Whitaker site’s an idea magnet

Neighbors, others mull proposals though PPS still holds land

By todd murphy

The Portland Tribune, Jul 10, 2008, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (1 Reader comment)

L.E. BASKOW / TRIBUNE PHOTO

Anne Rothert, who lives near the former site of Whitaker Middle School, as well as other members of the community would like to see the vacant land put to good use. Owned by Portland Public Schools, the land has been unoccupied for seven years.

Seven years ago, the Portland school district closed Whitaker Middle School – troubled with radon and mold issues – on a large plot of land in Northeast Portland.

Seven years later, the school district is still waiting to decide what to do with the 10 acres of land. And they still may wait awhile, according to school district officials.

And seven years later, the land’s neighbors have reached nearly a decade’s worth of anxiousness to get the land into some better use.

“I think there is definitely a fair amount of frustration – especially for folks who’ve been involved in the process for a long period of time,” said Tony Fuentes, co-chairman of the Concordia Neighborhood Association, which includes the former Whitaker site just north of Killingsworth Street and west of 42nd Avenue in Northeast Portland.

Fuentes said neighborhood residents understand school district officials can hold the land without developing it for as long as they want. “But what happens in any neighborhood, you look at this as public land, and you have a sense of ownership,” Fuentes said. “You want to see it put to good use and not sitting there idly.”

Fuentes and other leaders in both the Concordia and nearby Cully neighborhoods said the current state of the land certainly is better than a bit more than a year ago – when the former Whitaker building was boarded up but not yet demolished. The building became a haven for graffiti, trash, drug dealing and other crime.

After demolishing the building a year or so ago, school district officials planted grass on the site, which now is open space just south of Fernhill Park.

“It’s actually nice” compared to when the building remained on-site, said Anne Rothert, a board member of the Concordia Neighborhood Association who has been on citizens’ committees concerning the land, off and on for years.

Community center among ideas

But residents of the Cully and Concordia neighborhoods said they eventually hope the land would be used for much more than that – and are especially supportive of an idea that officials at nearby Concordia University began talking about publicly more than a year ago.

School district officials always have said the district likely would keep about three acres of the land for a possible future school.

The Concordia officials’ idea is for the private university to buy the remaining six acres of land to build what would be a combination athletic center for Concordia students and athletes and a community center for the neighborhood. Concordia also would develop some of the land into retail space along Northeast 42nd Avenue.

Concordia and Cully neighborhood leaders have talked for years about the need for a community center in their parks- and community-center-deficient neighborhoods. And owners of existing business along 42nd Avenue are “excited about having something to draw people into that area,” said Kathy Fuerstenau, co-chairwoman of the Cully Neighborhood Association.

Concordia University Provost Mark Wahlers estimated that Concordia would spend $12 million to $14 million to buy the land and build the athletic and business complex. A school district official estimates the land is worth between $3 million and $4 million.

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