Street Roots • Nov. 3-9, 2017
News
Page 7
Affordable housing planned fo r Living Cully Plaza
The Hacienda CDC development represents a complete transformation o f the former Sugar Shack
BY AMAIUDA WALDROUPE
S T A F F W R IT E R
acienda CDC, a nonprofit affordable
housing developer, has announced it
will build 150 units of affordable
housing in the housing-starved Cully
neighborhood - all on a site better known
for a notorious strip club.
On Oct. 27, more than 100
residents of the Cully
neighborhood gathered inside the
We do n 't need things former Sugar Shack building, now
Living Cully Plaza, during
th at bring rich people called
an open house that shared early
In the neighborhood,
architecture designs of the project
We need things th at
and asked residents their opinions
about what they’d like to see in
serve the people in
the neighborhood and the design.
“I’m excited to see the
m aintain owr diver*
transformation,” said Rose Ojeda,
Hacienda’s director of housing
O A V IO S W E E T ,
C U L L Y A S S O C IA T IO N O F
development.
N E IG H B O R S M E M B E R
Two years ago, the
neighborhood formed Living Cully
Plaza LLC, a coalition of Habitat
for Humanity, Verde and Hacienda
CDC. When it purchased the property in
2015, it was considered a victory for the
neighborhood.
Most significantly for the Cully
community, the building - which once
housed the notorious Sugar Shack,
described as an “adult super center” with
three strip clubs, a restaurant, an adult
video store and a lingerie shop - will be
demolished for the new development. The
club operated in the neighborhood from
1997 until May 2015, when a federal
investigation closed it down after its owners
were indicted on prostitution and federal tax
evasion charges.
Even though the building was renamed
Living Cully Plaza and Living Cully’s
members and Cully residents have gone to
great lengths to transform the space, the
building’s lecherous past lingers in the dark
red carpet, the body-length mirrors now
covered in dust, and the narrow hallways
that lead to small rooms and darkness.
“This place was horrible,” said David
Sweet, a member of the Cully Association of
Neighbors. “You look at the way women were
demeaned here. Just being in here and
seeing these rooms, it makes my heart hurt.”
Living Cully wrestled with what to do
with it and considered selling or leasing the
property to a developer. But the property’s
future now rests solely in the hands of a
neighborhood developer, and there are high
hopes that it will become a thriving center
of Cully’s community.
The property is large - a 96,000 square-
foot lot, bounded by Northeast Cully
Boulevard, Northeast Killingsworth Street
and Columbia Boulevard/Highway 30, with a
parking lot of 120 spaces and the L-shaped,
two-story building that takes up 26,000
square feet. Hacienda CDC bought the
property from Living Cully earlier this year.
Living Cully was facing a refinancing
deadline with the nonprofit lender Craft3,
which lent Living Cully $2.3 million to buy
the property in 2015 with the agreement
H
A n architectural drawing o f the proposed development on the site o f the form er Sugar Shack. Hacienda CDC now owns
the property and intends to build 150 units o f affordable housing, as well as commercial space.
that the loan be paid back this year.
When Living Cully purchased the
property, the coalition settled on three
options, including selling the building with
certain deed restrictions, thus ensuring that
the property would not become another
strip club. A second option was maintaining
ownership and fully redeveloping the site to
meet the needs of the Cully community. At
the time, Living Cully’s partners considered
that the most daunting, given the cost
involved and the risk that the nonprofits
would be taking on.
So, for the last two years, Living Cully
pursued a third option, leasing the building
to a retail or commercial business that
would pay for the renovations and occupy
the building, providing jobs and services to
Cully residents.
The most promising lead Living Cully
developed was with Laughing Planet, the
Portland food chain. Those talks fell through
when it became obvious that the cost of
renovations was too high.
As Living Cully got closer to the
refinancing deadline with Craft3, “we
decided to go ahead and switch course,”
Ojeda said.
Hacienda secured loans through Prosper
Portland, formerly known as the Portland
Development Commission, and Raza
Development Fund, the country’s largest
Latino community development lender.
Designs for the site, developed with
Salazar Architect Inc., show two multi-story
buildings that will include 150 units of
affordable housing and commercial space on
the first floor.
The apartments will be one-, two- or
three-bedroom units, reflecting the fact that
many Cully residents are part of young and
intergenerational families.
The most important aspect of the design
is a plaza in the center of the block between
the two buildings. Alex Salazar, the architect
who designed the building, said that the
plaza will serve a practical purpose,
enabling residents and passersby to cross
the block without needing to walk around
the street.
“It’s such a long block,” he said. “It’s a
triangle site, which also presents some
challenges.”
Living Cully members also hope the plaza
See CULLY, page 10
Community
members gather
inside L iving Cully
Plaza on Oct. 2 7 to
discuss the design
for a new
affordable-housing
complex and to
share opinions
about what they’d
like it to include.