The future Focus Apartments
A pair of development projects that would add more than 500 new apartments to the Central District along 12th Ave will come before the Central Area Design Review Board this week including a building that will create a new home for the Photographic Center Northwest and the restart of a long-delayed project at 12th and Spruce,
900 12TH AVE: The plan for the redevelopment of the Photographic Center Northwest at 12th Ave and E Marion continues to, well, develop.
Plans call for the demolition of the current building and parking lot, though the center will live on in the new construction. The new building is planned to be seven stories. The photo center will occupy about 10,000 square feet on the ground floor. Above will be about 170 apartments, 20% of which will be set aside as affordable housing. The building will run the length of the block along Marion.
Design review: 900 12th Ave
Land use application for a 7-story, 170-unit apartment building with institution (Photographic Center Northwest) and retail. Parking for 46 vehicles proposed. Early Design Guidance conducted under 3039185-EG.
View Design Proposal (32 MB)
Review Phase
REC–RecommendationProject Number
3039117 View Related RecordsPlanner
David Sachs
The plan came before the board in December 2022, but has seen some changes since then. Developers have landed one of the design options presented then, and will present a more fleshed out version. The face along Marion will have the exterior wall popping in and out in intervals in what the developers are calling a “pixelated blend.” The color scheme will feature a wide V-shape, with the outer left portion of the V in gold, the inside in grey and the outer right in white. The outer left portion of the V will also be recessed a bit.
The 12th Avenue façade will see the gold and gray wrap around the corner, to meet a pillar of white on the opposite corner. Continuing around the corner, the wall over what is now longtime bar The Chieftain will have a series of black and white panels, though the exact pattern is not yet decided. That face will have no windows, in the expectation that The Chieftain will one day be redeveloped (there are no current plans for such a development; this is simply standard practice). Further back along that face, however, the building pulls back a bit from the property line, and some windows are included there.
The building face along 13th will feature a gold T shape, with white panels under the arms of the T. There are also plans for a café at the corner.
The main entrance to the photo center will be at the corner of 12th and Marion. The residential entrance will be on 13th. The building’s underground parking lot, which will have 44 spots, will have access from Marion. Next to the garage access, developers have planned a large mural.
The landscaping plan call for the usual sidewalks with a more open area at the corner near the center’s entrance. There’s also plans for plantings and street trees along all three sides of the building. There are plans for some typical amenities, a small gym, bike storage room and roof deck. Some top-floor units will also have balconies.
During the Early Design guidance meeting in December, the board and some members of the public had asked about finding ways to incorporate more open space into the project. The developers have demurred. They say extra open space would take away from either the needs of the photo center, the apartments, or both. They further point out not open space is not required for this project.
1203 E SPRUCE: The return of a long-delayed project at 12th Ave E and E Spruce is also on the design review docket this week. Plans started for construction on the now-empty lot back in 2015. But the property, opposite the juvenile justice center, changed hands a couple times since then, most recently being acquired by Portland, Ore.-based T property Investments, LLC in April 2022.
Architects MG2 are designing the proposed new building, which is slated to have about 1,900 square feet of commercial space, along with 391 housing units. Plans also call for an eye-popping 243 parking spaces.
Design review: 1203 E Spruce St
Design Review Early Design Guidance for a 9-story, 391-unit apartment building with retail. Parking for 243 vehicles proposed
View Design Proposal (11 MB)
Review Phase
EDG–Early Design GuidanceProject Number
3040434 View Related RecordsPlanner
David Sachs
The plan is in the early design phase, with the developers mostly giving their ideas about the mass of the building. They offer three options for lot, which is roughly L-shaped, if the bottom, horizontal line had gotten a bit chubby (prepare yourself, there are a lot of letter analogies coming). The plan is complicated by the lot straddling multiple zones, require the building to step downward as it reaches eastward, with the tallest part at 12th and Spruce.
Additionally, the property is adjacent to historic Washington Hall, a city landmark that is also on the National Register of Historic Places.
The longest side of the building faces Spruce Street. All three plans call for building frontage the length of Spruce, and then curling back in to fill in the rest of the lot. Each of the plans calls for some vertical bands or breaks on Spruce to break up the massing. The retail space is planned to face 12th Avenue.
The first plan suggests a J-shape, allowing for a large courtyard in the crook of the J. The J would be closed on the bottom floors to create privacy in the courtyard. In this case, the bottom of the J will be facing the lower-density areas to the east, and loom over Washington Hall, which the developers note could be a problem. Also, the parking lot access would be off Fir Street, right behind Washington Hall, which the developers say would be undesirable. This version also pushes the retail space around a bit, while it still faces 12th, more of it ends up on Spruce than the developers would like.
The second proposal would have a squared-off O shape, with a stick coming off of it. Similar to the J-shape, it just takes the bit closing the loop of the J all the way up, creating an even more private courtyard, and allowing for more breaks in the mass along Spruce Street.
The third option, which is the developer’s preferred option, is more of a lower case h. The bottom bit would still be filled in on the lower floors to create privacy in the courtyard. This, however, has the advantage of the upper floors facing eastward having a break in them, so there’s less mass facing Washington Hall and the lower-density areas.
The third option is also able to move the parking access further west along Fir Street, giving some more space from the historic building. The developers say this option does create some issues owing to changes in topography along Spruce.
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The design for the building to replace the two story masonry building that houses the Photography Center is really disappointing. Way too much ticky tacky (hardiboard). They should hire a new architecture firm and head back to the drawing board.
Will you pay for it?
Hardi Plank is so damn bad. I really miss brick. This new trend is worse than vinyl in ugliness.
You do realize that we are woefully behind in the process of updating a lot of our brick infrastructure to be structurally stable when the next major earthquake strikes, right?
People that complain about new buildings don’t care about people. They care more about aesthetics than actually getting enough housing.
Homes are to be lived in not to be looked at.
“Homes are to be lived in not to be looked at.”
Right. And clothes are to be worn not looked at and food is to be eaten not looked at and that’s why we all wear potato sack clothing and eat steak and potatoes pureed in a blender.
You do realize it’s not an either/or choice, right? There’s even a nifty old saying about it: Form follows function.
It is the either/or.
Yes and they make nice faux brick for exteriors that I think you can put right over hardiboard – it must be too expensive but would make that box a little warmer and more inviting.
Me taking a picture of how ugly this building is