Commercial Real Estate in PDX

I ran across this interesting article today by Maura Weber Sadovi from the Wall Street Journal Online--interesting to me, at least, because it's about the commercial real estate market here in Portland. Over the last six or seven years since I've lived here, the area around the downtown has transformed; and in fact my personal impression is that on the commercial side of things the momentum continues to build. When I moved here, the Pearl District, a formerly industrial area north of W. Burnside, was still mostly rundown warehouses and industrial structures, sprinkled here and there with some converted loft condos and a few boutiques.  Now nearly the entire district is either new high-end, high-rise apartment/condo construction, or renovated retail space.  There has been some commercial construction downtown as well--the Fox Tower didn't exist when I first moved here.  But the most significant commercial development at present is the South Waterfront Project.  The city is investing a massive amount of resources in this project, from what I hear, in the hopes that the development (which is integrated with the Oregon Health and Sciences University) will prove crucial to establishing Portland as an important biotech center. 

Sadovi’s main point is that the “flurry of construction” may be “too much of a good thing.”  In other words, yes, we’ll get a more vibrant and lived-in urban center, with more expansive and varied neighborhoods and more of a cultural heart; but we’ll also get the traffic and construction that goes along with that.  The flaw with this viewpoint is that it overlooks the fact that having these problems at some point in the future would actually prove that it <i>is</i> worth it: if we have lots of traffic and a continued willingness to invest in commercial projects in the downtown area, then it means more people are using and enjoying that space. 

Personally, I welcome the development.  I enjoy the fact that Portland is more of a big town than a small city, but I’m excited about the fact that what was a fairly homogenous day-time-only downtown full of office buildings and a few restaurants, has been evolving into a truly vibrant and alive area, where people don’t just work, but conduct their whole lives: live, eat, shop, and entertain themselves.