KNA’s Alan Silver attended the latest PDC Oregon Convention Center Urban Renewal Committee meeting. For those less wonkish of you, the OCCURA is the urban renewal district that includes most of Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd in NE and the Vanport Square project. Here’s what he has learned:

Ray Leary and Jeana Woolley (Vanport Square LLC) originally proposed 16 townhouses for Vanport phase 2, priced somewhere north of $300,000. They’ve concluded that there’s not a market for those at present, and are now proposing to build 8 single-family homes on the site, priced between $260-290,000. PDC is negotiating contracts with Leary/Woolley, and a construction start date of fall 2011 is anticipated.

PDC has been approached by two development teams about Vanport phase 3. One proposal would include the Urban League, medical offices, and commercial; the other team includes Jeff Sackett (one of the developers of Vanport Square), and its proposal includes commercial real estate, including negotiations with an anchor tenant whose identity the team is “not disclosing publicly at this time.”

The PDC is ‘gathering information’ on these two proposals at present. It expects to have no funds available to aid developers of Vanport phase 3, who will have to rely entirely on private financing to complete construction.

As far as OCCURA/Interstate – no one knows when the transfer of prpoerties between URAs is going to happen, and so PDC is writing out its 2010-11 budget for OCCURA knowing that it might have to rewrite it entirely. OCCURA is on a ‘status quo’ budget – anticipating no major changes in its priorities. Interestingly, OCCURA will go on operating even if every parcel in it is transferred to Interstate URA. As long as revenue generated by OCCURA activities continues to accrue to PDC (repayment of loans, etc), then OCCURA will exist to spend that money – and it must spend that money within the original boundaries of OCCURA (Interstate URA can’t access it).

So, we may see something built at Alberta/MLK. Just don’t bet on when yet.