I like to go out for walks during my lunch. It was a sunny day, and we've been getting lots of rain lately so I wanted to take advantage of it. I usually just walk near my place of employment, but I decided to check out the promenade near the Willamette River. I was in the mood to people watch, not really out to check on the progress of my other projects I have yet to blog about.
On my way I noticed something that stopped me in my tracks. Is this for real? Have they really started on the construction of the new Apple Store? This store is going to be magnificent! Put aside your feelings about whose product is more superior. When Apple builds newer retail stores, they become one of the most visited locations in that city. Well in New York it's true, and I think Portland will be no different.
Rendering of New Portland Apple Store at Night
Rendering of New Portland Apple Store during the Day
The new building is going to be on 5th and Yamhill at the old Sak's Fifth Avenue building. A portion of the building and an adjoining sky bridge will be demolished and replaced with floor to ceiling glass panel walls. Now up to this point, Apple hasn't officially announced they are building a new store, but if you look into the one of the windows of the existing building, there are drawings hanging on the walls that confirm it is indeed a new Apple store. Also there is a date out there floating that September 2013 is the opening date. We will have to wait for Apple's official announcement. So looks like I need to add another trip in my week to get new pictures....so I am definitely looking forward to posting progress shots of this new building.
We'll soon say goodbye to the very crowded Pioneer Square Apple Store
I commute to work on mass transit and so it is on my bus route that I make a lot of my discoveries. I travel down 99W from Sherwood and as it crosses Interstate 5 it turns into Barbur Blvd which takes me into downtown Portland. This route has so many projects that have popped up and over the year and a half commuting this way I have seen projects being completed, watching weekly the progress. I can think of many reasons why I get so much enjoyment out of watching the progress of each project, but I think the main one is I really enjoy seeing something go from being an eye sore to being very eye pleasing. I think construction these days put much more emphasis on it being more aesthetically pleasing than many city planners thought to do several decades ago. Even the ordinances that are enforced today ensure that the landscaping is a high priority when developers plan to build, but it wasn't always that way.
Shopping Center a block from my home in Cameron, TX
To this day when I travel back home to my small town of 5,500 I shake my head every time I see the shopping center they built about a block from my home. This shopping center could have used ordinances in place to require better landscaping, and the buildings are not at all pleasing to look at either. So knowing this about me can explain why some of the projects I get excited about have a lot about beautifying the area.
All that said, on my commute about a month ago, I noticed that the Safeway on Barbur Boulevard and Capitol Hill Road had closed. I didn't think much about it since it was a pretty old building. I simply thought they weren't doing well due to the expansion and remodeling of the Fred Meyer (Yes! I watched that excitedly) down the street. But then last week a chain linked fence appeared around the perimeter of the property.
View of Safeway from Barbur Blvd. Road to left of building connects you to Multnomah Blvd.
View from the parking lot
I was intrigued - someone must have already planned on moving to this location and remodel the building. I couldn't imagine who - this building was pretty run down. A few days after seeing the fence go up, the front of the building was being demolished so clearly this building was going to be remodeled. I put my research fingers to work to find the Safeway actually closed because out of the 615 Safeway stores in the nation 2 needed replacing and this was one of them.
Bird's eye view of the 21,000 sq..ft building and property.
So it turns out it isn't a remodeling project at all, it's actually a total demolishing of the building and a brand new building will go in it's place. It isn't just a new building, it will go from 21.000 sq.ft to over double it's size of 56,000 sq ft. The property isn't big enough to provide parking and a bigger building so what they are doing is building one of the first Safeway buildings which follows the pedestal models. The first level is parking and the second is the new larger store. I am pretty excited about this project; I even found a video that shows you what it will look like.
Watch this cool video - it's worth the view
So as you can imagine, I will look intently as I pass this area everyday. I will do my best to take pictures of the progress from the bus as I pass, but I may have to take a personal monthly trip to this area to get a progress shot to share.
Have you ever traveled down the road and noticed signs of construction and wondered "What are they building?"? Well I do! All the time! And it drives me crazy. The moment I see something new happening I make sure I make a note of it and as soon as I get some free time I do a diligent search on the internet to see if I can find out all I can about it. I have done this all my life...I find it very intriguing with any kind of improvements to buildings to new construction.
Before Canal (click to enlarge) Complete
One of the first projects where I practically became obsessed with was in Oklahoma City. The city decided they wanted to liven up their entertainment district and one of the features in that plan was the canal (along with canal boats) to go through the district. It was amazing to watch and I still to this day check out the progress of how they have revitalized that area. I now have numerous projects that I keep track of and very excited about and I thought why don't I just start a blog about them. Now the trick is to figure out which of those many projects to chose first.
