Belmont is a Pearl in the rough Condos going up in Southeast Portland herald a new wave of gentrification, yet stir worries

Friday, November 12, 2004
TIM SULLIVAN

To evaluate different areas of a city, Randy Rapaport has something he calls the pussycat test.

"If a cat is comfortable hanging out there, it's probably a good thing," says Rapaport, a school psychologist-turned-developer. "Southeast Portland is full of that."

Southeast Portland also soon may be full of the kind of building Rapaport is erecting on Southeast Belmont Street and 35th Avenue to tower above the cats. The Belmont Street Lofts will be a four-story, wooden-clad "boutique condo loft building." It's the type of project more often found in the Pearl District, where Rapaport lives in a loft.

But with perhaps more pussycat appeal, infill possibilities and increasing popularity, developers think Belmont and other emerging Southeast corridors such as Hawthorne Boulevard are ripe for urban-style condominiums. Construction isn't finished, yet 25 of the Belmont Street Lofts' 27 units have been reserved.

Other project under way

Within a half-mile of the Belmont Street Lofts, two similar projects are under way or have been completed in the past year by similarly small-time developers and designers seeking something new. And although the often-modern mixed-use condo buildings present jarring visual changes and parking challenges to these old neighborhoods, many see them as the area's next wave of the gentrification.

The Belmont Street Lofts "are going to be a trendsetter in this neighborhood to see how (condos) are going to do," says Paul Loney, the land-use chairman for Sunnyside Neighborhood Association. "If they do well, we'll probably see a lot more of them."

Ten years ago, Sunnyside did not have cachet with Portland's most urbane home seekers. A rash of mixed-use condo buildings probably wouldn't have penciled out, many developers say.

But in 1996, the Belmont Dairy condos and apartments -- a pioneering eastside project -- helped to push up property values. In 2003, six blocks away on Hawthorne Boulevard, rose The Hawthorne -- a sleek glass, steel and brick building that houses retail spaces on the ground floor and 16 condos on top.

"I think it's sort of what's going to happen in Southeast," says Pam Coven, owner of Imelda's shoes, The Hawthorne's first retail tenant. "This is the next growth to the gentrification."

Developers pleased

Apparently, it's a step that a few folks were waiting for. At Southeast 42nd Avenue and Belmont, Jerry Haase's new Andria Condominium building is just a hole in the ground, but five of its 30 units have been reserved. Haase says the first purchaser was driving by, saw the newly erected sign and called him to reserve a unit.

Like Rapaport, Haase has a background in Northwest Portland -- he traded a smaller parcel there for two larger ones on Belmont. Haase thinks that condos that would be commonplace and expensive in the Pearl District offer an alternative in the Southeast for those who don't want an apartment or a yard -- and could be a good deal. The Andria's units range from $170,000 to $440,000.

Those reserving units in these buildings range from empty-nesters looking to downsize to younger professionals. Rapaport says that of his buyers three are from the Bay Area.

Reminiscent of home

Brooks Jordan, one of the first to reserve a unit in the Belmont Street Lofts, likes the building's design and says the area reminds him of his native Berkeley.

"The Pearl is attractive in some ways, but the Hawthorne-Laurelhurst-Belmont area mixing the old community with the new bohemian, it has a freshness," Jordan says. "I feel that I can get the Pearl and even better in that building."

But for many in Sunnyside, having their neighborhood equated with the Pearl District is not a good thing. Loney, who also leads Southeast Uplift neighborhood coalition's land-use and transportation committee, says some aspects of the new buildings are difficult to get used to. They rise above much of the streetscape. They bring more traffic and pose parking problems. Some of them, he says, "are just plain ugly."

And because the buildings fit within the zoning and design requirements, the neighbors first learn about them when they're being built. Loney says his neighbors understand the sprawl abatement such dense housing provides but thinks the city should give the neighborhood a better way to cushion the changes the condos bring.

"It's a switch to more urban living, but there should be a trade-off," he says.

Loney hears that there could be more condos coming to Belmont. He's right -- Haase says that if his building sells well, he plans to build a spitting image of the Andria across the street.