Skip to main content
The long-running fight over a shipping warehouse in the Argay Terrace neighborhood intensified this week as a group of environmental organizations called on the Oregon Land Use Board of Appeals to review the city of Portland’s decision to issue building permits for the project.
Neighbors for Clean Air, 1000 Friends of Oregon, and the Northwest Environmental Defense Center filed the petition with LUBA on Monday to stop San Francisco-based Prologis from building the warehouse on the site of the old Kmart on Northeast 122nd Avenue.
Throughout the battle, which began in 2022, Argay residents have argued that the facility’s 37 new loading bays would drive more freight-truck traffic into a neighborhood that’s already blighted by it. The area just north of the site, across Sandy Boulevard, is lined with shipping warehouses. This one would be built south of Sandy, bordering apartment complexes, houses and schools.
“The city has repeatedly failed to ensure off-site impacts would be addressed before issuing the permits,” said Annette Stanhope, chair of the Historic Parkrose Neighborhood Association. “For over two years, our concerns about the negative impacts from the Prologis development, including diesel truck pollution and increased semi-truck traffic near our students’ schools, still have not been evaluated and addressed. LUBA is our last opportunity to have the community’s voice heard before this facility is completed.”
Prologis said in a statement: “We have worked cooperatively with the city and the community for over two years on this project and believe that the LUBA appeal has no basis. Throughout this process, we have followed all government requirements and stayed in close communication with the city.”
Prologis is at work on the site. The company has torn down the remains of the old Kmart, which caught fire last July, sending blackened pieces of insulation flying around East Portland.