Owners of about six acres along the Willamette River in east Albany have filed their long-awaited plan for “The Banks,” an apartment complex on the former industrial site and neighboring lots.
The site plan for the property at 595 Geary St. N.E., across from Bowman Park, shows 96 apartments plus nine “towne homes” for a total of 105 units. The market-rate apartments of one to three bedrooms each are shown in six separate buildings. The plan also shows a clubhouse and 217 parking spaces, more than the city requires.
Access to the apartments and parking lots would be from Geary Street on the west side and Alco Street on the east. The townhouses, arranged in three buildings of three units each, would front on Linn Avenue.
There’s a walking trail across the river frontage of the property, connecting Bowman and Simpson parks, and the plan shows it would be preserved.
The city’s planning division notified owners within 1,000 feet of the property this week. It also posted the customary notice online. The public has until May 6 to provide comments. Approval of the plan is up to the planning staff. A hearing before the planning commission will be set only if somebody who has submitted comments objects to the staff decision.
In the 1980s the vacant portion of the project site was the location of the Permawood industrial plant. The plant site was exempted from some of the building-height and setback limits in the city’s development code for the Willamette River Greenway. The plan shows buildings along the river to have three stories, but between them and the bank there’s parking and then the walking path.
Parts of the riverfront buildings in the plan sit astride the line marking the Willamette’s 100-year floodplain. That means the bottom of the first-floor apartments must be above that line.
The applicant and property owner is Willamette River View Holdings, of Salem. I asked one the principals, Patrick Morley, about any flooding concerns. His reply: “We are doing a LOMAR, which means filling the property to take all buildings to at least 1 foot above BFE (i.e. Base Flood Elevations). No building will be below the 100-year flood elevation.
He added, “Interesting to note, the recent flood did not impact our property. Bowman Park was under water, but nothing on our property. … I spoke to an employee of the Army Corps of Engineers that was measuring the flood height, and he told me it was at same level of the 1996 flood and no impact to our property. With the action we are taking to fill, this not a concern.”
Melissa Anderson, the project planner for the city, says the application was deemed complete April 2. The city has 120 days from that date to reach a final decision on the plan. (hh)
A nod to Hasso’s pique – re: the word Towne, used in the overinflated marketing poppycock about the impending The Banks development, replete with a torrent of Towne Homes.
What is the Pointe about Towne?
The Pointe about Towne is that these buildings exist in an era when pastiche has replaced design. It started in earnest around 1986 (wild guess). I don’t know if Reagan had anything to do with it.
The traffic these new apts. will create will make it even harder to get across Salem Ave. at Geary St. which is already been a problem. Lots of accidents at that intersection.
No kidding! They better put in a street light!
Carpark-view apartments with almost no greenspace. That’s what the entire urban developed world will look like unless people are willing to put some distance between themselves and their cars, or (better yet) do without owning one.
If you don’t believe my assessment of this place, look at the barely-readable final page of the plan (or whatever the document is called):
https://www.cityofalbany.net/images/stories/cd/planning/planreview/SP-01-19/NF_SP-01-19_et_al_NofF_ma_PKT.pdf
All that said, I don’t see any more reason to oppose this project than any other. The only real solution is a paradigm shift away from car-dependency.
Did they test the area for pollutants? Just saying.
If memory serves, that site was extensively cleaned up some 10 or 20 years ago.
HH
LOMAR is apparently an acronym. I’d like to know it translates to, but Google leads me to H P Lovecraft
LOMAR stands for Letter of Map Revision (US Army Corps of Engineers)
The only downfall is cant afford to move in a new apartment here in Lebanon new apartments average $1,100 on up.