Is Portland nearing a real-estate peak?

Supply may be exceeding demand 
What's ahead for the apartment market in Portland?

Portland in the throes of an apartment boom, and with every boom comes a bust.  The trick is in knowing when the peak of the market has come and gone.  With all the recent construction activity, the experts are wondering when the apartment market will be saturated with rental units.

 

The Oregonian, October 15, 2014  By Elliot Njus
Is there an end in sight to Portland apartment-building boom?  

 

The Hassalo on Eight development in Portland's Lloyd District, which is expected to 

deliver 657 apartments in 2015. (Elliot Njus/The Oregonian)

It's been more than three years since the Portland area's apartment building binge started.

But there's another three years of projects already in the pipeline, industry watchers say. Among them are bigger, more ambitious projects that won't come to market until 2016 or 2017.

"It's a great time to be in this business," real estate economist Jerry Johnson told a gathering of apartment managers and owners. "We believe there's still life left in this party."

But, he added, it will eventually come to a halt. "You might want to start thinking about the hangover."

Daily Jpurnal of Commerce, October 23, 2014  By Shelby King

Portland apartment sales could hit $1.3B by year’s end

Portland’s booming multifamily market isn’t profitable only for developers, but also for investors and property owners through sales.

Though the number of apartment buildings sold in the Portland area is down from this time last year, the total amount investors have paid for them is higher.

Frick said institutional buyers want to put their capital into hard assets in markets like Portland because of factors such as the strong job market and the in-migration of new residents. In addition, limitations on urban sprawl contribute to increased property values.

Boxer said she’s also seeing some of her clients selling their buildings in anticipation of values decreasing when the wave of newly constructed apartments hits the market.

“In the last three years we only added 9,000 new units,” she said. “Now there are about 23,000 planned or under construction.”

Boxer believes the Portland multifamily market is at the top of its cycle and predicts the new construction will result in approximately a 6 percent vacancy rate by this time next year.

“The amount of sales is a sure sign that some people realize we’re at the top of the multifamily real estate cycle,” Boxer said. “If you’re ever going to sell, now’s the time to sell to maximize profit.”

City council election update

Hold on tight!  

We're in for a wild ride!

Election Update:  Following yesterday's post, "KLOG/Chamber endorse candidates," USC has learned that among the Chamber of Commerce interviewers were the father and campaign treasurer of one of the candidates.

Mike Buck, father of Joe Buck, and Karen Jacobsen, treasurer for Joe Buck's campaign (see ORESTAR), were both involved in interviewing candidates who are running against Joe.

Since the Chamber of Commerce is a private organization, it can do what it wants, but people should know what goes on behind the curtain before they give consideration to the group's endorsements.

While it is the Chamber's organization that orchestrated this endorsement process, it casts serious questions on how independent Joe is without his support team.  This is what I would have liked to have seen a lot more of during this campaign process.

KLOG/Chamber endorse candidates

Lake Oswego Review, October 17, 2014  By (none)

Chamber, PAC endorse Gudman and Buck for Lake Oswego City Council 

The Lake Oswego Chamber of Commerce and the Keep Lake Oswego Great political action committee have endorsed Jeff Gudman and Joe Buck in the race for City Council.

Chamber (of Commerce) President Doug Cushing said his organization’s board determined that Gudman and Buck “have the proven capabilities to represent business interests, promote continued infrastructure improvements and improve the commercial climate for success in Lake Oswego.”

Keep Lake Oswego Great, a political action committee that claims membership across a broad cross-section of the community, said it chose candidates who “listen respectfully, approach decision-making without a preconceived point of view and are independent thinkers unafraid to take a stand on an issue that may not be popular with the more vocal segments of our community.”

*

The Chamber of Commerce and the Keep Lake Oswego Great (KLOG) PAC have virtually the same key members, so it's no coincidence the groups are in sync with their endorsements.  Their positions have been in support of continued growth and density of the commercial areas, specifically favoring the streetcar, Foothills Development, Wizer Block Development, Urban Renewal districts in Foothills and Lake Grove, and keeping public agencies downtown.  

To be fair, there is a lot of crossover of members in LONAC and LOCAL, though some LONAC members do not want to be involved with anything political.  LONAC is nonpartisan and  nonpolitical, and supports neighborhood associations with regard to city affairs.   Within the LOCAL PAC, members' beliefs are spread across the political spectrum.  Their mission statement is online on their website. (See links at left.)

The statements made by the Chamber and KLOG are clear about what their priorities are for the city.  Unfortunately, neither entity mentions anything about supporting citizens or protecting neighborhoods.  Their platforms seem singularly focused on development of the Smart Growth model of "vibrant" town centers and the density they require. Developers and Metro policies are their partners in the growth and evolution of Lake Oswego.  

I find KLOG's statement about "the more vocal

segment of our community" to be particularly disturbing and contrary to the tenets of a participatory, democratic government.  Being vocal about one's concerns is hard 
 work!  It means lhours of research into the background and facts surrounding a multitude of issues which are important to the quality of life in Lake Oswego.  It can be exhausting to attend meetings, speak up at hearings, write letters, and demonstrate the courage to be public about our beliefs.  

Does KLOG think City Cpuncil is a popularity contest, and that citizens' hard work and testimony is nothing more than an Applause-O-Meter that tells The Mayor and Council which issues they got right?   That doesn't say much much about who we elect to represent us.  KLOG is a well-connected group and they know that vocal citizen involvement is the common man's way to overcome the advantage of insider influence.  

It may be out of fashion and it may be naive, but the the vocal segments of the population believe in a fair government in which leaders understand where their power and authority to govern comes from, and in the peoples' right to petition their government and be heard.  

We are vocal because our freedoms and future depend on it. 

Governing - learn and participate

Here's a good website to look at if you are interested in state and local governance.  I know, it's sexy.  A long list of knowledgable contributing authors and a variety of topics to peruse makes this one worth a visit.

Governing Magazine 

STATES AND LOCALITIES

governing.com

When Citizens Bypass Government 

The growth of citizen-powered engagement platforms is a challenge for local governments, but it's a phenomenon they should embrace.

BY KEVIN C. DESOUZA | SEPTEMBER 4, 2014 

Local governments are facing new realities. Citizens' trust in government has declined, and financial constraints do not allow local governments to deliver all of the services their communities would like. In response, citizens are changing as well. Increasingly, local residents and organizations are seizing opportunities to engage with their communities in their own ways by creating platforms that bypass government.

These platforms are powered by inexpensive technology and driven by a desire for community improvement that is bottom-up. While some local governments are embracing this development, others are reacting defensively, at least initially. As this phenomenon grows, more and more local governments will be faced with the challenge of deciding what their stances should be toward these citizen-engagement platforms.

So how should local governments engage with these platforms?   Read entire article on Governing Magazine website.

The State, the Region and Damascus

Is Damascus in Clackistan?
The state create regional governments to enforce state land use rules. But do we really need Metro?  Metro is a regional government with authority to control land use, and to tax landowners within its boundaries.  The operative word is "control."  What sane person or community wants to be controlled by a bigger bully government, even if only as a "partner."

Portland Tribune | Tuesday, 14 October 2014 | Written by Shasta Kearns Moore

The fight for Damascus

Is town's incorporation struggle an omen for land-use future?

The leader of The Citizens for De-annexation from Damascus says some who share his views on wanting to annex to Happy Valley are holding fast to the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms.

“Thankfully it’s been peaceful so far,” Syring says. “For urban governments, I’ve never ever seen anything like it and maybe there will never be anything like it again.”

“It’s a bone of contention that we have to act like a city to provide the services that they want and need,” Ludlow says. “We hope that more and more of unincorporated Clackamas County will continue to be annexed and be a city, and better represented as a city rather than rural.”

But the board chair and former mayor of Wilsonville says he also doesn’t see a lot of movement in that direction. “I can’t foresee any area of Clackamas County will want to incorporate and that’s of grave importance to us,” Ludlow says. 

Photo Credit: TRIBUNE PHOTO: JAIME VALDEZ - Jerry Schofield has support from his friends, Hank Brown (left) and Jim Syring, to de-annex from Damascus to Happy Valley. Schofield's fence behind him serves as the boundary line of Damascus and Happy Valley. The Damascus City Council argues the de-annexations are unconstitutional and is suing Schofield, Brown and Syring to remain in the city.

Portland Tribune | Tuesday, 21 October 2014 | Written by Shasta Kearns Moore 

The fight for Damascus: Land-use struggle heads to ballot

Part Two: Metro planners put their hope in rural city's development

...the Legislature decided “it ought to be more difficult to incorporate a city within the urban growth boundary,” (land use attorney) Sullivan says.

Since then, only two Oregon communities have succeeded in efforts to incorporate: Damascus in 2004 and La Pine in 2007. Both have had a significant uphill battle.

The city’s Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Ann Gwaith says La Pine had long felt too far removed from the Deschutes County seat in Bend and first began efforts to gain local control by pushing for an airport in the early 1990s. Gwaith says the community’s efforts have been hampered by state land-use regulations ever since.

“Those cities that have been around forever and ever, it was probably one guy who said: ‘Let’s be a city!’ and everybody said: ‘OK!’ ” Gwaith says. “I think all of us were naive that things were more still along those lines and that you could structure your city the way you wanted it.”

The current iteration of La Pine — the third and final official incorporation attempt — was specifically designed to be the smallest geographical area that could produce enough revenue to provide needed city services. The population of the city is about 1,600, but Gwaith believes closer to 20,000 consider themselves at least part-time residents of La Pine. Because of the state’s density requirements, though, the city can’t expand its borders anytime soon.

“Why couldn’t the state have looked at La Pine and say: ‘OK, there’s all these one-acre lots; obviously that’s why people move to this area. You can have one-acre lots in a city. Let’s not have this huge restriction,’ ” Gwaith asks.

Even so, Sullivan says La Pine was lucky to have incorporated outside of an urban growth boundary.

Metro Deputy Director for Community Development John Williams says the region has been waiting for Damascus to open up to development for 10 years. During its recent five-year update to Metro’s 20-year development plan, it counted Damascus for half its available inventory. If Damascus continues along in limbo, Metro may have to look elsewhere for developable land, and few rural areas are volunteering.

“We’re still relying on Damascus’ capacity,” Williams says. “If that turns out not to be possible, we have to figure out what do we do as a region to come up with that?”

A comprehensive plan in Damascus would allow the entire Portland urban area’s planners and developers to breath a sigh of relief.

Is the multifamily party over?

What is in store for Lake Oswego?  Will we be the low-cost alternative to downtown, uptown Portland?

Daily Journal of Commerce

Multifamily party still raging

By: Shelby King in Scrolling Box October 17, 2014 2:43 pm

Two multifamily projects under construction on adjacent bloacks in the Pearl District – the Overton Apartments, foreground, and Block 17, background – will have a combined total of 566 units. (Sam Tenney/DJC)

Excerpts:

At a breakfast event presented by Multifamily NW on Wednesday, speaker Greg Frick of HFO Investment Real Estate wondered aloud what multifamily investors and brokers have been wondering since the boom in new construction began: When will it end?

“The last few years in the Portland apartment industry have been the best of times,” he said. “But as we all know, every party must end. Everyone wants to know when we’ll see a transition to a renters’ market.”

Keynote speaker Jerry Johnson of Johnson Economics hinted that it may be soon.

“We’re all hoping to feel a second wind,” he said. “But it also might be time to start thinking about the hangover.”

Low vacancy rates translate to higher rents, because landlords are able to charge more due to increased demand. Johnson said there was a time when charging tenants $1 per square foot was normal. That crept up to $2 per square foot for new construction. Now, Johnson said rents have increased to the point where landlords can sometimes charge up to $3 per square foot for high-end apartments.

The predicted rise in vacancy rates could cause a drop in the amount that landlords can charge tenants.

“Pricing power is decreasing, which means people will have to be smarter about what they’re delivering – and (it won’t be an owners’ market where) any idiot can make money,” Johnson said. “But in my opinion the high desire for apartments in an urban location makes the risk worth it.”

Johnson thinks that high-amenity construction in the suburbs, coupled with lower rents those areas bring, could begin to draw similar tenants who want to live downtown but can’t afford it.

“Everybody wants to live downtown,” he said. “Millennials aren’t remarkably different than baby boomers – they want the same things; they just can’t afford them.”

Uniting Lake Oswego

Someone was distributing slick, 4-color flyers on Saturday promoting a slate of 3 candidates for city council.  But there was no source on the flyer identifying where it came from.

My guess is that it is the work of political stratigist, Elaine Franklin or one of the groups supporting these three candidates.  You may recall that Ms. Franklin was one of the two hired guns that assisted developer Patrick Kessi in his effort to gain approval for the Wizer Block development.  It is known that she helped some local politicians with their campaigns pro bono, but is any help really free when what you have to sell is access to influence and power?  What is happening in Lake Oswego?  

Since political groups work in the background and don't like people to see the strings that are being pulled and who is pulling them, it is sometimes difficult to figure out who all is behind the curtain.  And then there is the issue of who might be able to afford to pay someone like Ms. Franklin or pay for printing flyers or advertising supporting this slate.  Whether Franklin is involved or not, who might want to promote this slate of candidates and what do they think these candidates will do to benefit them? 

Anyone who follows politics or local issues in Lake Oswego knows that this town has been split into two factions for quite some time - the pro-growth and the low-growth.  In 2012 the make-up of the council changed the power structure that had control of the city for years, and now it's payback time.  It doesn't take much imagination to figure out who might be directing the show and why, and this doesn't feel like an attempt at "Uniting Lake Oswego."

The message here isn't about some dumb flyers.  It's about outside political operatives and inside cronies and their money trying to control our city.  It's about manipulating the message and buying your vote.  It's about losing our city.  Don't all head for the exits at once - we don't want anyone to get hurt.

Don't rain in my bio-swale...

...because I don't know if it really works!!!

YIKES!

Lake Oswego has been encouraging property owners to put bio-swales in all over town as a substitute for standard storm drainage systems.  Why?  If engineers at the OSU School of Civil and Construction Engineering don't know,  are we doing this because it is "a good idea" and "they do good things?"

The next time someone in government tells you something is a good idea, ask for the proof!

Daily Journal of Commerce

Corvallis rain garden becomes laboratory

By: Inka Bajandas in Architecture and Engineering October 17, 2014 2:36 pm

Oregon State University and Benton County recently hosted a grand opening for a new rain garden in Corvallis. (Oregon BEST)

A rain garden completed recently near the Benton County Community Development Department in Corvallis does more than treat stormwater. It also serves as an outdoor laboratory.

The lab provides a rare field testing opportunity for Oregon State University researchers to evaluate the effectiveness of bio-swales and other green infrastructure to treat stormwater.

“You want to actually go and test them at the field scale,” said Meghna Babbar-Sebens, an assistant professor with the OSU School of Civil and Construction Engineering. “The main idea was to enable that kind of testing.”

Babbar-Sebens is leading research at the OSU-Benton County Stormwater Infrastructure Research Facility. Benton County contributed money and land for the $126,000 demonstration project, which will filter runoff from a 100,000-square-foot portion of a county industrial yard where equipment for parks and roads maintenance is stored. Other funders include Oregon BEST, the city of Corvallis and the Pacific Northwest Transportation Consortium.

Benton County officials were seeking an alternative to traditional piped stormwater treatment at the site and pleased to also offer a green infrastructure research opportunity in a public location, said Adam Stebbins, a county project coordinator.

“We don’t have a good idea how these things work. We just know they do good things,” he said. “We want to support and see what type of treatment is occurring, what the positive impacts are and share that with the community.”

Downtown "vibrancy" questioned

Limited vibrancy at the end of the cul-de-sac

A comment on the post about the letter Kessi letter to the Lake Oswego Review is printed below.  Original LOR article at:
Lake Oswego Review,  October 16, 2014   By Patrick Kessi

"Wizer Block: Oswegans will give the project life"

The writer, Gerry Good, has a MBA with a background as a retail executive.  I would like to add my own 2-cents:  

Lake Oswego downtown customer base is not just constrained by the river creating a half circle. The circle shrinks to an arc if you consider the low population gaps to the north with Dunthorpe and Tryon Creek SP, and south where people in low-density West Linn have many more choices about where to shop and dine. The arc shirks in depth when you reach the limits of the Lake Grove shopping base.  And then there is "leakage" - the population that even now leaves 

the downtown area to shop elsewhere, where they can find the goods they need where access is easy.  

The quest for a "vibrant" downtown shopping district has been a dream of the Chamber of 

Commerce for more than fifty years.  Even with better connections to the area, people will still have choices closer to where they shop without having to come to LO.  Our retail growth is limited by geography and naïveté.  It's all about location.

* 

This project will not bring "vitality" to downtown LO.  IMHO, it may even kill downtown forever.

During the construction period there will be thousands of trucks (yes, thousands as one Commissioner calculated at the DRC) going in and out of the site. Watch as B Avenue becomes clogged with traffic as people avoid A or downtown altogether). The noise will be deafening. No one in their right mind will want to be on First Street either inside or outside. Watch the businesses die.

The smartest one in this whole thing is Kyra who had the sense to move her place to larger quarters. Watch her business boom!

Then when the monster is finished it will be unbelievably depressing. Visually this will over shadow Lake View Village. No sunlight there after 2 PM.

What incredibly uninformed person thinks 300 new residents will bring vitality? Yes, 300. Most of these apartments will be small (600 sq. ft.). That is only big enough for one person. How will 300 people create vitality? Come on tell me. Surely, more than 300 a day will have been driven away from the area. And since these are expensive (per Kessi minimum of $2500/month) who will be living there and what are their shopping patterns.

Some say it will be people downsizing. OK, are these people going to pay say $35,000/year in rent? If they do how much are they going to spend. Then there are just the spending patterns of retirees. I know I'm retired. I do not spend like I did in my 40s.

Well, it will be young people. OK, higher income young people. Good spenders but an awful lot of it done electronically. 

Let's say it is 50/50 young/older. On any given night you might get 25% of the younger set going out to dinner. That's only 30 people. How does that bring vitality?

The real problem with vitality in downtown is that it is a semi-circle trading area. The river cuts it off to the east. You only have half a trading area (usually a circle) to begin with. That means you have to work twice as hard to draw people. Our downtown merchants don't do that. If they did you would see events, festivals, etc to bring people there. But, it is too late now.

Portland model doesn't measure up

Below are excerpts from a Wendell Cox article for New Geography in an article titled, "Paving Over Hunan."  His article comments on a piece by a British writer comparing low density development in the US to high density development in China.  Mr. Cox points out facts about Portland that we all know - that emphasis on our high-priced rail transit has decimated a good bus system and lowered the proportion of people who use transit while increasing the percentage that drive alone to work: that the UGB places an artificial premium on the limited supply of land making housing in the Metro area some of the least affordable in the country; that by deliberately impeding the flow of traffic (road diets) and parking, Portland has become one of the most congested cities in the country despite its relatively low density.  He demonstrates that by measuring outputs, the Portland Model does not work.  
Wendell Cox is principal of Demographia, an international public policy and demographics firm. He is co-author of the "Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey" and author of "Demographia World Urban Areas" and "War on the Dream: How Anti-Sprawl Policy Threatens the Quality of Life." He was appointed to three terms on the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission, where he served with the leading city and county leadership as the only non-elected member. He was appointed to the Amtrak Reform Council to fill the unexpired term of Governor Christine Todd Whitman and has served as a visiting professor at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers, a national university in Paris.

Ms. Bosker suggests that China may be poised to follow the "Portland model." A planner is quoted: “Portland is a really great model.” That, I would suggest, depends on your perspective.

The Portland model has its philosophical roots in the British Town and Country Planning Act of 1947. As early as 1973, Sir Peter Hall and his colleagues characterized the Act having had the "reverse effect" an important policy goal, to benefit less affluent households, by virtue of the house price escalation that ensued.

Portland has drawn an urban growth boundary around the city beyond which development is generally prohibited, and within which there is insufficient space to maintain competitive land prices. Portland has also has sought to attract people out of their cars by both building an extensive light rail system and is loath to provide new highway capacity to meet demand.

Portland is no model to copy, unless all you care about is inputs (like light rail and not building freeways and suburban housing). The outputs tell a completely different story. 

In 1980 (the last data before the first light rail line was opened) 65.1 percent of commuters drove alone to work. By 2012, that figure had increased to 70.8 percent. Transit was down from 8.4 percent to 6.0 percent. Approximately one-quarter as many people worked at home as commuted by transit in 1980 (2.2 percent). By 2012, more people in the Portland metropolitan area worked at home than rode transit (6.4 percent).

This is not surprising. Portland's "model" transit system (now with five light rail lines) can get the average commuter to only 8 percent of the jobs in 45 minutes. This is not very attractive in contrast to travel by automobiles, which provides access to virtually 100 percent of the jobs in less time (30 minutes).

Meanwhile, Portland's anti-highway policies have been rewarded with some of the most rapidly increasing traffic congestion in the United States. In the early 1980s, Portland ranked 47th worst out of the 101 US urban areas ranked by the Texas A&M Transportation Institute. By 2011, Portland's traffic congestion had deteriorated to sixth worst, a stunning failure for a city with a population that doesn't even rank the top 20. Meanwhile, Houston, castigated for its wide freeways, has improved from the worst traffic congestion in the middle 1980s to four positions better than Portland (10th), despite adding having added three times as many new residents as Portland.

If outputs are more important than inputs (which I suggest is true), then US cities do very well. They have the highest incomes in the world, occupying 36 of the top 50 positions in gross domestic product per capita. They have some of the most affordable housing in the world, if cities following the Portland model are excluded. They have shorter work trip commutes and less traffic congestion than their peers in other high income world nations. And, they are poised for huge progress in environmental protection. The US Department of Energy forecasts large reductions in gross greenhouse gas emission from the national automobile fleet in the coming decades.

Nobel winner's caution about government

Wall Street Journal, October 13, 2014
A Nobel Economist's Caution About Government
By Donald J. Boudreaux and Todd J. Zywicki

Excerpts:

Forty years ago the Nobel Prize in Economic Science was awarded to a scholar who believed the prize perhaps should not exist.  As he graciously accepted the distinction in 1974, Austrian-British economist Friedrich A. Hayek worried aloud that thinking of economics as a science night fuel what he called "the pretense of knowledge"- the idea that anyone could know enough to engineer society successfully.  He was right to fret.

Hayek's greatest contribution to economics was to show that society is far more complex than we realize, with little pieces of knowledge dispersed among millions of individuals.  "The curious task of economics," he famously wrote in "The Fatal Conceit," which he published in 1988, "is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."

Such hubris and it's inevitable results (the unforeseen consequences of the Dodd-Frank and ACA legislation) would not have surprised Hayek.  In the 1970s he saw government policies create the inflation they were designed to avoid.  Government has shown again and again the folly of experts to centrally direct complex systems.

What does Hayek recommend?  A little humility.  "We shall not grow wiser before we learn that much that we have done is foolish,"  he wrote in his 1944 masterpiece, "The Road to
Serfdom."  It was the book's central lesson that hubris makes us not only poorer but also less free.  Today's leaders would be wise to become better students of the late Nobel Laureate.

Mr. Boudreaux is a professor of economics at George Mason Universityb, where Mr. Zwickau is a professor of law.  Both are senior fellows at the america tubs Center's Hayek Program for 
Advanced Study in Philosophy, Politics and Economics.  

Ready for a Kessi chuckle?

Lake Oswego Review,  October 16, 2014   By Patrick Kessi

Wizer Block: Oswegans will give the project life

“It is a building designed by committee; all they have been able to agree on is that it should be rectangular, have windows, and not fall over.”             — writer and humorist Max Barry

Hopefully, that quote brings you a chuckle as we all end a long, first phase of redeveloping the Wizer Block. By no means, however, does the sentiment of the quote apply to the final design that was recently and overwhelmingly approved by City Council.    I'm not chuckling.  I know who is though.  

The process that brought us to that approval is the result of a committee or community of very engaged Lake Oswegans, who through their input helped shape the project. To them all I say thank

you for your guidance. You helped our design become an even better one.    The list of community contacts that was on your website at one time included meetings with the planning staff - they don't live here!  Your focus groups were by invitation only.  There were a few well attended open meetings, but the suggestions at those meetings were to make the development smaller.  

The Lake Oswego of today did not happen by accident. It took vision and careful planning and, yes, opposition from concerned citizens. The debate was often passionate. At its inception, Lake View Village also was strongly opposed. It, too, went through a metamorphosis or several and came out as a Lake Oswego landmark. I am confident that the

redeveloped Wizer Block will become another Lake Oswego landmark.   The Lake Oswego of today was created slowly over a hundred years.  People came here to vacation and relax, to raise their families and to enjoy the beautiful setting.  That is still why people still come to live here.  Your project may indeed provide "vibrancy" downtown.  The word is a substitute for urban  and crowded and not what was in the original redevelopment plan the whole community worked on.  The landmark statement is either marketing or ego. If you wanted the buildings to be noticeable, they will be.

My team and I don’t just put up rectangular buildings with windows. We don’t just put up structures. We design and build ambiance. We anticipate how building designs meet each community’s demographic needs while at the same time making sure they will be economically and environmentally sustainable. Every one of our projects is designed to fit the character of the surroundings in which we build. We are recognized for our focus on making decisions about quality of design and construction for the long term, rather than for the short term.  This project meets the owner's and investor's needs.  Your buildings have LO character applied as surface elements but they are still hulky, too-big structures. (Ambience is a given, but it cuts 2 ways.)

The Wizer Block will be a series of architectural buildings and facades that citizens and visitors do not merely look at. They will be able to move around them and through them. The pedestrian

walkways, the landscaping and art work, the retail and restaurants will draw energy and provide the special quality of life that city planners and leaders envisioned for the core so many years ago. I think you meant to say, "around and between them."  Most of the interior is dedicated to private or semi-private uses, so the walking around potential is slim. If the passageways were filled with more shops, and the buildings were broken up, that would be special (and to code).

The debate about the fate of the Wizer Block has been robust and transparent, and communities often emerge stronger as a result of differences of opinion. I have high hopes that this will be the case in Lake Oswego. No one person has a lock on ideas. Good ideas come from everywhere and from everyone, and the Wizer Block will be the work of Lake Oswegans. My team and I will shape the structures, but you will give them life. Architecture is the setting; people are the community.    
The Wizer Block is work of outsiders and SOME Lake Oswegans.

Transient renters will give them "life" - we will have to see whose predictions will come true about shopping and parking and the life or death of Lake View Village. The architecture is fine - really - but the size sucks.  We ARE a community, and every one of these behemoths that gets past our willing staff has the potential to further divide us.  Can you cite cities that came together "as a result of differences of opinion?"  I'd like to know how they did it.

Let's hope that all of the opposition folks are wrong and that our small town will not be degraded by the Wizer Development and it will continue to stay a charming, small town.  Isn't that what we all want?  

This is the bike I want

If an Electric Bike Is Ever Going to Hit It Big in the U.S., It's This One

Is the Copenhagen Wheel poised to become the next big thing in alternative urban transportation?

• Citylab
• Jul 29, 2014, By Nate Berg

Replace the back wheel of any bike with the Copenhagen Wheel and it's instantly an electric bike—one that not only assists the rider but senses the surrounding topography and can even collect and share data about environmental, traffic, and road conditions. First developed in 2009, through a partnership between MIT'sSenseable City Lab and the City of Copenhagen, the wheel is now in its first stages of commercial production. By the end of 2014, thousands will be shipped out to fulfill pre-orders around the world.

• 
  

Norway's beautiful banknotes

Fast Company Design

Inside The Design Of Norway's Beautiful New Banknotes

There are few acts of graphic design more daunting than that of creating a new face for an entire country's currency. Even in a world full of digital payment methods, cash still passes through the hands of essentially every citizen, as well as international travelers. Much like the national flag, it's a visual representation of a country's identity. And there are not only political factors to take into account when deciding what--or who--should be represented on bills, but security issues and anti-counterfeiting measures to consider. 

All of which makes it particularly impressive that Norway's brand new currency design manages to be not just passably interesting, but beautiful. ("The world's best money," even, to quote one of many laudatory headlines.)

See all entries from the design competition HERE.  Stunning!  

Beautiful Chemistry

TGIF

Slate . The Eye . October 10, 2014 . By Kristin Hohenadel

The Spellbinding Beauty of Chemical Reactions Captured in Ultra HD Video  

The reaction between an eggshell and hydrochloric acid generated bubbles of carbon dioxide.

Beautiful Chemistry is a new digital media and technology project aimed at getting the 
world excited about science by magnifying the sheer magnificence and visual poetry of a chemistry experiment in full bloom. Shot using special lenses in 4K Ultra HD, the videos capture the transformations caused by chemical reactions like bubbling, smoke, precipitation, and crystallization in exquisite, spellbinding detail.

Clackamas County letter to EPA/Corps