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The Portland City Council has finished listening to two days of testimony over the fate of Lloyd Center, mere weeks before the Northeast Portland indoor mall and ice rink is set to close to the public.
The Lloyd Center hearing was meant to be one day long, but so many people—90—signed up to testify on behalf of the mall that the City Council decided to spread the meeting across June 24 and 25. Another 50 people testified on behalf of moving forward with the demolition and redevelopment.
The Portland Design Commission unanimously approved the Lloyd Center master plan in March. Two groups—the Save Lloyd Campaign and the Save Lloyd Ice Coalition—appealed that land use decision in April. The master plan calls for the demolition of the mall and ice rink to make way for redevelopment.
Numerous children wearing blue Save Lloyd Ice Coalition T-shirts testified on behalf of saving the ice rink. One person, wearing a sequined jacket and a top hat, stood up after her testimony and sang the 1970 Joni Mitchell song “Big Yellow Taxi” (“Don’t it always seem to go/That you don’t know what you got ‘til it’s gone/They paved paradise and put up a parking lot”) until security physically escorted her out.
Matt Henderson, lead organizer with the Save Lloyd Campaign, argued that Lloyd Center epitomizes the “Keep Portland Weird” ethos with the small, independent businesses that remain as tenants paying steeply discounted commercial rents (“Dawn of the Undead Mall,” WW, June 26, 2024).
“[Lloyd Center] already serves the public, already contains beautiful, reusable structures, and already holds the foundation to the kind of community life that this master plan would only hope to create,” Henderson said at the June 24 hearing.
Save Lloyd’s appeals argue that the design commission failed to fully consider preserving the ice rink and failed to respond to public testimony when it approved the master plan, according to city documents.
The master plan, submitted by mall co-owner Urban Renaissance Group, calls for thousands of new homes at various price points, retail, public plazas and a 4,000-seat live music venue that is already under construction. It does not include plans for a permanent ice rink, as has existed since the mall’s opening in 1960.
“The choice before you is this: move forward now with a well-considered plan that transforms an empty shopping mall into a vibrant new neighborhood, or create uncertainty and delay in an already lengthy planning process that will only make it more difficult to attract new investment into this project and into Portland,” URG managing director Tom Kilbane said in his testimony.
Next, the City Council will deliberate on the fate of Lloyd and take a vote July 8—one month to the day before the mall is scheduled to close to the public Aug. 8.
