The future of downtown Portland was the focus of the Portland Metro Cahmber's 2005 Annual Meeting. (Portland Tribune file photo)

The Portland Metro Chamber is continuing to advocate for downtown’s economic recovering by focusing its large membership meetings on new plans and strategies.

Recent meetings open to the press included the 2025 Annual Meeting held on Thursday, June 4. It featured the presentation of the final recommendations by Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek’s Central City Task Force titled “All In on Portland’s Central City: A Roadmap to Reclaim, Rebuild, and Reconnect.”

Among other things, the report calls for recreating the urban core as a series of walkable neighborhoods with gathering spots, innovation hubs, and 2,500 new homes, half of which will be affordable housing units.

“We must envision the Portland of 2035. We must think big,” said Mayor Keith Wilson, who presented the report at the meeting.

The following week, the Chamber is scheduled to use its monthly breakfast forum to introduce the new Sport Art Coalition that is working to reenergize downtown. It will feature a panel discussion with some of the city’s most influential sports, arts, and cultural leaders.

The June 4 meeting was attended by over 600 business leaders, policymakers, and community partners at the annual meeting at the Portland Downtown Marriott Waterfront Hotel. It came at a critical time for Portland. The city lost population for the first time in memory in the years following the economic shutdowns to fight the pandemic in 2020. 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 only increasing slightly for the first time in four years in 2024.

Kotek recognized the continuing problems facing downtown and appointed the Portland Central City Task Force in early 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. The task force released 10 recommendations for revitalizing downtown in December 2023, including increasing safety, cleanliness, and homeless shelters, and imposing a moritorium 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.

According to Chamber President and CEO Andrew Hoan, the focus on downtown is paying off. Crime is down and businesses are returning, increasing downtdown foot traffic.

“Portland is continuing to climb out of a period of historic disruption that shook us to our core. What we can say today, as an organization that represents thousands of businesses in the Portland region, is that Portland’s future is becoming clearer,” Hoan said.

The report also identifies 75 projects throughout the Central City that are already in the works and need to be completed. They include large-scale ones like Albina Vision that intends to reclaim the Rose Quarter, the Broadway Corridor that will transform the former downtown U.S. Post Office into a new neighborhood, and the coming multi-use OMSI District. Smaller but still influential projects include a Major League Baseball stadium proposed in South Waterfront and the coming James Beard Public Market.

Wilson said to help meet the report’s goals, he agreed with Kotek to temporarily suspend city System Development Charges that increase the cost of construction projects and to spend $15 million in Portland Clean Energy Fund dollars to convert one or two vacant office buildings into housing to prove it can be done.

“If we let our commercial core hollow out, we lose the economic engine that funds our schools, our transit, the housing that we so desperately need,” Wilson said.

The next big Chamber event, the June 11 breakfast forum, will unveil plans by the newly formed Sport Art Coalition to revitalize downtown. According to the Chamber, the leaders of these institutions are joining forces to support one another on critical city issues that affect their fans, their future, and the vitality of Portland itself.

Five panelists will discuss their plans for advocacy around steady funding sources, top-tier venues, and lively, clean neighborhoods to keep the crowds coming. They inlcude include: Heather Davis, CEO, Portland Timbers; Jim Etzel, CEO, Sport Oregon; Dewayne Hankins, President of Business Operations, Portland Trail Blazers; Shane Jewell, Executive Director, Oregon Ballet Theatre; and Isaac Thompson, President and CEO, Oregon Symphony.

Founded in 1870, the Portland Metro Chamber is the oldest, largest, and most diverse business organization in Oregon and Southwest Washington. It has evolved over the years and was previously known as the Portland Trade Board (1870-1890), The Portland Chamber of Commerce (1890-1984) the Portland Metropolitan Chamber (1984-2001), and the Portland Business Alliance (2001-2023). Since 2017, it has helped prepare and release a series of reports on the economy of the city, region, and state.