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Susan's Guide to the South Waterfront Condos
South Waterfront Neighborhood
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Let Me Help You Find the Right Condo
I can help you with finding a new or existing condo in the Portland metro area. If you're interested in in a condo, call me at (503) 497-2984 or e-mail me at Susan Marthens.
South Waterfront History and Development Plans
The South Waterfront, the largest and most expensive redevelopment effort in Portland history, will transform an abandoned 130-acre industrial brownfield along the Willamette River south of downtown into a $1.9 billion high-rise neighborhood as dense as parts of Manhattan. Eventually, 20 high-rise buildings will be built on the site. This includes medical offices and labs for Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU).
The Portland Development Commission (PDC) signed an agreement with OHSU and a group of waterfront property owners that cleared the way for construction of a 38-acre central district, which includes 3,000 residential units, one million square feet of office space, 150,000 sq. ft. of retail and a hotel/conference center.
Map of South Waterfront
You can view a map of the area (Adobe PDF format). A map showing the South Waterfront area along with the buildings is available at Mapwith.us − it is a couple of years old but the map shows all the condos and apartments to include the OHSU Wellness Center.
Apartments in the South Waterfront
There are a number of apartment buildings in the South Waterfront.
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The Ardea The Ardea is a 30-story building that offers 323 apartment homes and 33 townhomes. It started out as the 3270 Condos but when the market for condos went sour, it converted to apartments.
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Matisse The building consists of two five-story apartment buildings at Southwest Lowell Street and Moody Avenue. The Matisse's 272 rental units are the first of 700 market-rated apartments called for in the Portland Development Commission's South Waterfront urban Central District Development agreement. It will open in the fall of 2010.
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Riva on the Park A 22-story apartment building offering studios, one and two bedrooms, and penthouses.
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The Tamarack Affordable apartment units as well as ground-floor retail and office space. It occupies what is known as Block 49 at the south end of Portland‘s South Waterfront District.
List of Condos in the Portland Metro Area
Skyscrape has a very complete list of condos in the metro area. You can view the list by clicking here.
SkyscraperPage.com's forum has been one of the most active skyscraper enthusiast communities on the Web. The global membership discusses development news and construction activity on projects from around the world, alongside discussions on urban design, architecture, transportation and many other topics.
Homes for Sale in the South Waterfront
View homes currently for sale in South Waterfront by clicking here. To search for homes in downtown Portland, go to Search Downtown. You can use over 100 search parameters and then select a specific area off a neighborhood map by drawing a box around that area. Alternatively, you can just specify the criteria and obtain all the current listings in the downtown area.
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Atwater Place
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 Atwater Place In Block 34, a 22-story, rectangular tower features 212 condominium units, five of which are townhomes. Unit sizes range from 1,100 square feet to 3,700 square feet. Most of the units have views of the Willamette River and Mt. Hood.
The building features 10,000 square feet of retail space on the ground floor. Its design of gardens and eco-roofs help the Atwater Place obtain a silver certification under the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design rating system.
Sustainable aspects of the building include storm water management to mitigate run-off, high-performance glazing to reduce heating and cooling needs, low-flow shower heads, faucets and dual-flush toilets, nontoxic finishes, and local sourced materials with high percentages of recycled content.
The building was designed by Thomas Hacker, principal of Thomas Hacker Architects. The design also includes work done by GBD Architects. The design for the tower's sculptured faces is crafted in glass for a prismatic effect. Cut into the façade, the balconies are staggered recesses in the shear glass plane of the building's face. It also has a raised courtyard and ground-level plaza.
Hoffman Construction crews begin excavating for the foundation and placing structural supports in late December 2005 and the building was completed in 2007.
September 2009 Sales Update: Atwater Place Auction
Accelerated Marketing Partners auction on September 20th resulted in the sale of 40 units. In late September, the firm retained to dispose of unsold units at Atwater Place, listed nine additional units for sale. Accelerated Marketing Partners announced it has placed a series of mostly two-bedroom units on the market.
In all, 100 of the 23-story project’s 212 units have sold. Prices for the newly listed units start at $339,000 for lower-level units in the podium section of the building and rise to $815,000 for a two-bedroom, two-bath unit on the 10th floor.
For more details visit the Web site Auction at Atwater Place.
Location Atwater Place is located on Southwest Gaines Street, directly south of the Meriwether condo towers. It is the third residential project in the central district of South Waterfront.
Developer Gerding/Edlen Development Company. They also developed the John Ross, the Ardea, and the Meriwether in South Waterfront as well as the Brewery Blocks in the Pearl District.
Construction New building.
Number of Units A 22-story, rectangular tower features 212 condominium units, five of which are town homes.
Style Traditional style with multiple rooms. Size of units go from 1,100 to 3,700 square feet.
Pricing Under $400 per square foot.
Parking Underground.
Sales Office Realty Trust is the real estate broker for the condominiums. Their office is 0680 SW Bancroft, Portland, OR 97239. Call (503) 222-7788 for hours.
Completion Date The Atwater was completed in late 2007.
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John Ross
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 The John Ross Tower is the first building to reach a 325-foot height maximum allowed in the South Waterfront area. Architects from Thompson Vaivoda Architects and GBD, a second Portland firm, offered the elliptical design. The city changed its rules to allow expanding the size of tower floors from 10,000 to as much as 12,500 square feet.
Most floors in the John Ross are 12,261 square feet, tapering to 8,252 square feet on the top few floors. It offers 286 units, 247 in the tower and 39 in a four-story podium. Plans called for 50 percent of the units to sell for less than $325,000. The roof of the podium is a green roof with a community garden.
The metallic blue building rises in an elliptical shape that looks wider or narrower from different vantage points from the west, along Interstate 5 and the Marquam Hill area. For one, it seems narrower than rectangular, so-called "slab," buildings. The shape also reduces the surface area, or in architectural terms, the "skin," by 10 percent. That means more budget was devoted to the materials and detailing of the skin.
In the May 6 edition of The Oregonian, Bob Thompson, a principal of Thompson Vaivoda Architects, reported: "the elliptical form helped preserve views around the building from Southwest Terwilliger Boulevard while allowing addition of a quarter-block public plaza at the corner of Southwest Gains Street and River Parkway."
The tower lobby has an 18-foot wall of glass that Thompson said is intended to be a "highly lit beacon" at night. The plaza has trees and beds of perennials, in addition to a low-lying water feature and outdoor seating on a hard surface adjacent to the buildings.
It was announced in August 2005 that the developers of Portland's South Waterfront area say they're taking a tougher stand against buyers who want condominiums to rent out or quickly resell and they're planning to require sworn promises that buyers intend to live in their units. The new policies, will apply to presales in the John Ross condo tower. These new policies will:
Countering perceptions that investors and not potential condo dwellers are the ones fomenting feverish presales and record prices.
July 2010 Sales Update: 18 Units Left
Prudential Real Estate Investors, which has primary control of the tower, sold 47 condos in South Waterfront’s John Ross building in less than two hours on April 11, 2010. More than 750 people turned out for the auction, filling a basement conference room and then some at the downtown Hilton.
Compared with the prices at the height of the real estate boom, the auction bidders took home condos at an average 50 percent discount. The John Ross condos were listed for an average of $711,000 during the top of the housing market. They sold for about $316,000, according to winning bids announced at the auction. The auction will provide another benchmark for how far the downtown high-rise condo market has tumbled. In the fall of 2009, the more upscale Atwater Place, across the street from the John Ross, sold condos for about $300 a square foot, on average. The John Ross units sold on April 11 for about $230 a square foot.
Location South Waterfront between Southwest Pennoyer and Gaines streets and between River Parkway and Bond Avenue.
Developer Gerding/Edlen Development Company along with Williams & Dame Development Inc. They also developed the Atwater, the Ardea (apartments), and the Meriwether in South Waterfront as well as the Brewery Blocks in the Pearl District.
Construction New building.
Number of Units 31-story condominium tower with 303 units. Ground floor retail and underground parking.
Style Traditional style with multiple rooms.
Size The average is 1,200 square feet per unit - the smallest units are about 600 square feet.
Green Received gold certification from the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design.
Pricing From $199,000 to $2,200,000.
Parking Underground.
Sales Office The sales office opened in mid July 2005 at the Discovery Center located at 0680 SW Bancroft, Portland, Oregon 97239. Telephone: (503) 222-7788.
Completion Date Construction began in the summer of 2005 and the John Ross was completed in late 2007.
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3720 Condos
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 3720 Condos A Corus Bank, a subsidiary of Corus Bankshares Inc., announced in April 2007 that they had closed a $113 million loan to Block 30 Investors L.L.C. for the development of 3720, a residential high-rise development planned for Portland, Oregon's South Waterfront district. The developer is an affiliate of Williams & Dame Development and Gerding Edlen Development.
3720 consists of a 30-story tower and a five-story "side-car" structure, which together contain 323 units, for a total of 350,000 square feet of condominium space. In addition, the development also has 17,000 square feet of retail and 380 parking spaces.
The project is the third in the South Waterfront area for developer Block 30. The firm's Meriwether condo development is located adjacent to 3720.
May 2009 Sales Update: Converting to Apartments
Developer Mark Edlen announced that 3270 will be converted to an apartment building and rename to the Andrea. Edlen said three factors drove the switch on the nearly finished building: the slowing housing market, a tighter mortgage market, and the strengthening rental market. South Waterfront has condos for sale in two other towers: Atwater and John Ross.
Location South Waterfront. It is just to the south of the Meriwether twin towers and John Ross at Block 38. The address is 3720 SW Bond Street.
Developer Block 30 Investors L.L.C. - an affiliate of Williams & Dame Development and Gerding Edlen Development.
Construction New building.
Number of Units 30-story condominium tower with 323 units. Ground floor retail and underground parking.
Style Traditional style with multiple rooms.
Size 30 stories, 325 feet with 323 units.
Pricing N/A as converted to apartments in 2009.
Parking Underground.
Sales Office The Discovery Center located at 0680 SW Bancroft, Portland, Oregon 97239. Telephone: (503) 222-7788.
Preconstruction Reservations Call (503) 222-7788.
Completion Date Construction began in the spring of 2007 and completed in 2009.
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 Mirabella OHSU launched a partnership in January, 2007, to build a senior living community that will put hundreds of prospective residents at its South Waterfront doorstep.
This 30-story Continuing Care Retirement Center (CCRC) will offer fine senior living that supports successful aging, including spacious view apartments and suites, Penthouse dining, world-class amenities and services, various levels of health care, and convenient underground parking. Residents will enjoy spectacular views of the Willamette River, Mt. Hood, the Portland cityscape, and a park, which is expected to span two blocks in front of Mirabella. The university sold a block in the new neighborhood to Medford-based Pacific Retirement Services Inc., which is building a 30-story senior housing building that would offer a range of retirement living options, from apartments to nursing home level care. The arrangement will strengthen OHSU's relationship with Intel, OHSU officials said, as the two can work to develop devices and techniques aimed at making aging easier.
Location The Mirabella will be located on the 1.16-acre Block 31 of The River Blocks, bordered by S.W. Curry, S.W. River Parkway, S.W. Pennoyer, and S.W. Bond. This is just west of the Meriwether condo towers and facing a planned 2-block park.
Developer Pacific Retirement Services, Inc is located in Medford, Oregon. They also developed a number of other Continuing Care Retirement Communities (CCRC) to include the Mirabella in Seattle.
Construction New building.
Number of Units A 30-story tower will feature 224 apartments.
Style Traditional style with a large open area for the living and kitchen areas. Size of units go from 800 to close to 2,000 square feet. One and two bedroom apartments with penthouses at the top floors.
Pricing Pricing to be determine by Fall 2007.
Parking Underground.
Sales Office Call (503) 245-4742.
Preconstruction Reservations Spring 2007. Applications for wait list are now being taken. Call (503) 245-4742.
Completion Date Construction began in spring 2008 and will be completed in the fall of 2010.
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