LINK Some of their facilities are amazing. The Sports Medicine Center is NFL/NBA caliber and then you factor in the most expensive (college) arena to be built. It's a recruiting tool.
A waste of money....Only students allowed in the building are athletes...amounting to a total of 515 students that can go in. While I understand it's all a recruiting tool to get better players and thus more $$ through sports, our rec center is a pretty big piece of shit. Obviously Phil paid for this, it'd just be nice if for once they built something for the rest of the students that go here.
Wow, that is gorgeous. Just a beautiful design. Makes me proud to be a Duck. But after clicking through all the pictures on the link you provided I immediately started thinking about what an epic failure the SoWhat district (Portland's South Waterfront) is. That entire collection of half filled (and now mostly bankrupt) apartment and condo towers south of the Ross Island bridge is such an eyesore. In a city that has gotten so many things right when it comes to land use planning, design review and livability how in the hell we ended up with that giant steaming pile of crap is beyond me.
during the SoWa boom the economy fell flat on it's face. This place has a lot of potential with OHSU building a new campus just a block North of the current SoWa/OHSU high rise. It's a new neighborhood and will take time to develop. It's a definite long-term plan.
I'm aware of all of that. I'm not saying that SoWhat shouldn't have been built I'm saying that what was built is fugly and uninspired. I'm most definitely pro development but in a great city that Portland is to be given pretty much a blank slate in a beautiful area bordering the river and to end up with that?!? Meh
congratulations, you just figured out the university doesn't really give a fuck about you! They care about making money with their athletes!
The high-rises at SoWa are very solid, I like them, BUT I agree that the one thing that prevents SoWa, at least so far, from reaching it's potential are the materials they have used. Two of the thee 32-story towers used the exact same glass. They all used very similar glass with the exception to the two Meriwether towers that Channing lives in during the summer. They obviously went the Vancouver BC rout with the same glass. I am very excited about the Lloyd district. The RQ plan is amazing and very modern. And a block East of the Convention Center is this gem by Portland architect, Joe Weston: Obviously this wont be built for 5+ years or so but by the time it does hopefully the RQ will be filling out with their new development.
I really wish that before there is any more development in the Lloyd district they address doing something with the I-5 and I-84 interchange. Having I-5 only with 2 lanes in both directions has been a huge bottle neck for years. They really should have addressed this before the RG was built because now the only option left seems to be on the level of Boston's infamous Big Dig. From Canada to Mexico that's I-5's worst bottle neck. Speaking of development I remember reading in the WSJ like 5 years back that industrial NW Portland is the most valuable underdeveloped land in the US. With Forest Park on one side and the Willamette river on the other the potential is amazing. There even has been very preliminary talks about a sports based amusement park between Nike and Disney. Anyway the article is old and obvious nothing is going to happened there anytime soon but it does change the way you look at that area. Personally if we ever get a NFL or MLB team I think that is the area that we should look at for a stadium. Something similar to San Fran's park where the HR's go into the river would be cool and a great catalyst for other development.
An underground tunnel is a good idea for what you're talking about. That's an idea I heard bouncing around. A theme park would be awesome. I wonder what Disney/Nike combo could come up with Btw, speaking of UO, I actually like the commons area in their new arena a lot better than what we have at the RG: Video
Looks like the RQ could have some competition. Right across the river Centennial Mills plan a mixed use redevelopment:
