East and Eden
The public market has lost its digs. Should it shift its gaze eastward?
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 IMAGE: chrisryanphoto.com |
[November 21st, 2007]
After a Portland Development Commission vote, the Portland Public Market’s nearly decade-long search for a home has collapsed again.
The Pacific Northwest College of Art outmaneuvered backers of the proposed market, after both sought the historic 511 Broadway Building as a future home. Market supporters got the bad news when the PDC voted last Wednesday to bow out of the public process. PNCA exercised an option called an “educational-use transfer,” which gives academic institutions the right to bypass local processes and negotiate directly with the federal government, which owns the building.
In the past month, a lot of ink has been spilled in the local media trying to determine the best use of the 511 Building, and the PDC made the right choice. PNCA is a well-funded entity that has been around for a century while the public market has little momentum and doesn’t exist .
Before market backers regroup and home in on the next iconic building (in the past they’ve also had their hearts set on Union Station and the Skidmore Fountain building to house a PDX version of Seattle’s Pike Place Market ), they ought to explore why their efforts continue to fail. In food-obsessed Portland, a year-round market should have been an easy sell.
Back in the ’80s, Ron Paul and Amelia Hard, the market’s principal backers, helped sprout the city’s culinary movement. But PDX no longer resembles the place for which the original, 1993 Public Market proposal was penned. It called for a home for bakeries, coffee shops, wine merchants, and specialty-foods purveyors—amenities that Portland now has. In 1993, there was no New Seasons Market or Ken’s Artisan Bakery. And the Farmers Market was dinky.
Today, entrepreneurs have filled the niches that the city once lacked, while our Portland Farmers Market is lauded as one of the nation’s best. From nationally acclaimed restaurants to a thriving food-cart culture, Portland houses an impressive amount of foodie micro-enterprises.
That Portland needs a “kitchen and pantry” is Paul’s favorite one-liner, but PDX has plenty of them. What it doesn’t have is a landmark, year-round market and forum for food and food education. Safe to say that will only happen if a concerted effort is made to engage the public. A recent poll on the local foodie website Portlandfoodanddrink.com expressed overwhelming reader support for a year-round public market, but market backers have failed to harness this enthusiasm. In the days prior to the PDC hearing, public market backers didn’t even send out a press release to muster support for its 511 bid.
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Vancouver, B.C.’s, Granville Island Public Market is a project Ron Paul often cites as an example for Portland. In 1979, it didn’t begin life housed in an iconic shell, but in a bunch of nondescript metal buildings that would transform an industrial wasteland into a showcase for gastronomy. PDX’s Central Eastside Industrial District could be our Granville Island. It’s where land is cheaper, urban renewal funds are available and Portland’s creative heart most strongly beats.
“The eastside wasn’t a viable location six years ago,” remembers veteran Portland chef David Machado. “Today it’s a viable location.”
Imagine taking a ferry—like in Vancouver, B.C.—across the Willamette River from Tom McCall Waterfront Park to the James Beard Public Market on the Eastside Waterfront: a collaborative effort of foodies like Paul and Hard plus the cadre of young chefs and artisans currently not part of the effort. It would be the right revitalizing project for the close-in east side and a link to the historic Produce Row in an industrial area where thousands already work.
“The river is no longer a barrier for people to engage with a public market,” says Brad Malsin, whose Beam Development is already busy reinventing portions of the inner east side.
Regardless of location, Ron Paul needs to take his message beyond bureaucrats and City Club debates. He needs to take to the streets, engaging the public. In addition to the sporadic (but necessary) fundraising galas, why not shut down traffic and plan a midnight market on the Burnside Bridge in the middle of July? Make us feel it, Ron!
Portlander James Beard famously said, “Food is our common ground.” So if we’re to honor his legacy with a showcase market, the effort ought to be our common ground as well.
The problem with this idea is that it needs to be financed privately, not on the government's dole (aka PDC). It needs to stand on its own feet as a truly free market concept. I would support it in that vision and none other. The city has better and more relevant things to fund.
Lents could use a community market, but Lents wouldn't be the place for the showcase Portland market.
Bravo Potter! All the planners and council can think about is inner city. When the inner city is always going to be fine because of condensed housing, freeway access, max/bus service, and most downtown workers prefer to live close in.
Pederson, what leads you to your conclusion? If it's based on the historic and market perception of Lents, that has and is changing rapidly.
If a public market is to be of its time, how would it fit in Lents? How many Portlanders can walk to a market in Lents? When was the last time a hot shot Portland chef opened a restaurant in Lents? Which amenities in Lents would fit with a public market? The main commercial drag is still a bit shabby and while the neighborhood has improved, it would kind of embarrassing if out-of-town visitors were to check out Portland's market that's five miles from downtown and surrounded by strip malls.
A market in Lents could really be a true marketplace in the traditional sense...much like the markets I have seen in Romania and Mexico. It has the populations of recent immigrants that would be willing to support it, and walk to it. It is a residential neighborhood (unlike the central east side industrial area) that will be served by 4 light rail stops within the next year. So, yes, more Portlanders would be able to walk to it from home than those on the central east side. And, if they could not, it could be easily accessed by light rail.
Lents is an Urban Renewal Area, with plans for new developments and, yes, amenities. They may not exist currently, but the potential is there and a market would only act as a catalyst for that potential. Hot shot chefs are already creeping up Foster road.
The worst argument for not building something in an up and coming neighborhood is that the neighborhood is not completely developed. The market will most likely be more successful if it operates with a pioneering spirit, rather than just chasing after the status quo posh neighborhoods.
The Pike Place Market wasn't built to attract out of town visitors. It was built to bring affordable produce to the residents of that neighborhood. A market that is built for tourists is just a tourist attraction. A real market exists for the purpose of bringing food to people.
Once again, Lents could definitely showcase a truly authentic market, but it is by no means a good choice for the showcase Portland Public Market. I know of no hot chefs on Foster Road other than at Cava, which is on 53rd and Foster. We can agree to disagree here, but the Portland Public Market needs to be in the urban core.
A locavore farmers market and specialty food hall - all products being local, from sustainable organic (or at the very least non-chemicalized) sources - highlighting the very best Oregon has to offer - where people can trust what they purchase, socialize and share - where market organizers can help the farmer / artist / Chef market their goods at a fair price and the market organizers can provide portland with clean food / products
During the PDC meeting on the use of the 511 Building, it was clear that the PDC would have been bound to a much more public debate on the future of the site. If it weren't for the federal regulations favoring schools, we'd still be talking about the best use for this building. But consider this: PNCA has a master plan that calls for city campus that networks the extended Pearl District. This is a much more flexible plan than the Public Market's nearsighted "if you build it they will come" approach. Perhaps, indeed, Ron Paul et., al should rethink the market to better incorporate the city into its plan instead of the other way around.
It called for a home for bakeries, coffee shops, wine merchants, and specialty-foods purveyors�amenities that Portland now has.
Yet there are parts of mid-county and east county that lack most/all of these amenities, and are on the verge of becoming classified as "food deserts".
I think it's time for the public market movement to let go of the need for a landmark building and start fresh in an area that needs both the services of a public market and the added benefit of having a destination and identity. Lents as a community is highly supportive of their farmer's market, and has already brought up the possibility of providing a permanent home for it.
Lents is right along an old farm-to-market route. And, the diversity of cultures there is comprised of peoples who either come from or have been exposed to public markets: Eastern Europeans, Latinos, Southeast Asians and even a growing East African population. Not to mention, it could be a huge draw for the wealthier residents of Mt. Scott and Happy Valley.
With the green line opening in 2009, and the availability of Urban Renewal funding, it seems like a nearly perfect match.