Lofted back into dorm life Singles' social life in the Pearl District's condos and lofts is like party time at college

Tuesday, February 01, 2005
SU-JIN YIM

Twenty-six-year-old Felicia Mak spends so much time traipsing between her neighbors' homes that she bought special footwear.

Instead of pulling on street shoes, the outgoing software developer slips on flip-flops or sandals to shuffle back and forth on the third floor of The Avenue Lofts in the Pearl District. The two sets of shoes are a necessity, Mak says, for a lifestyle that's as constantly social as living in her old college dorm.

If Mak isn't running over to Jen Taft's loft so the two can head for the gym, then the 27-year-old Taft is knocking on Mak's door just to chat. Two doors down, Duane McDowell, 41, says he knows that "at 4 p.m. your phone's going to start ringing. Happy hour? Happy hour? Happy hour?"

With friends like these, who wouldn't want to live in the burgeoning Pearl, where buildings like The Avenue, The Edge Lofts and Park Place Condominiums have become almost like adult dorms for singletons and childless couples -- minus the hallway vomit and group bathrooms.

To be sure, dorm life is a distant memory for most people in the Pearl District, which has its share of empty nesters as well as neighbors who simply like to keep to themselves. But some residents are re-creating the casual collegiate culture where neighbors run across the hall for a snack or a chat, play with the slightest hint of possible romance and join in the group camaraderie of events like the recent ice storm.

"I've never had this happen. It is totally like a dorm," Taft says, laughing. "We're kind of old for that."

Not anymore. Modern life for single adults is now filled with symbols of extended adolescence, such as late nights out and impromptu group dinners. Energy and time that in the past went to a spouse and kids and TV instead gets spread among a group of friends. And it's not just for the young anymore. Once the domain almost exclusively of twentysomethings, for some this lifestyle now reaches into their 30s and beyond.

While some observers may view this as an attempt to stave off the responsibilities of adulthood, others see something much more positive: the kind of healthy, connected community that planners have talked about for years as a signature benefit of high-density, urban development.

Mak and her immediate neighbors all moved to The Avenue, which opened in August, to escape suburbs, where they owned much larger homes and where they sometimes felt disconnected from their communities. They all say they instantly found themselves more socially connected in their new surroundings.

"I think I was addicted to my neighbors when we first started (getting together)," says Mak, who hosted a small New Year's Eve party for her neighbors. "Eric (one of her neighbors) would leave my place, and five minutes later I'd wonder what Jen's doing, and 'knock, knock, knock.' "

At The Edge, a 123-unit building that also houses outdoor gear company REI, some seventh-floor neighbors started 7th at 7, a monthly gathering at 7 p.m. Sundays for dinner or a play. A few of them even bought season tickets together at Artists Repertory Theatre, says married resident Lisa Paul Heydet, 31.

At Park Place Condominiums, where recent data shows 39 percent of residents are 40 or younger, Craig Davis, 28, says he has been soliciting interest for "a progressive-type dinner, bouncing between people's units."

Just like the first dorm experience at college, the newness of the Pearl engenders friendliness. And it helps that single and young people with plenty of discretionary time and money are moving into the area, thanks to its trendy shops and residences, as well as low interest rates that make it more affordable, says Heydet, a Realtor.

Of course, having constant entertainment right across the hall has its downsides, too. Taft laments, happily, that she never gets to bed on time anymore.

Giovanni Bencomo, 30, jokingly says living in his building has created a minor personal problem.

"Before I moved into The Edge building, I had gotten really good at being on my own and doing lots of stuff on my own," says Bencomo, who used to live in Miami. "Now I just can't handle being on my own. It's a bad vice."

To get personal time, all you have to do is not answer the door or the phone, The Avenue crowd agrees, but be ready for some ribbing.

At a recent gathering at Bluehour, even the waiter had heard that McDowell, who owns his own catering company, had failed to answer his door twice the previous weekend.

Another downside: Bencomo, who moved to Portland almost two years ago, senses he's missing out on the rest of the city by being so Pearl-centric.

Recently, he and his girlfriend went to an eastside restaurant and joked, "Ooh, we're venturing out."

"I hear the North Mississippi area is booming, and I hardly spend any time there," Bencomo says. "We do miss out on a lot of the other attractions Portland has to offer."

The attractions of staying near home, however, can be pretty strong.

Bencomo says he's dated a little in his building and a lot in the Pearl. "If I'm in the Pearl, any given day I'll run into somebody (I've dated)," he says, though he insists there are no Melrose Place-like ex-love tantrums.

"We're able to be civil and social and nice about it all," he says.

Of course, Pearl denizens are well aware that hook-ups could lead to relationships, which could lead to marriage and eventually kids, making Heydet wonder about the next phase of life in the Pearl District buildings.

"What will it be in five years, when all these young people moving in start getting married, having kids and moving out? Who will move in?" she asks.

Maybe she shouldn't worry. After all, there's always a new class of freshmen.

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.