Guide to the South Waterfront Neighborhood in Portland, Oregon

The South Waterfront, (SoWa as it is commonly called) the largest and most expensive redevelopment effort in Portland history, is transforming an abandoned industrial site along the Willamette River south of downtown into a high-rise neighborhood as dense as parts of Manhattan. Eventually, some 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 30 plus acre central district, which includes 3,000 residential units, one million square feet of office space, 150,000 square feet of retail and a hotel/conference center. If you desire to follow the progress of the development: South Waterfront. 

South Waterfront area has become the first urban neighborhood in the United States to achieve Salmon-Safe certification. Salmon-Safe’s certification of South Waterfront means that the area exceeds state and federal regulatory commitments to protect the Willamette River and its urban tributaries. Salmon-Safe is a Portland based nonprofit certification organization. The designation commits the neighborhood to sustain its environmental stewardship over time, including the district-wide elimination of pesticides that are harmful to salmon and other aquatic life.

In addition to South Waterfront, other Portland Salmon-Safe certified urban projects are the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, Nike, Portland State University, Portland Parks, Oregon Convention Center and Toyota at the Port of Portland. Salmon-Safe’s inspection team has certified more than 65,000 acres of farm and urban lands in Oregon and Washington, including 140 vineyards that represent a third of Oregon’s total vineyard acreage.

The SW Moody Project will reconstruct approximately 3,200 linear feet of SW Moody Avenue between SW River Parkway and SW Gibbs Street near the OHSU Tram. This project supports redevelopment of the 120-acre South Waterfront area which is part of Portland’s “Innovation Quadrant” slated to facilitate new job creation and provide access for people and goods. As the main access point to the South Waterfront Innovation Quadrant, SW Moody Avenue will be improved to include three traffic lanes, dual streetcar tracks, and pedestrian and bicycle facilities. The new construction will increase roadway capacity and introduce urban development standards such as fiber optic, sewer, stormwater and water infrastructure to support future development. This investment in roadway and streetcar facilities supports the Portland-Milwaukie Light Rail extension, and “Close the Loop” streetcar line extensions.

You can view a map of the area (Adobe PDF format). Note that SoWa is part of the South Portland neighborhood association but it has a character of its own so we included a separate profile for the neighborhood.

Blogs and Newsletter

The Sowa Notes blog was originally started by Pearlgirl as a blog about the Pearl District, but she changed the scope of the blog to include other neighborhoods that she frequents. Visit the South Waterfront blog — it aims to keep you up to date and provide you with useful information about what’s going on in the South Waterfront neighborhood, including calendar, maps, and other information. You can also follow the blog on Facebook.

You can keep current on what’s happening in the South Waterfront’s monthly newsletter. South Waterfront Community Current includes events, a calendar, and more. Click here to subscribe.

OHSU Center for Health and Healing

The first building, named The Center for Health & Healing (CHH), is a $150 million 16-story facility that was occupied in late 2006. The first two floors contain the March Wellness — a fitness center and health club. Four floors provide state-of-the art research space where OHSU scientists can create new knowledge and eight floors of the Center provide all types of patient care.

As riders of Portland’s aerial tram descend Marquam Hill, the first feature they encounter in the new South Waterfront District is a giant picture window looking in on an room filled with exercise equipment at OHSU’s new river campus. This is where you can discover, explore and realize your goals for a hearty and healthy life. Features of March Wellness include a salient lap pool, a warm salient therapy pool, health coaching, aerobics, meditation, financial health seminars, strength training, yoga, and healthy cooking classes.

The 50,000-square-foot center is open to OHSU’s patients, students and faculty, but also to the public at rates competitive with the city’s other major health clubs. The center is destined to become an important lure for the district’s so-called “urban pioneers” — South Waterfront’s first residents.

Collaborative Life Sciences Building 

In October 2011, three of Oregon’s universities broke ground on a unique project that will combine the resources of these institutions. The OUS/OHSU Collaborative Life Sciences Building placed portions of Oregon Health & Science University, Oregon State University, and Portland State University under one roof. In doing so, the facility extended partnerships between the universities, create new employment opportunities, and expand the schools’ teaching facilities, class sizes and research activities. The location of the building is between the Marquam Bridge and the Ross Island Bridge.

The 480,000-square-foot building includes lecture halls, classrooms, labs, specialty research centers, offices and a state-of-the-art facility for the OHSU School of Dentistry. The Collaborative Life Sciences Building will foster collaboration in undergraduate and graduate education between students and instructors from multiple institutions.

OHSU Future Development Plans

OHSU’s facility planning vice president Brian Newman hosted an informational meeting for the South Waterfront neighbors in the summer of 2014. Below are what OHSU’s plans are for future buildings.

Three new buildings are planned. It appears the $500 million challenge grant that Phil Knight offered to create a new cancer center will be met — Knight will give $500 million if OHSU can raise an additional $500 million. The new Knight Cancer Center, dedicated to early Cancer detection, will be situated on the Schnitzer Campus just north of the Collaborative Life Sciences and School of Dentistry buildings. Preliminary plans call for a building of eight stories of experimental and computational labs, administration space and 270 parking spots. However, the specifics are likely to change several times. The Knight gift provides for team research, acting as an endowment which will free researchers from continually having to pursue grant monies. The Cancer Center will conform to the Schnitzer Campus’s dedication to research and academic pursuits.

A new patient ambulatory care center (Center for Health and Healing – South) will be built on Block 29 over the existing CHH parking garage. It is expected to be smaller than CHH – North, perhaps 12 stories. Adjacent to it on Block 28 to the east is a planned 10-story guesthouse for the use of patients and their families, with approximately 500 parking spaces. The guesthouse will incorporate the Ronald McDonald House, previously located in a house near the OHSU Marquam Hill campus. These two new buildings will include restaurants and conference rooms and perhaps some retail space, and will be tied to each other and CHH North by skyways.

The three new buildings are expected to be occupied by 2018, total more than one million square feet. Other land owned by OHSU in the South Waterfront is not included in the current 20-year plan and is currently designated undeveloped. Thus, it appears that Meriwether residents’ northern views will be preserved for the time being, although some of the undeveloped property will undoubtedly be used for staging during construction of the new facilities. 

PDC has been working with ZRZ, the real estate arm of the Zidell family, and the Portland Housing Bureau on an approach to affordable housing for the planned development, which includes more than 1.5 million square feet of mixed use projects in the next 10 years.

The Condos: Meriwether, John Ross and Atwater Place

In early 2006, the first buildings appeared along Portland’s South Waterfront. Developers and city planners hope they won’t entirely block the Mount Hood and river views for residents and passers-by on the west side of I-5.

It’s a seemingly contradictory goal to build taller buildings yet make them less visible on the skyline. The concept used by planners, architects and activists is “permeability”. This means the ability to see through the development, even if only intermittently. Permeability doesn’t just mean protecting the view from a single lookout, it’s about trying to avoid uniform rows or “canyons” of buildings, instead allowing sunlight, wind and a variety of view angles between towers. The permeability is trying to get at thinner buildings, buildings that aren’t occupying an entire block. The issue of permeability focuses on ways to build with the same amount of square footage, but with a thinner profile.

These are the first condos buildings.

• Meriwether Towers The two Meriwether towers (245-units in double tower stretching 21 and 23 stories tall. The towers were occupied by the first South Waterfront residents in 2006.
• The John Ross The John Ross is the first to reach a 325-foot height maximum allowed in the South Waterfront area. The building was occupied in the summer of 2007.
• Atwater Place In Block 34, a 22-story, rectangular tower features 212 condominium units, five of which are townhomes. The Atwater Place was completed in late 2007.

Another condo building called 3720 began construction in the spring of 2007 and the developers decide to convert it to an apartment building (The Adrea) when the condo market went sour before marketing the units. It 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.

Mirabella: Continuing Care Retirement Community

OHSU and Medford-based Pacific Retirement Services (PRS) launched a partnership in January, 2007, to build a senior living community called the Mirabella that put hundreds of prospective residents at its South Waterfront doorstep. PRS built a 30-story senior living community that offers 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. The project is LEED Platium certified. Residents started moving in in the fall of 2010 and all the apartments are now sold.

Apartments

• 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 was converted to apartments.
• The Emery  The seven floor 118-unit Emery apartments — the unusual rust-colored exterior to the south of the Ross Island bridge — represents the Zidell Company’s first stab at redeveloping about 33 of the acres attached to its barge-making plant on the Willamette River. Rents at the Emery start at $2.22 per square foot, or $999 a month for a 450-square-foot studio unit and rise to about $3,000 a month for the largest units, with two bedrooms and two baths. The first tenants moved into the Emery at the end of September 2013. The Emery has five retail spaces along Moody. Lovejoy Bakery leased a 1,495-square-foot corner spot facing to the south.
  
• Gray’s Landing  This building was completed in late 2012. Gray’s Landing (previously known as “Block 49”) contains 209 housing units. Apartments are affordable to households earning 60% of Median Family Income ($30,660 for a single-person household). Forty two (42) of the apartments are targeted to low income veterans who have been homeless within the past two years. Cost of the building was $50.5 million.
• 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 opened in 2010.
• Riva on the Park  Atlanta-based real estate giant Trammell Crow Residential started work in the early Summer of 2007 on the first apartments in the South Waterfront area. This 22-story building is designed with a brick tower at the NW corner and a window-wall exterior that opens to the river views. The completed project has 314 apartments and three levels of structured parking. Riva on the Park includes a 28,000 square foot eco roof; a storm water sculpture; and a make-up air system to increase indoor air quality. The project achieve LEED Gold certification. At 22 stories, the 230-foot tower is the tallest apartment building built in Portland in about 40 years. It is slightly shorter than the twin Meriwether condo towers a block away. The building offers studios, one and two bedrooms, and penthouses..
• Block 37  The development team behind a 278-unit apartment building at South Waterfront presented its designs to the city’s Design Commission in May 2014 and construction began shortly after the design was approved. Completion is scheduled for October 2016. The building will be at a river-facing site at 3700 S.W. River Parkway. The six-story project includes 6,000 square feet of retail space and underground parking for 225 vehicles as well as more than 400 bicycle parking spots. The Block 37 project is one of the first development deals for Mack Urban, a joint venture formed in late 2013 by New York-based Mack Real Estate Group and Los Angeles-based Urban Partners LLC. Its Northwest operations are led by Jim Atkins, a veteran Portland developer who has worked in both the Pearl District and South Waterfront.
• Block 43 (Ella)  Construction begun on a 199-unit apartment development in May 2014 and completion is scheduled for early 2016. The six-story building at 3850 S.W. Moody Avenue. — on what’s known as Block 43 — is being developed by Dallas-based Alamo Manhattan. It will include 1,500 square feet of ground-floor retail space, as well as 196 underground parking spaces. The transit-oriented development is adjacent to two stops of the popular Portland Streetcar. The community will feature a wireless lounge, 24-hour fitness center, and rooftop terrace with views of the Willamette River, Mount Hood and the Portland skyline. The project is expected to be LEED Certified.

Zidell Yards: 33-Acre Mixed-Use Community to be Developed

At one time, the South Waterfront was filled with heavy industrial companies helping the shipping industry. One of the last remaining is The Zidell Company. After 80 years of supporting the shipping trades, the company is taking some of it’s property and redeveloping it. They announced this undertaking in the fall of 2012.

Zidell Yards will be a 33-acre mixed-use community consisting of 27 buildings, apartments, retail and corporation headquarters built over the next 10 to 15 years. The first building constructed was a 118-unit apartment building on seven floors named the Emery in honor of  Emery Zidell, the company’s second generation head. According to the Zidell Yards Website, “The river is a universal draw and the Zidell family believes it should be celebrated and shared as a citywide gathering place. Small, creative firms to large corporate campus users are demanding buildings with character and soul, collaborative open space floor plans, and sustainable features.”

In June of 2014 Zidell announced they are planning to build another apartment building as well as an office building. The family hopes to build the two new buildings near The Emery, an apartment building with retail units on the ground floor. The two new buildings will be a similar scale to The Emery.

The new structures could capitalize on recent leasing successes at the Emery. The building, which opened in the summer of 2013 on Southwest Moody Avenue, is now 95 percent occupied.  Four of the retail units have been leased by Lovejoy Bakers, Cha Cha Cha restaurant, Fieldwork Flowers and Greenleaf Juicing Company.

Parks and Health Clubs in the Neighborhood

The initial greenway parks master plan calls for $25 million in improvements to the Willamette Greenway. South Waterfront’s greenway (along the river) is eventually supposed to run from the Marquam Bridge south to just beyond the Old Spaghetti Factory. The first phase will run from Gibbs Street to Lane Street and parallel to the area’s first condo towers and includes trails and habitat view areas. The master plan for the first phase includes a pier and a kayak boat launch.

Elizabeth Caruthers Park is a 2.14 acre park that features an open lawn area for performances, an urban garden, boardwalks, a water feature, bike racks, public art and streetscape improvements. There is also a naturalized landscape with a storm water retention system. The park is named for Elizabeth Caruthers, one of the early settlers of Southwest Portland in the 1850s.

A cobblestone path to the river was completed when they constructed the Meriwether townhomes and it opens to an asphalt pathway along the river which is about 300 yards long. Connecting the path to the Gov. Tom McCall Waterfront Park to the north will not be easy as the path will have to cross over the Zidell Marine (shipbuilder) land plus other industrial land to the north of the marine. Connecting the trail to the Willamette Park to the south and to Gov. Tom McCall Waterfront Park in the north would mean bikers, runners, and walkers could travel about 4-5 miles along the west side of the Willamette River. The pathway would start at the Steel Bridge to the north and go all the way to the Sellwood Bridge to the south. Hopefully the planners have this in mind.

South Waterfront residents are able to have great views of the river if they face east. Looking across the river, strollers can view Ross Island, a refuge for wildlife and home to blue herons and bald eagles. The river also offers excellent canoeing and kayaking. Learn more at the City of Portland Planning and Sustainability website pages about River Renaissance.

There are two health clubs in the neighborhood:

• March Wellness occupies the first two floors of the CHH building and it is open to both OHSU staff and the public. Besides the normal physical activities, March wellness offers foreign languages classes, nutrition cooking classes, etc.
• The RiverPlace Athletic Club is located about a half mile north of SoWa. As of May 2015 the club is closed due to financial problems.

Elizabeth Caruthers Park  South Waterfront has a 2.12 acre park that opened in 2009 named after Elizabeth Caruthers, an early pioneer woman who was one of the first settlers in the southern part of the young city of Portland. The park is on the west side of the development and a beautiful spot for OHSU workers as well as patients to enjoy lunch sitting on one of the benches.

South Waterfront Greenway  The South Waterfront Greenway Development Plan, accepted by City Council in 2004, provided a vision and concept plan for the entire South Waterfront Greenway. The Greenway, which stretches from the Marquam Bridge south to the River Forum Building, will strive to balance the needs of the public and the health of the Willamette River. The plan calls for eventually creating 100-foot-wide parks along the river for 1.2 miles between the Marquam Bridge and an existing trail at Johns Landing.

The plan envisions a system of parks working together to enliven the neighborhood, stimulate development activity in the area, and to provide for the recreational needs of area residents. At the direction of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the State of Oregon Division of State Lands (DSL) and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), the design for the riverbank restoration includes habitat in the form of a shallow water bench that will provide shelter for juvenile fish and adjacent riparian plantings. Working jointly with the Corps of Engineers, Oregon DSL, NMFS, Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, and the City’s Bureau of Environmental Services, a hybrid concept was developed in summer 2010 that met public and agency needs.

The first phase of the project included construction of a five-block-long mix of lawn, park and plaza areas along the Willamette River between Southwest Gibbs Street and Lane Street. Below the green space, which has separate paths for bikes and pedestrians, a 25,000-square-foot gravel beach provides improved fish habitat. The first phase of the Greenway was opened in early 2015. A photo of the Greenway is displayed on this page.

Ross Island Bridge Park  The logistics of a new public park and affordable housing options are among the remaining details that the Portland Development Commission (PDC) is finalizing with ZRZ Realty Company for South Waterfront’s next major development phase. Since early December 2014, PDC has worked with representatives from ZRZ, the real estate arm of the Zidell family that owns 30 acres in the district, and the Portland Bureau of Parks and Recreation to come up with terms for what is currently being referred to as Ross Island Bridge Park.

The parties are identifying the size, location and conceptual design for the new park, which would be part of the multiphase development that ZRZ is planning for the next 10 years. PDC would likely contribute up to $5 million to acquire property for the park. Park planning will also include greenway improvements between the Marquam Bridge and the Ross Island Bridge, funded by PDC and designed by ZRC.

Aerial Tram Links OHSU Campuses

Linking OHSU’s Marquam Hill Campus to its first building in the river blocks, the Portland’s Aerial Tram transports researchers, students, medical professionals, patients and visitors between Portland’s foremost medical institution and its newest development. The 3,300-foot tram extends from the main Marquam Hill campus to a terminus at Southwest Gibbs Street and Moody Avenue near the Willamette River. The Portland Aerial Transportation (PATI) is the private non-profit organization empowered by the City of Portland to oversee the design, construction, and operation of the Portland Aerial Tram.

On December 15, 2006, the Portland Aerial Tram began ferrying Oregon Health & Science University employees. To catch a free ride on one of the nickel-colored pods requires an OHSU employee badge.

Tram Fares Officials from the city of Portland and OHSU approved the fare of $4 in late January, 2007, for non OHSU staff and patients. The $4 fare is for a round trip. OHSU staff and patients can ride free. As a courtesy, OHSU is paying the cost of the tram ride for its patients who have appointments at OHSU, and also for individuals who are visiting patients in OHSU Hospital or Doernbecher Children’s Hospital. The city projects 85 percent of the tram’s 1,540 daily riders will be OHSU-related. Other points:

• Offer free rides for annual and monthly TriMet and streetcar pass holders.
• Offer a $4 round trip fare for people without passes.
• Sell $100 annual tram passes that would be valid on the streetcar but not buses or light rail.

Final Cost of the Tram The final cost of the tram came to almost $57 million with the public paying about eight and a half million dollars. The budget includes contingencies and utility relocations along with street trees and streetlights on Southwest Gibbs Street. Key neighborhood improvements included a pedestrian bridge over I-5. The annual cost to run the tram is about $1.6 million. As part of the proposal, OHSU agreed to pay 85 percent of the tram’s operating cost for the first five years. OHSU had originally agreed to pay 85 percent of the cost for the first two years.

The poster displayed above is available for purchase from ErrolGraphics along with other tram merchandise. Local artist Craig Holmes created the poster.

Video of the Tram.