I agree about the importance of the historical context of these buildings and the desire to retain them. Ask we to choose between retaining them as is on the historical registry, yes or no, I pick yes every time. They could never be replaced as is, nor would anyone consider it. We don’t have the need or the craftsmen or access to materials. Unfortunately it is not yes or no. There are tradeoffs which pit many goods against each other.
We have “modern” buildings like PacWest and BigPink selling at a fraction of replacement cost. The majority of hotels in the Central City are in or near receiverships and if there is not a dramatic increase in overnight visitation to Downtown and a concurrent recovery of nightly rates, they too will trade well below replacement costs.
Existing businesses are struggling. A few risk takers are entering but at rents and terms that are not sustainable for building owners. The Mayor has created some public safety and livability bright spots but the Cultural District and related assets are being handed off from Metro to the City like a hot potato, losing money. visitation downtown at night is still resisted. The City and County can’t agree on a plan to address homelessness, behavioral health and Public Safety cooperatively. Often they work at cross purposes.
We can’t build affordable housing. The County has squandered scarce funds providing it by spending well over $1,000 at foot to convert SRO historic buildings (Fairfield and Joyce) to earthquake compliant SFOs. No increase in units. They spent over $1,200/sf in pre pandemic costs to convert an unremarkable historic building to the now unrecognizable Behavioral Health Resource Center.
In a very real sense, we are choosing between affordable housing and uses that can activate Downtown in strategic areas that will help it recover and stop the Doom Loop we are in and preserving these buildings for posterity. It should not be an easy decision in that context.
By recent historical numbers, the square block on Broadway under the Solomon building would be valued at $22Milion. It just sold with a building on it for $1.8 Million. That block could effectively provide a whole lot of housing and other uses that could help save the Cultural District and increase much needed tax revenue to the City.
We have to learn to zoom out, look at things in a larger context and compromise if we are going to help Portland recover.
The Precision Images building on SE 7th and Hawthorne contains a large billboard sized graphic that states; Preserving Portland One House at a Time. A great remined that the work of preservation takes due diligence and a commitment to make that concept work for all, owners, developers and the heritage conservation and broader community at large. The inverse is also true and reflected in the concept that the lost of heritage is achieved as death by a thousand cuts, one building at a time. The grounds for those cuts is not only seen by the number of demolitions in the city but by the cuts to the federal, state and city preservation programs in the form of policies, funding or systemic attitudes that cast historic preservation, heritage conservation in a negative light of anti-development or "progress", a very misleading concept. The federal incentives for heritage conservation in the form of Investment Tax Credits, ITCs, was cut from 25% to 20% in the 1986 Tax Reform Act as a result, a significant reduction in historic redevelopment occurred. In Oregon the Special Property Tax Assessment for historic buildings has been reduced significantly and the timeline for assessed value reductions cut. On the local level, there are no incentives, financially or from a regulatory perspective. In Portland the cost for a historic preservation review has significantly increased to the point where the cost of the work is sometimes less that the cost of the permit.
For the County and Federal Courthouses, it used to be that when a historic building is transferred out of public ownership the sale should first be offered to other government organizations or NGOs before they went to the private sector. In either case, that sale included a preservation covenant to protect the property from destruction or compromise to the character defining features of the property. Is this the case with the courthouses?
There are many seasoned architects. preservation/conservation professionals in the community to assist the new courthouse owners toward successful redevelopment however, the federal, state and local support appears to be a shadow of assistance to what was once available. How do we change that dynamic to once again act in unison for the conservation of our heritage?
Thank you for sharing a description of the history of the Multnomah County Courthouse. Adaptive reuse is an important way to preserve the remarkable heritage features. It has workmanship and materials that cannot be replaced and its legal and political history are embodied in its physical structure. As I recall the courthouse originally had some structural flaws when it was built.
I worked as a trial court clerk for Judge Robert E Jones in the old County Courthouse back in 1975 and later tried many cases there as a lawyer. I remember well the newspaper/candy stall, run by a proprietor who was blind, yet unerringly reached for the requested product. The small lunchroom was pretty poor and the top floor jail was cramped, dirty and way overcrowded. The main lobby was always full of Sheriffs, police, lawyers, defendants, jurors and citizens with County business. Many smoking cigarettes and cigars. It was a center of civic activity. And yes, the staircases were grand, very grand.
What we tend to forget is that much of downtown is the result of the massive auditorium urban renewal project and the belief that Portland--a small city in a marginal state--could will itself to be a mini-New York. We'd have a mass transit system (where the masses would come from wasn't spelled out) and out-of-scale modernist cubes such as Big Pink and other bank towers, along with stern concrete piles of apartments and condos for the upper crust.
How'd that work out?
The rest of Portland was left to fend for itself--and, amazingly--actually did pretty well on its own. Big Town pols like to boo-hoo about the east side, while neglecting to observe that it's the result of classic '50s "everything in its proper place" planning. And now the socialists will "save" it again.
The failure of downtown now gets offloaded onto "the homeless," which like saying your case of terminal cancer was caused by a stubbed toe. Downtown was a construct of developer-hustlers, cheap money, a booster press, and over-eager pols intent on "reform."
Maybe we should just give it back to the mob and see what they'll make of it.
I loved going to the Mult Co. courthouse with my Dad, Phil Lowthian. Getting through the metal detectors was always the exciting first step into this world. He showed me where to pay a parking ticket (not that I ever got one); and what floor people were heading to for restraining orders; and where the public terminals were to look cases up. Here you could get the facts on just about anything or anyone.
Yes, they deserve a brighter future and are important to downtown revitalization.
I agree about the importance of the historical context of these buildings and the desire to retain them. Ask we to choose between retaining them as is on the historical registry, yes or no, I pick yes every time. They could never be replaced as is, nor would anyone consider it. We don’t have the need or the craftsmen or access to materials. Unfortunately it is not yes or no. There are tradeoffs which pit many goods against each other.
We have “modern” buildings like PacWest and BigPink selling at a fraction of replacement cost. The majority of hotels in the Central City are in or near receiverships and if there is not a dramatic increase in overnight visitation to Downtown and a concurrent recovery of nightly rates, they too will trade well below replacement costs.
Existing businesses are struggling. A few risk takers are entering but at rents and terms that are not sustainable for building owners. The Mayor has created some public safety and livability bright spots but the Cultural District and related assets are being handed off from Metro to the City like a hot potato, losing money. visitation downtown at night is still resisted. The City and County can’t agree on a plan to address homelessness, behavioral health and Public Safety cooperatively. Often they work at cross purposes.
We can’t build affordable housing. The County has squandered scarce funds providing it by spending well over $1,000 at foot to convert SRO historic buildings (Fairfield and Joyce) to earthquake compliant SFOs. No increase in units. They spent over $1,200/sf in pre pandemic costs to convert an unremarkable historic building to the now unrecognizable Behavioral Health Resource Center.
In a very real sense, we are choosing between affordable housing and uses that can activate Downtown in strategic areas that will help it recover and stop the Doom Loop we are in and preserving these buildings for posterity. It should not be an easy decision in that context.
By recent historical numbers, the square block on Broadway under the Solomon building would be valued at $22Milion. It just sold with a building on it for $1.8 Million. That block could effectively provide a whole lot of housing and other uses that could help save the Cultural District and increase much needed tax revenue to the City.
We have to learn to zoom out, look at things in a larger context and compromise if we are going to help Portland recover.
The Precision Images building on SE 7th and Hawthorne contains a large billboard sized graphic that states; Preserving Portland One House at a Time. A great remined that the work of preservation takes due diligence and a commitment to make that concept work for all, owners, developers and the heritage conservation and broader community at large. The inverse is also true and reflected in the concept that the lost of heritage is achieved as death by a thousand cuts, one building at a time. The grounds for those cuts is not only seen by the number of demolitions in the city but by the cuts to the federal, state and city preservation programs in the form of policies, funding or systemic attitudes that cast historic preservation, heritage conservation in a negative light of anti-development or "progress", a very misleading concept. The federal incentives for heritage conservation in the form of Investment Tax Credits, ITCs, was cut from 25% to 20% in the 1986 Tax Reform Act as a result, a significant reduction in historic redevelopment occurred. In Oregon the Special Property Tax Assessment for historic buildings has been reduced significantly and the timeline for assessed value reductions cut. On the local level, there are no incentives, financially or from a regulatory perspective. In Portland the cost for a historic preservation review has significantly increased to the point where the cost of the work is sometimes less that the cost of the permit.
For the County and Federal Courthouses, it used to be that when a historic building is transferred out of public ownership the sale should first be offered to other government organizations or NGOs before they went to the private sector. In either case, that sale included a preservation covenant to protect the property from destruction or compromise to the character defining features of the property. Is this the case with the courthouses?
There are many seasoned architects. preservation/conservation professionals in the community to assist the new courthouse owners toward successful redevelopment however, the federal, state and local support appears to be a shadow of assistance to what was once available. How do we change that dynamic to once again act in unison for the conservation of our heritage?
Thank you for sharing a description of the history of the Multnomah County Courthouse. Adaptive reuse is an important way to preserve the remarkable heritage features. It has workmanship and materials that cannot be replaced and its legal and political history are embodied in its physical structure. As I recall the courthouse originally had some structural flaws when it was built.
I worked as a trial court clerk for Judge Robert E Jones in the old County Courthouse back in 1975 and later tried many cases there as a lawyer. I remember well the newspaper/candy stall, run by a proprietor who was blind, yet unerringly reached for the requested product. The small lunchroom was pretty poor and the top floor jail was cramped, dirty and way overcrowded. The main lobby was always full of Sheriffs, police, lawyers, defendants, jurors and citizens with County business. Many smoking cigarettes and cigars. It was a center of civic activity. And yes, the staircases were grand, very grand.
What we tend to forget is that much of downtown is the result of the massive auditorium urban renewal project and the belief that Portland--a small city in a marginal state--could will itself to be a mini-New York. We'd have a mass transit system (where the masses would come from wasn't spelled out) and out-of-scale modernist cubes such as Big Pink and other bank towers, along with stern concrete piles of apartments and condos for the upper crust.
How'd that work out?
The rest of Portland was left to fend for itself--and, amazingly--actually did pretty well on its own. Big Town pols like to boo-hoo about the east side, while neglecting to observe that it's the result of classic '50s "everything in its proper place" planning. And now the socialists will "save" it again.
The failure of downtown now gets offloaded onto "the homeless," which like saying your case of terminal cancer was caused by a stubbed toe. Downtown was a construct of developer-hustlers, cheap money, a booster press, and over-eager pols intent on "reform."
Maybe we should just give it back to the mob and see what they'll make of it.
I loved going to the Mult Co. courthouse with my Dad, Phil Lowthian. Getting through the metal detectors was always the exciting first step into this world. He showed me where to pay a parking ticket (not that I ever got one); and what floor people were heading to for restraining orders; and where the public terminals were to look cases up. Here you could get the facts on just about anything or anyone.