NEWS

November 2000, Daily Journal of Commerce

EXPOSING A BRIGHT SOLUTION

By Gretchen Fehrenbacher

Investor/preservationist says Northwest Portland warehouse has makings of a "jewel"

Inside the old Marshall Wells Hardware Co. at Northwest 14th and Lovejoy streets in Portland is the makings of what Robert D. Ball considers a "jewel."

To nearly anyone else, it would be only the emptiness of deep warehouse space, devoid of any light.

But for Ball, a real estate investor and historic preservationist, therein lay the promise for a courtyard that would make it possible to transform the building, most recently, Layton's Bits & Pieces Outlet, into condominiums.

"I looked in there and said, "Why couldn't I cut a hole through the middle, and I thought how beautiful it would be," recounts Ball, a real estate investor and historic preservationist.

He bought the building for $5 million.

Today, his vision for a 165-loft condominium development is on the way to becoming reality. But rather than a courtyard aligning with the four corners of the 97-foot high rise, the courtyard will be turned at a 45-degree angle, shaped like a diamond. Thus, the jewel metaphor has a poetic twist.

Because the wooden floor beams run diagonally to the walls of the building, the 70-foot-square opening will be cut to parallel those lines.

Dave Heater, guiding the project for Ankrom Moisan Associated Architects, said he's never seen beams running that way and doesn't know why it was done. But tilting the courtyard that way will have stunning results, he and Ball agree. Planned are interior trees and landscaping, a water feature possibly using an old conveyor chute from the building, and most of all, the open sky. People with condominiums in the center of the building will be able to look out to a place of solitude, open to the sun, the rain and even the wind.

Heater said that about 5,000 square feet on the top four of seven existing floors will be used for parking and street-level retail.

Ball plans a mixed-income project that would include an eighth floor he plans to build for penthouse condominiums.

When all is done, the building will have 316,222 square feet.

Balls' project won't be the first around the city to come up with the idea of cutting a hole in a building. The offices of public relations firm Wieden & Kennedy building at 224 N.W. 13th Ave. contain an atrium that was created in a former cold-storage warehouse, circa 1907. That project took months on end and dozens of workers.

Like the Wieden & Kennedy building, the Marshall Wells warehouse—built in 1910 for the Marshall Wells Hardware Co.—is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. That designation means that in converting it to living space, care must be taken not to alter the exterior appearance of the building.

New energy-efficient windows that match the existing appearance will be installed. Balconies will not be added because that would change the character of the historic warehouse, said Ball, who projects that the condominiums will range in price from $120,000 or $130,000 to $800,000 for the choicest units, such as a corner penthouse facing east.

The lofts—open and spare space—will play up the clean bold lines of the structure. The wooden architectural elements will figure prominently in that.

"The existing columns and beams... it is awe-inspring," said Heater. "You just don't see that, and to be able to own a piece of that is going to be an amazing thing for the condominium owners."

"I think when someone comes there, they will see a simple kitchen and a simple bathroom, and they will see this amazing wood structure going across their ceiling at a 45-degree angle," Heater said.

Making the courtyard will require removing nine posts and their associated beams in the center of the building.

"We are able to do that by putting in four massive concrete walls from the ground floor of the building to the roof, and these will provide the sheer strength for the building," he said.

The building will also be strengthened another way. Three inches of concrete—reinforced with rebar—will be poured onto the existing floors and attached to the exterior walls of the building with steel dowels.

Those measures will enable the building to meet seismic requirements.

And they will make possible the courtyard.

"This system will enable us to open up the center of the building and let light into the interior condominiums," the architect said.

Heater noted that the Marshall Wells building was one of the first concrete buildings in Portland with steel reinforcement. He said the small bars used were nothing like the rebar of today, but he said that concept was just beginning when the structure was built.

Though not a building that may attract much notice from a passerby, it has historic significance. It was designed by Chicago Architect Daniel Burnham of the firm of Burnham & Root, chief of construction for the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893 and designer of what is considered the oldest skyscraper in New York City, the Flatiron Building. Burnham also is responsible for many features of Chicago that remain today.

The Marshall Wells warehouse is the only building in Portland designed by him.

Originally, the building had four floors; the top three were added in 1915.

Marshall Wells Hardware Co. built it as their first wholesale distributorship on the West Coast, and the location was important: its west border was along 15th Avenue, where the railroad tracks were, making for easy shipping and receiving.

Heater said that during the past five or six years, he has looked at the property with different developers. But until now, things haven't clicked.

"This is the right time, and Robert Ball is the right person to develop the potential of the building." Heater said.

Construction is scheduled to begin around next February or March and conclude in spring, 2002.

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