The northwest district (and North Portland) have much more freedom when it comes to design than downtown. This infill project in the NW district is awesome: . Many more like this are in the pipeline for both districts, especially North Portland.
Murals are popping up all over the city. Here's a tumblr that is documenting all the art: http://ffttnw.tumblr.com
So did something change with the rules on murals then? I don't read local news much anymore, but I remember there being a big problem years ago with murals and billboards being considered the same thing under law or something, which made it impossible to have murals around town without having a bunch of billboards too.
Portland is starting to boom: Downtown high-rises under construction: Park Avenue West Cosmopolitan (Pearl) Overton (Pearl) Block 17 (Pearl) Pearl West Sky3 (SW/Downtown) Hassalo (Lloyd) High-Rises on the boards: Hilton Curio (next to the Koin -23-floors) AC Hotel (SW 3rd and Taylor - 14-floors) Burnside apartments (21-floors) Burnside (very unique design - 10-floors) Phil Knight cancer institute (SoWa) HQ hotel (21-floors - Lloyd)
Fuck, downtown LA we had a few murals...err....ads....by Shepard Fucking Fairly. Glad they wiped over them. I've been seeing more artistic ones liked linked around Venice (Abbot Kinney Blvd). Alec Monopoly is doing a lot of them, but to be honest, he's totally selling out.
...has 657 apartments, 1,200 bike parking spaces, and 328 (underground) car parking spaces on 4 city blocks with car-free streets between them... 1 parking space per 2 apartments (families)? Puts at least another 500-800 cars into the nearby neighborhoods while locking them out of the immediate neighborhood. Not exactly a good neighbor approach, nor is it something accomplished without bribing government officials to break the law.
The CW's The Flash has done surprisingly well. Filmed in Vancouver, BC - based in Portland: [video=youtube;Yj0l7iGKh8g]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yj0l7iGKh8g[/video]
The Pearl is booming. Central Eastside is on the verge of a boom. The Lloyd District is next to boom - phase ll of the superblocks: LINK
People are already complaining about the sunbeam this is creating on directors park. NIMBYs :-| This project has become very interesting! Starchitecture firm Snøhetta is designing the market and tower - height limit is also being raised by 100'
The footprint is beginning to become clear and even though it's only 20ish floors the impact is going to be huge - location and angle is odd.