December II, 200 2______________________________________
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King Plans
Development Earn Praise
Commercial building, housing
proposed for Food Mart Site
Page A3
An artist's rendering shows a proposed commercial development with
housing at the corner o f Northeast Fremont and Martin Luther King Jr.
Boulevard. The project would replace the vacant King Food Mart, a
former McDonald 's restaurant.
by Lo; P erlman
T he P ortland O bserver
will go to m i
nority or women contractors,
and that they will recruit local
A team o f developers hopes to residents for hiring.
transform the abandoned King
The site has been vacant and
Food Mart property on Northeast owned by PDC since 1999.
Fremont and Martin Luther King Jr.
All parties stress that the pro
into something extraordinary.
cess is in a preliminary stage. The
Abe Killings, Ron Sykes and team must first negotiate a contract
their associates at First Oregon with PDC, which Killings says he
Development are working with the “hopes” to achieve by next May.
Portland Development Commission
However, what the team has
on plans for the property, which achieved already is significant.
once held a M cDonald’s restau
Lois Cortel, PDC project man
rant.
ager, said the proposal meets every
The group has proposed a two- need local residents identified in
story commercial structure facing early planning.
King and Fremont, and seven row
Edwina Wasson, president of
houses facing Northeast Sixth Av the North-Northeast Business As
enue. The team has pledged that at sociation and a member of the se
least 25 percent of their construc- lection committee, said she was
Polar
Bears Get
New Home
Polar bears at the Oregon Zoo
are celebrating the holidays a little
early this year as they explore their
newly remodeled exhibit.
“The remodel was done for the
benefit o f the bears,” said the Zoo’s
Conservation Program Scientist,
David Shepherdson. “It gives them
more time in the outdoors, which
they generally prefer and allows
them to get away from each other.”
The roof was scheduled for main
tenance, but instead o f re-roofing,
it was removed. The area that cov
ers visitor viewing will remain.
“Given the option, the bears
chose to spend more time in the
uncovered exhibit,” said the zoo’s
zoological curatorChris Pfefferkom.
“Removing the roof on the entire
exhibit will give them more o f what
they want.”
Visitors also benefit from more
light in the exhibit. The once dark
exhibit inhibited visitors from see
ing the bears once they climbed out
o f the water.
“The size o f the exhibit hasn’t
increased, but what visitors are able
to see has nearly doubled,” said
Pfefferkom.
ers design.
“It’s new and it has flare, but it
doesn’t stick out like a sore thumb.
It blends in with the neighborhood
around it,” W asson said.
She was also attracted to the
type o f product attractive to main
stream businesses,” he said. “With
access to transportation, location,
proximity to Lloyd Center and the
Rose Quarter, this is a very viable
site.”
I t ’s new and it has flare, but it doesn’t stick
out like a sore thumb. It blends in with the
neighborhood around it.
— Edwina Wasson, president of the North-Northeast
Business Association
proposal’s potential for job devel
T he d e v e lo p e r exp ects the
opment and commitment to minor project to add permanent jobs to
the area.
ity contracting.
Killings hopes to attract a mix
“W ith jobs come economic vi
ture of “businesses with brand name tality,” Killings said. “People tend
recognition” and “grass roots, lo to spend money in the neighbor
cal businesses.”
hoods they live in.”
The row houses are proposed at
1,200 square feet and are expected
to sell in the $ 145,000 to $ 159,000
range.
Killings said he wants to take
advantage o f governm ent pro
grams, such as tax abatements, to
make the homes as affordable as
possible.
W asson says that one reserva
tion the selection committee had
was that none of the bidders had
yet put together the financing to
make the proposal possible. In ad
dition, the economic conditions are
unfavorable for new ventures of
any kind.
But Killings says he isn’t wor
ried.
“It’s generally two to three years
between the conception of a project
and when you begin to turn the dirt,
he said. “The real estate market lags
behind the general economy. Right
now, interest rates are low.”
Both Killings and Sykes are long
time inner northeast residents. Kill
ings moved to the area as a teen
ager from Salt Lake City in 1966.
Sykes grew up in the area, attend
ing Ockley Green School and Jesuit
High School; he currently serves
on the Portland Planning Commis
sion.
“Our whole team is pretty ex
cited about this," Killings said. “It’s
high time more investment was fo
cused on Martin Luther King, which
has seen a lot of disinvestments
over the years. This area hasn’t
seen the type of job growth other
parts of the city has over the last
five to ten years.”
When you can swing a private booth / jazz musicians /
her favorite flowers / the pearls shfe's always wanted /
all on your way from the office I that’s mLife.
Seattle NAACP
Elects New
President
( A P )— Carl Mack has defeated
incumbent Oscar Eason Jr. in the
first contested election for presi
dent of the local chapter of the
National Association for the A d
vancement of Colored People in at
least 30 years.
“All King County has got to be
put on notice— w e’re not going to
tolerate discrimination,” Mack said.
“You touch one of us, you touch all
o f us.”
Eason, 72, had served two two-
year terms as president. An assis
tant chief of engineering in the Army
Corps o f Engineers, he formerly
served as head o f the 2.5-million-
member Blacks in Govemmoit.
Mack, 41, a King County Metro
transit engineer, is a frequent guest
lecturer on black history at local
schools. He grew up in Jackson,
Miss., and came to Seattle in 1987.
The vote marks a generational
shift in leadership amid black com
munity unrest over the fatal shoot
ing o f several black men by white
police officers and the dispropor
tionately poor performance of black
students in public schools.
Many also have been affected
by the passage in 1998 o f Initiative
200, a statewide measure barring
affirmative action programs in pub
lic education and government hir
ing and contracting.
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