Three of the Edgewater units on Main Street near the Willamette River a few weeks ago.
The market is forcing a change in the plans for Edgewater Village, the most ambitious of all the downtown development projects supported by CARA, the Central Albany Revitalization Area.
Developers George and Paula Diamond, of Lake Owego, told the CARA Advisory Board Wednesday they’ve not been able to sell the first five houses built in the planned unit development near the Willamette riverfront on Main Street. Now they’d like to scrap the original plan for 55 additional houses on the six-acre site and build multiple-family housing — apartments — instead.
The CARA board after prolonged discussion, voted that yes, it would consider the change in plans, which the “mixed-use” zoning there would allow. Details, such as a site plan, are to be worked out by the developers in conjunction with the city staff. George Crandall, the Portland architect advising CARA on design matters, will be consulted.
The Diamonds said they’d spent $2.1 million on the project so far, but the market has changed and the kind of houses they would have liked to build on the site are no longer economically feasible. (Or words to that effect; some of the exact phrasing escaped me because nobody at CARA meetings makes any great effort to speak distinctly or to talk directly into the microphones provided in the city council meeting room.)
The five Edgewater houses, two stories each sitting cheek-by-jowl on narrow lots on the west side of the northern stub of Main Street, were finished in August. They remain unsold, though one or two appear to have been rented. They had been priced from nearly $256,000 for the smallest, at 1,546 square feet.
George Diamond also asked that the city sell him at the appraised price a parcel near the center of the Edgewater parcel, adjacent to the BNSF Railway track. Albany acquired the lot from the railroad a few years ago as part of negotiations over a new city franchise for the track, which runs partly on Water Avenue.
CARA has invested $2.4 million in what promised to be a multimillion-dollar development. The public-private partnership deal was structured as a loan that would be forgiven at the rate of $40,000 for every house built. The houses were supposed to be finished in stages through August 2018. Diamond said apartments would result in a tax-value increase bigger than if houses were built — once the project is done. (hh)
Interesting. I’m not sure I would believe a developer who soon after completing these have had multiple “Sale Pending” signs shown. Are they knowledgable on the market in this area for apartments with all that have been built?
Back in 2007, when CARA committed the $2,400,000, the market ‘forced’ this project to be multi-dwelling units (146 condos?) for $22M.
Then the market ‘forced’ the project to be something else, then something else, then something else.
Now the market ‘forced’ the project to be mixed-use with multi-dwelling units?
One gets the feeling that after 8-9 years neither CARA or the Lake Oswego developer knows what the hell they are doing.
It must be fun to play with other people’s money in this way.
Well you certainly don’t know. All you have ever done is complain, harrang and bloviate.
Changing with the times and the market is EXACTLY what businesses and savy government employees do all the time. Like Ed Hodney who runs the parks department and made it a highly entrepreneurial operation.
Hey Bob, what’s does the Parks & Rec have to do with a CARA issue? It’s not his personal “entrepreneurial operation”. It got a great start by Dave Clark & Hodney has just continued it. It’s the one operation I wouldn’t mind putting a few more $$ into. As to “what businesses & savy gov do all the time…”, I think it’s more properly called “Bait & Switch” as applied to Edgewater Village. JE
Not sure what you mean by ‘harrang’, but I had a small hand in getting M22-116 passed (voter approval of urban renewal plans). In the future, I take comfort in knowing that Albany voters who pay the bills will have the final say on urban renewal.
Woods, what have you done that matches this success?
When will CARA realize that this isn’t the French Riviera? There are not droves of people wanting to buy. It’s a ho-hum, drab area down at the end of a dead end street. It sure doesn’t rate to be a gated community! I hope that $40K deal doesn’t extend for “each” apartment proposed (not building) as it does now for each “house”. What was it that P.T. Barnum said about a “sucker….?” It’s my opinion that not one deal CARA has come up with to date would pass muster at an proper election for tax expenditures & not some backroom deal by a selected few! CARA, your deals are starting to come home to roost…JE
Wouldn’t it be refreshing to see the “CITY” show some guts and enforce a contract against a large business.
Like they did with Pepsi? Like they did with Lowes?
10 out of 10 on that one Shawn.
Lowes was “renegotiated”
Your math skills match your other drivel.