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The Portland Parks Foundation spent much of last year trying to figure out what to do with O’Bryant Square, now called Darcelle XV Plaza, the sliver of blighted city property at Southwest Harvey Milk Street and 9th Avenue.
Among the things that 400 respondents wanted to see at the square once known as “Paranoid Park” and “Needle Park”? Food carts.
They are a tradition in the neighborhood. The most famous cart pod in the city once filled a parking lot just off O’Bryant’s southwest corner. Now, that pod is a high-rise Ritz-Carlton hotel with a smaller pod called Flock.
So why no food carts in Portland Parks & Recreation’s proposal for Darcelle? Emails obtained by WW offer a clue.
On Sept. 1, city parks official Dylan Paul wrote to colleague Ross Swanson, outlining their plan to award a contract to Downtown Portland Clean & Safe, a public-private partnership that provides security and trash pickup to downtown businesses. The email says Clean & Safe was offering $400,000 in in-kind benefits at the plaza.
“C&S has indicated that their donations are predicated on not creating direct competition for their District,” a section of downtown that Clean & Safe patrols, Paul wrote. That direct competition? Food carts, which would vie with the Ritz-Carlton pod.
Two months earlier, the Ritz had made its opposition known. In a July 20 letter, Ritz representative Brian Owendoff wrote to Commissioner Dan Ryan recommending that the Parks Department fence the property and exclude food carts, at least at first, because there were too many in the area already.
“Flooding the market with too many food venders will benefit no one,” Owendoff wrote in the letter, first reported by WW last weekend.
Carts still could have gone on the street near the park, Paul’s email indicates, but an official at the Portland Bureau of Transportation “doesn’t see them taking a stand given the strong objection from C&S,” Paul wrote.
Director of operations Steve Wytcherley says Clean & Safe has no objections to food carts. It chose an events space to activate the area because events are working at Director Park, which it also helps manage. “We put forth a proposal that best fit our mission,” Wytcherley said.
Related: Proposed fence around Darcelle XV Plaza draws criticism from Portland Design Commission.