Continuing downtown Portland’s economic recovery was the focus of the Portland Metro Chamber’s 2025 annual meeting on Wednesday, June 4. And Steve Isaak, U.S. Bank’s market leader for Oregon and Southwest Washington, kicked the event off with a quote from Thomas Edison: “Vision without execution is hallucination.”

An estimated 600 regional business leaders, policymakers and community partners attended the event at the Portland Marriott Downtown Waterfront Hotel, where they received a for Portland’s renewal based on recommendations by Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek’s Central City Task Force.

They also heard from a representative of Pittsburgh, which, like Portland, struggled to find its footing post-pandemic.

Andrew Hoan, president of the Portland Chamber, told the crowd that signs of improvement in the Portland economic scene are visible but that a great deal of work is yet to be done. “Nobody should be spiking the football,” he said.

The meeting comes at a critical time for Portland, which lost population — for the first time in memory — in the years following the 2020 pandemic. Downtown office building vacancy rates soared with the growth of remote work, contributing to restaurant and retail closures. Although other similar cities have recovered, Portland is lagging behind, with the population and downtown foot traffic only recently increasing.

Gov. Kotek recognized the continuing problems facing downtown and appointed her Portland Central City Task Force in August 2023. It was co-chaired by Kotek and Dan McMillan, president and CEO of The Standard, and included 50 business, nonprofit and community leaders. In December 2023, the task force released 10 recommendations for revitalizing downtown including increasing safety, cleanliness and homeless shelters, and imposing a moratorium on new local and regional tax increases.

More recently, on May 29, Kotek committed to working with local and regional partners to create a six-month economic development strategy for Portland.

Speakers at the chamber event included Bill Flanagan, special adviser to the Pittsburgh Allegheny Conference on Community Development, the primary organization committed to improving that 10-county region’s economic future and quality of life. In 2020, it released “Next is Now,” a 10-year vision for improving the region’s vitality.

The event also featured the  release of a report by Oregon State University on its state economic impact. presented by OSU President Jayathi Murthy spoke.

Nolan Lienhart, principal of ZGF Architects, listed the numerous major projects in the works that will revitalize Portland, including the redevelopement of the OMSI District, the Albina Vision Trust plans, the coming Broadway Corridor redevelopment of the fortmer downtown US Post Office, and more.

The Portland Chamber also annonced it has joined the Business for Federal Research Coalition, a national alliance of chambers of commerce that advocates for maintaining and increasing research funding in the federal budget and beyond.