My comment has totally been my experience. Thought I made that clear, but I guess not. I've been at red lights and have seen multiple people rear ended stopped at a light on Sunnyside. It is one of the only streets that make me feel uncomfortable due to other drives that I drive through. Not because I want to, but my spouse grew up in the area.
If somebody harms my business I blame the person who did it. Not some event in which the organizers are trying to convince people to be peaceful and cause no harm.
Yes, convert the empty office buildings to apartments or condos. That will help a little, but commercial real estate tenants tend to pay more in taxes than someone renting an apartment to live in. More businesses downtown mean more tax dollars for Multnomah County. Ideally, you have a nice combination.......people who live and work in the downtown area. I believe we got on this topic because of how it relates to attracting sports franchises. (i.e, selling luxury suites to businesses in Portland compared to SLC) They don't need Fortune 500 companies, but they do need to reverse the trend of businesses moving out of the area.
It's more to do with the location of the building and the previous owner did not do the upkeep to keep the building attractive to new tenants.
I don't get the hate of any part of the metro area. No one place has the monopoly on cool or uncool. No need to divide us based on arbitrary boarders. I love Gresham as much as Beaverton. Now do I enjoy driving *out* to Beaverton? God no. But that has nothing to do with the city of people who live there. Highway 26 is horrible to use.
This is the thing my friend (who builds affordable housing) talked about. Converting the buildings triggers the earthquake inspection because of the zoning changes. She can’t buy the buildings because it could cost way too much to convert them because of the earthquake protections.
You will get more businesses if you get more people living there. That will just happen. Focus should be on getting as much converted to residential as possible and making public transit faster than driving a car in good traffic. And maybe making public transit free. And doing these things as fast as possible.
Portland doesn’t have millions to spend on building inspection coupons; they have police they gotta pay. You know the dance; if the buildings sit unused long enough they’ll cave.
Sure, but I don't think that helps with the topic of competing with other cities for additional sports franchises and luxury suites.
