Portland’s reputation has fallen dramatically among investors, lenders and developers. “The media coverage of Portland with civil unrest and the pandemic unfortunately scared a lot of these folks away and that means less money getting brought into the city,” he said. Portland relies upon outside money to fuel construction, growth and the economy. He doesn’t like what the numbers mean, especially for investors.
“This is as vacant as downtown Portland has been,” said Bean.īusinesses in downtown Portland re-install boards over their windows after a series of riots and unlawful assemblies, Ap(KOIN)Īdam Bean works for his father’s company. Portland’s downtown commercial vacancy rate has reached a staggering 17.5% and is projected to keep climbing. The central business district - the heart of the city - is empty. “We need to make people feel safe to want to come to the central business district.” “I’m not optimistic about the future of the downtown core without a change of how we handle the protests and how we handle the filth and the graffiti,” he said.
It’s just killing downtown Portland,” said commercial real estate broker Doug Bean.īean has been managing and leasing commercial office space for more than 40 years in Portland. “People don’t want to come downtown, they don’t feel safe and even moreover the small shops and the little guys - the local folks - are really getting hurt by this and the protests and the damage there. Signs advertising buildings for lease can be found all over the downtown district. “It was worse than I thought it was going to be.”Ħ arrested at May Day riot businesses spend Sunday repairing damage “It was just a little disappointing to see how unkempt the city was and the homelessness was in a bad way,” said Eileen who was visiting from Florida. In the past year, peaceful protests have been hijacked by violence, city landmarks have been defaced and torn down and uncontrolled vandalism has forced the closure of businesses. “I know now it’s changed tremendously and there’s a lot of trouble up there but I remember when it was a wonderful place to live.”
“I was raised in Portland, Oregon, so to me I think of the old Portland,” said Los Angeles resident Molly. And the mayor and other leaders seem overwhelmed, ineffective and ill-equipped to stop it. Violent protests have damaged the heart of the city and continue to destroy its reputation. The city’s homeless problem has worsened. Portland may be slowly emerging from the pandemic but the downtown district is fenced off, boarded up and dying. (KOIN) - Everywhere you look, the City of Roses has become the city of trash and filth.
Click here for the full series, send us your comments to and tune in Monday, May 17 at 7 p.m. This is an extreme case as most players will not be willing to do so, but the option is available.Editor’s note: This is part one of an ongoing series this week through May 17 looking into issues the City of Portland faces. If so desired, players are allowed to physically travel to a different location when making their picks so that they may take that location as their #1 pick. Obviously this variant is not intended to be fair, but it's fun to play a game with lopsided populations. Once the game starts, players can go wherever they want and are not bound by any rules. When players are picking the territories they want to start with, they must pick the location they are currently at in real-life as their #1 pick (as close as possible given the available possibilities on the map.)įor pick #2 and up, they must spiral out from their #1 pick so that if their #1 pick is taken by someone else, they will start as close as possible to their real-life location. Limit players to one territory at game start ( territory limit).