This ain't right, this should never be allowed.'
In the end, you saved the block from development.
In the end, Tom Moyer saved us. He said, 'Well, having a garage next to me is a pretty good idea economically,' but he had been to a lot of cities in the world, and he said,'I think this is ugly and stupid.' So he gave whatever it was, five million dollars, and the interest keeps growing to the community foundation. The combination of the gift and the interest is enough at the end of the five years to transfer the property to the community foundation and ultimately to the city. Moyer didn't want to quit; his reason for doing it wasn't to stop something bad across from his building. He thought that the 150-year-old idea [of extending the Park Blocks] was a good one.
But 150 years ago, it wasn't such an expensive idea.
[Even then] the city said it was was too expensive, and ever since, for every single opportunity that has come up, someone has said, 'It is too expensive.' These blocks are expensive. We will pay more--Moyer has paid more for half a block than we paid for Pioneer Square. If the downtown works right, this land becomes more valuable.
How was the connection to Barcelona made?
We asked [former city planner Ernie Bonner] if there were any place in the world in which retailing was being done successfully where a park was used as their front yard. And he said one place you actually see it is Las Ramblas in Barcelona. It was sort of interesting to get that one up on the Internet, and he got it up and he showed it to me.
You've shown this plan to two focus groups, one composed of downtown dwellers and the other of residents of outlying neighborhoods. What's the reaction?
There's nothing too miraculous, but there were two interesting things. One is that there's an enormous interest in these blocks because people living in downtown think about them as their front yard and their backyard. And they haven't been told anything about any of this proposal. Also, both groups said you have to fix this crossing at Burnside. An older woman who has lived downtown for a long time says,'I want to go across there to shop, and I am taking my life in my hands.' This is the Berlin wall for pedestrians.
How quickly would you like to see the city move on this?
It can take 10 years or it can take longer. You aren't going to come in and bulldoze and beat the crap out of people.
What are the city politics at work?
When we arrived to have these conversations with the City Council a couple of years ago, they had a massive hemorrhage of the school district and frankly not a ton of relief in sight until [the recent passage of] the local option. The mayor was working on the stadium, and they were cutting deals in the River District and the Blitz Weinhard project. So we showed up with this deal, and the reaction was,'This is major, major stuff.' We were outside of everyone's current budget, and there was a lot of stuff in front of them. So none of their reluctance bothered me.
Who else have you been talking to?
We went up to Seattle for the weekend and had this amazing conversation at Nordstrom's. Nordstrom's said,'This is an enormous possibility for us and all the retailers downtown. 'We have started conversations with the May company [owners of Meier and Frank].
What happens if the deals can't be done?
We don't know what the consequences are of not doing this. We have a Galleria that is dead, a Nordstrom's store where the sales are flat and a Meier & Frank store [that's struggling]. This is not good. Maybe this isn't the answer to any one of them, but what this has done is sort of create a forum for people to say perhaps the stakes are big enough that someone will do something. I think there's a city-wide instinct that we ought to have these city park blocks, that we need a second pedestrian court--we only have one now on the waterfront.
What about other property owners, such as the Zells, who own a parcel on the blocks you're looking at? They want to do their own development. Wouldn't that kill your plan?
Well, I don't think so, because I think ultimately they won't do anything in a time schedule to keep anything from happening. Ultimately the mayor could walk in to the family and say,'Look, I know your first choice is to develop this property, but can we give you something else, where you could take the same kind of energy and creativity and make it work?'.
What about the Arlington Club.and Paramount Hotel, neither of which seems to be in a hurry to give up its space on the contemplated Park Blocks expansion.
My thought is when you are done with whatever you want to do 10 years from now, you go to these two owners and say, 'We want development rights to this property now, and we will pay you cash now for the right to tear down these buildings in 30, 40, 50, 60, I don't care how many years'--we just don't worry about it, and we go out and raise the money and buy those rights and execute them. In 50 years I won't be alive to see it.
Why shouldn't the average citizen say,'This is just another plan to pay for another shopping district to soak up my dollars and promote consumerism?'
What is interesting is if you go see Tim Boyle [of Columbia Sportswear]--and you should--and you say,'Hey Tim, what percentage of your sales are from visitors?' It's a lot. This is news, folks. This is someone else's money feeding our school district. And that is what this conversation is about. I know all about the Park Blocks and their intrinsic value as far as an extraordinary opportunity, and I expect to open the New York Times travel section and see when they talk about coming to Portland, that this district is something special, by building this kind of activity
There are real advantages to having you be the point person on this project. Are there any disadvantages?
I never had a better job in my life than to be mayor for eight and a half years. I arrived at a time when people's willingness to do difficult things was quite extraordinary, and whatever mistakes we made, just an amazing amount got done A lot of wonderful things. To have me show up on the scene again running around--I think people get tired of old guys telling them what they ought to do. I think that is a serious problem for this project. We have to find some ways to change things without me being in the conversation. My view is, I need to get myself out of the situation I am in as fast as I can get, for personal reasons. You know, I'm 60, and I have a few things going on in my life with grandchildren and family and a wife who has her own life
Are you getting paid for this?
No.
You have been involved in a lot of projects since you've been mayor, most notably the Oregon Children's Foundation, which funds the SMART literacy program. But you haven't seemed as excited about any of those as you are this one.
A lot of it has to do with where you are in your life. This, for example, is not an enduring passion like the Children's Foundation. But we have long had an idea to make this the best city of its size in the world. Not to be better than Seattle, or be better than Sacramento, but the best city this size in the world. This isn't New York City--we don't want it to be. This isn't going to be Rome. But when I talk to people who come here, almost everything we thought would make a difference turned out to make a difference. They can walk, it's compact, it's interesting, it's alive. If we get it right, you will still be able to find a decent place to eat on the weekend until 12 o'clock at night, because that's what gives a place its urban edge.
GOLDSCHMIDT SAYS he knows the folks at City Hall are busy, so he's mapped out
a few ideas for them.
