Housing gains ground at Bridgeport Village in Tualatin

Daily Journal of Commerce (Portland, OR), Apr 25, 2008 by Libby Tucker

Trammell Crow Residential this summer will start construction on a $50 million apartment project at Bridgeport Village, bringing housing for the first time to the former industrial site near Interstate 5 in Tualatin.

With completion of The Alexan at Bridgeport, expected in the summer of 2010, the developer will also fulfill the region's vision for a high-density suburban Pearl District.

Trammell Crow Residential already has a 22-story apartment tower called The Alexan rising in Portland's South Waterfront and the Tualatin version will also hold luxury apartments with condo-esque finishes. Only The Alexan at Bridgeport will spread out over a 9- acre development of two and four-story buildings, including retail, residential and live-work components.

"It's kind of positioned between what you (build) downtown and the urban garden apartments typical of the suburbs," Tom DiChiara, TCR's managing director, said. "There's not too many places outside the Portland core that have that density of shopping and offices and grocery stores. So it's a natural place for us to provide a housing alternative."

The former storage lot for the Schneider National trucking company will hold 368 luxury apartments, townhouses, live-work units, 23,000 square-feet of retail space and two above-grade garages providing 800 parking spaces.

New sidewalks will snake throughout the site, connecting residents with an REI store at the northwest corner, a Whole Foods grocery, and Bridgeport Village's shops, restaurants and a movie theater a half-mile down the street.

Providence Health Systems' new medical office building is under- construction across the street. And developer VIP's Industries plans to start construction this summer on a hotel and office complex at an adjacent site.

It's a neighborhood design that Metro's transit-oriented development director Phil Whitmore calls "early Pearl." With a density of about 60 units per acre, the site will more closely resemble the low-rise buildings that first populated Portland's Pearl District, he said.

"It's not Pearl (District) density, but it's still pretty darn dense compared to a typical suburban development," Whitmore said. "You don't have tall buildings there, but you have a strong pedestrian environment."

The project is a long-time coming. Going back to 2000, land-use planning for the Bridgeport Village shopping center included space for condos or apartments at the site, but developers weren't interested in housing then, Doug Rux, community development director for the city of Tualatin, said.

"At that time, market conditions weren't ripe for the housing component to occur," Rux said. "Now that there's a critical mass of retail and office pieces, the market is ready for some of the multifamily housing to help support all of that."

Preparing the site for development was complex and time- consuming, however. The property straddles the cities of Tualatin and Durham, requiring the developer to obtain land use reviews and building permits from both cities. The process has taken more than a year to complete.

The project is now undergoing design-review in Tualatin. If that process goes smoothly, construction is likely to begin in late summer, Rux said. Trammell Crow will also act as the general contractor on the project.