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Over the past decade, tree-filled plazas and modern apartment buildings have risen in the once-industrial Slabtown neighborhood of Northwest Portland, the result of a blueprint crafted by developers and the city aimed at transforming 18 acres into housing, greenspace and shops.
That development plan is in its last stages as one more massive apartment building goes up along Northwest 21st Avenue, with the daily scene featuring cranes, workers in hardhats and the throaty sounds of construction machinery.
But as the final units go up, a city park promised to the Slabtown neighborhood by developers appears to be in jeopardy.
WHAT WAS THE PROMISE?
Con-way Freight, the company that owned much of the Slabtown neighborhood, agreed to a large-scale development plan with the city in 2012. It would sell off parcels of the company’s land to developers in piecemeal fashion.
One of those parcels, purchased by Guardian Real Estate Services in 2015, would be called Slabtown Square. It would feature 200 apartments, commercial ground floor space, and a massive public plaza. (Slabtown Square suffered delays due to a series of objections by the Northwest District Association to the design of the building and its central plaza. It’s set to open in 2024.)
Another critical piece of the approved design plan: The eastern portion of the block would become a city park that, according to the 2012 Master Plan, “may be conveyed to the Parks Bureau.” In subsequent documents, the city stated it had set aside $5 million for it and had already hired a project manager.
WHAT’S HOLDING IT UP?
That’s unclear. But a few things could complicate the transfer.
First, the city never signed a legally binding agreement with Guardian Real Estate Services (or the block’s former owner, Con-way parent company XPO) for the handoff. And the Con-way Master Plan, which regulates the sweeping development, expires at the beginning of 2024.
Moreover, it’s unclear who has the authority to transfer the land to the city: Guardian or XPO. It’s also unclear what the asking price will be for the land—if there’s an asking price at all.
And then there’s the issue of who is responsible for environmental cleanup of the site before it’s transferred. The parks bureau says the city has been trying to get the land transferred since 2016, and one sticking point is “unresolved issues about which party is responsible for the environmental cleanup” of the block. (The 1-acre block is currently a construction staging area lined by gravel and filled with porta-potties, trucks, tractors and sheet metal.)
Now, the city’s Bureau of Development Service says, “Nothing in the Master Plan requires that the site become a city-owned and operated park.”
“The Master Plan contemplates that it may be conveyed to Portland Parks & Recreation,” bureau spokesman Ken Ray says, “but it does not require the parks bureau to take responsibility.”
The city is “actively working to obtain the property,” Ray adds, but if the handover isn’t completed by January 2024, “the city will evaluate all legal options.”
Kim Gaube, a spokeswoman for Guardian, owned by developer Tom Brenneke, says it is “currently working to hand over Block 290E at no charge for the creation of a future city park. Understandably, these processes take time, and we are working with the city of Portland on the transfer of the land.”
WHAT DOES THE NEIGHBORHOOD SAY?
The Northwest District Association has strong feelings about the possible loss of a promised park.
Emails between a board member of the NWDA and city staffers over the past three years, obtained by WW, offer a look into the confusion surrounding the transfer of the park—but little clarity as to what the holdup actually is.
City staff and NWDA board member Steve Pinger went back and forth about the intricacies of the handshake deal. Documents show Pinger worried that the Master Plan’s expiration in 2024 would mean that the zoning—which stipulated the area could be developed only as a park—would revert, meaning there would be no such obligation.
In early July of this year, the parks bureau told Pinger that the ongoing negotiations among Guardian, XPO and the city were confidential. That’s left the neighborhood in the dark.
The association’s same concerns persist today.
“That the promise of Slabtown Park may now evaporate is an outrage,” says current NWDA president Todd Zarnitz.
“The city says they want the park. Guardian says they want the park. However, there is no park, and there is a very real danger that there will not be a park,” Zarnitz adds. “The negotiations between the city and Guardian are confidential, so we do not know what went wrong nor what continues to go wrong.”