Opportunity Gateway StrategyPortland, Oregon |
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Improving a Regional Center. Named for a 1950's shopping center (right), the Gateway district is almost completely built out with auto-oriented retail, office, and light industrial development. Calthorpe Associates proposed improvements to the district, such as new streets and public spaces, that will enhance its pedestrian character and help attract future development. |
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Because of its central location and excellent transportation links, the Gateway district of East Portland was designated a "Regional Center" under Metro's 2040 Plan. Regional Centers are meant to have high concentrations of jobs and housing to take advantage of their accessibility and encourage walking, biking, and transit use. Currently, Gateway's extremely fragmented street network discourages walking and forces most auto traffic onto major arterials, even for local trips. Although some new multifamily residential development has occurred in the district since 1996, when it was re-zoned for higher intensities and mixed-use, Gateway's employment base has remained stagnant. Meanwhile, residents have expressed a desire for more parks and community facilities, as well as a more pedestrian-oriented streetscape. |
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Regionally Integrated. The Gateway Transit Center will be less than ten minutes from the Portland airport by light rail when an extension is completed in 2001. |
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| A 640-acre area bounded by a freeway and major arterial streets was selected for detailed redevelopment planning under Oregon's Transportation and Growth Management program. Working with the Portland Development Commission, Calthorpe Associates developed strategies for incremental change to increase the neighborhood's livability and pedestrian orientation as individual properties redevelop.
(The Concept Plan is the background image for our wesite) |
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| After analyzing the potential for redevelopment
on each parcel in the study area, Calthorpe Associates held a community workshop with
neighborhood residents, property owners, and other stakeholders to develop their vision
for the area. This collaboration helped produce a Concept Plan and development program,
later reviewed by community task forces, that reflected community concerns, market
absorption factors, and transportation impacts.
The Concept Plan suggests locations for new neighborhood parks to serve the higher-density residential development already occurring, as well as a phased system of proposed street connections designed to increase the district's pedestrian and bicycle connectivity incrementally as redevelopment occurs. The strategy thus takes advantage of development momentum while ensuring a better quality of life for residents, employees, and visitors. |
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Existing |
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Concept Plan |
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A Converted Commercial District. The Concept Plan shows how an underutilized mall site (see existing conditions aerial) could be redesigned as a pedestrian-oriented, mixed-use development focused around a public park. |