As you may remember, purchasing 500sq feet of hardwood flooring was a 100% gamble. Sure, Lumber Liquidators had their No Payment No Interest for 12mo's deal going on, but who wants another card and another must-pay-this-off-in-a-year monthly payment? I gambled on upcoming tax refunds to pay off the ...

The 11xDesign homes tour seemed to be a smashing success. When I visited Atelier Waechter's Z-Haus a little after noon (two hours into a seven-hour tour window), a few hundred people had already stopped by. The same was true at Path Architecture's Park Box (pictured at left) and the other residences...

During the condo building boom of the last several years, no other Portland firm has capitalized more than Ankrom Moisan. Particularly in the Pearl District as well as in South Waterfront and in several other west coast cities, Ankrom has designed and seen built a host of multifamily housing project...

The effort to build an indoor year-round public market in Portland has undergone several iterations. The historic 511 Broadway building, now set to be occupied by the Pacific Northwest College of Art, was one proposed site. So was the Greyhound terminus and a few other locations. Now the proposed Ja...

Last week when I arrived at The Encore condos, developer Hoyt Street Properties’ latest building in the former Hoyt Street Yards parcel being converted over the years into Pearl District urbanity, there was a freight train stuck just a few yards from Union Station, keeping traffic on either side o...

Although we all know the market for condominiums is not what it was a year or even six months ago, many projects were well underway as the housing market and broader economy began sliding. But while it's not the best fiscal climate for projects like the Hakoya Lofts on North Williams Avenue at Shave...

Yesterday I had an appointment with a couple who live in The Metropolitan, the BOORA Architects designed (and Hoyt Street Properties-developed) Pearl District condominium on Lovejoy between Jamison Square and Tanner Springs parks. (Their unit is being considered for a home magazine article.)&nb...

If developer Ted Gilbert, the architects at Works Partnership and creative director Gavin Shettler have anything to say about it, 82nd Avenue in Portland may no longer be seen as the armpit of Portland with its an unpleasant melange of traffic, big-box chain stores and prostitutes. Recently I made t...

An editorial in today's Oregonian argues for the development proposal by Nitze-Stagen of Seattle (with Portland's Zimmer Gunsul Frasca as architect) to be the choice for Centennial Mills. "It challenges the city to create an incubator for its next incarnation," the editors write. (I assume their spe...

A few days ago, following a national search for a developer of the Centennial Mills site, the Portland Development Commission announced its three finalist proposals. They come from LAB Holding of Costa Mesa, California; the Cordish Company of Baltimore (a.k.a. "Balmer"); and Nitze-Stagen o...