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East Portland residents fighting to stop a 260,000-square-foot Prologis shipping warehouse at the site of the old Kmart on Northeast Sandy Boulevard got support from three prominent environmental organizations last week.
1000 Friends of Oregon, Neighbors for Clean Air and the Northwest Environmental Defense Center filed notice with the state’s Land Use Board of Appeals saying they intend to appeal the building permit for the project, which the city granted Nov. 28.
The groups say the city approved the permit without properly analyzing the impacts or addressing neighbors’ concerns about diesel emissions and truck traffic. The new warehouse would be built right next to apartment complexes and would stand amid of a cluster of public schools. Designs for the warehouse show 37 bays for trucks that would make hundreds of new trips in high-crash corridors, the groups said.
“For over a year, thousands of Oregonians have raised the very real dangers and hazards that will come if a warehouse distribution center is placed near people’s schools and homes,” Sam Diaz, executive director of 1000 Friends of Oregon, said in a statement. “I am disappointed that, instead of addressing these issues, we must resort to an appeal.”
Prologis, a San Francisco-based company that handles freight for Amazon, Home Depot and others, says it will break ground on the project next month.
“We have engaged with the City of Portland throughout the site’s redevelopment process, meeting all the requirements,” the company said in a statement. “We look forward to building a new and sustainable logistics facility that will bring jobs and support Portland’s local economy.”
Most Portlanders probably know the proposed warehouse site from trips to Costco, which is nearby, or from news coverage of the 2021 far-right festival where Proud Boys fought anti-fascists with paintball guns and baseball bats.
People who live in the Argay Terrace and Parkrose neighborhoods know the site more intimately. Many of them picked chunks of scorched insulation off their lawns and roofs after the abandoned Kmart burst into flames in July and burned to the ground. Soon after, resident Stephen Vandervort filed a class action lawsuit against the owner of the property and Prologis, alleging they had neglected to maintain it properly, resulting in conditions that led to the fire.
The property is owned by RFC Joint Venture, a legal entity controlled by New Jersey real estate billionaire Zygmunt Wilf, who also owns the Minnesota Vikings football team. Prologis holds a long-term lease on the property.
Nearby residents say their neighborhoods are choked with warehouses already, most of which are north of Sandy. Prologis’ would dip south along Northeast 122nd Avenue, which marks the border between Argay Terrace and Parkrose.
“Earlier this year, the Parkrose Neighborhood Association joined others, including the Parkrose School District, in asking for a moratorium on the development of large distribution warehouses, like the one planned by Prologis,” Annette Stanhope, chair of the neighborhood association, said in a statement. “We were disappointed to hear City Council thought enacting this moratorium was not an option.”
The Prologis permit, for a “concrete tilt-up semi-heated warehouse building with one office tenant space” was issued by the Bureau of Development Services on Nov. 28.
Jimmy Radosta, spokesman for City Commissioner Carmen Rubio, who oversees BDS, said the city attorney’s office is usually notified by regular mail if the city is named in a LUBA appeal.
“As yet, they have not received anything,” Radosta said in an email.
Rubio’s office is working on a “good neighbor agreement” between the neighborhoods and Prologis, Radosta said. “That engagement continues and will expand after the new year,” he said.
