With Investments Pouring In, Downtown Salem is Getting a Shot of Energy
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Downtown Salem is rapidly transforming.
Four years ago, Rick Scott, the city’s urban development director, could count the number of downtown housing units on one hand. In early 2008, the tally was 50, with almost 140 under construction across three projects, including The Meridian, a luxury condo development with offices and a deli overlooking the Willamette River and the Cascade Mountains.
Nearly 400 other apartments and condos are on the drawing table in the downtown core.
Property owners in February 2008 approved an Economic Improvement District that will generate $200,000 a year for Go Downtown Salem!– a new nonprofit with big plans to market downtown as a destination for arts, culture, dining, music and living.
The city is an active partner, spending $8.5 million on grants and below-market loans since 2003 on projects that generated another $18 million in private investment. So far, the work has included 27 downtown building restorations.
“There’s really been a renaissance in the downtown core,” Scott says. “What we’ve tried to do is generate a certain level of excitement. Local developers were the first to come on board.”
Scott McKinney was on the ground early. He and business partner Roy Carmen target vacant buildings and renovate them for mixed retail and residential use. The first downtown venture, the Bishop building, now has eight loft apartments, with stores and a restaurant on the ground floor.
The project benefitted from a below-market city loan, an incentive that McKinney says “makes a huge difference.”
“The city really stepped up and that helps a lot,” he says. “If you had to do it at [the rate] a regular bank loaned you money, the buildings would not cash flow.”
In February 2008, tenants started to move into another of the team’s projects, the Metropolitan building at 160 Liberty St., N.E.
Developer Dan Berrey, president of Commercial Concepts Inc., takes “underutilized spaces” and creates new buildings. His company is behind The Meridian, at the corner of Mission and Commercial, and also
is working on the 13-acre Boise Cascade site, which sits just south of the riverfront park.
Berrey credits the city for backing the $38.5 million Salem Conference Center, which opened in 2005 and invited more aggressive downtown investment.
“It is refreshing to see the revitalization of downtown,” Berrey says. “The commercial environment is very strong right now. We are just not seeing any slowdown.”
Nor is slow a word that applies to Suzi Bicknell, the executive director of Go Downtown Salem! The fledgling organization already has an ambitious roster of plans: expand downtown existing First Wednesday art focus include music and dining specials for the entire family; launch a Summer in the City festival featuring music and the region’s well-known wines on Aug. 9 and 10; and grow the flower baskets that add streetscape color from 20 to 100.
The downtown marketing effort will help boost holiday sales for downtown merchants and eventually include a restaurant council. Studies show that 70 percent of people head to downtowns for dining, Bicknell says.
What’s notable about Salem’s resurgence is that the developers are local, says attorney Mark Shipman, who works in the real estate division of Saalfeld Griggs.
“It’s exciting to see this kind of more mature development,” Shipman says.
And the city is making sure that the availability of open, public green spaces keeps pace with it. The old Union Street railroad bridge will open this year as a restored pedestrian and bicycle path that connects west Salem to the downtown core. Other plans include connecting downtown with the 1,000-acre nature preserve on Minto Brown Island Park, creating not only recreation for downtown residents, but a lunchtime option for workers, Scott says.
“You have to have a neighborhood here and that’s what we are looking for.”
Story by Pamela Coyle
Photo by Jeff Adkins
Comments
This is great. Downtowns all over America are being revitalized. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a great thing...flight to the suburbs, and subsequent decay of downtowns, was never good for anyone...especially now with gas prices constantly in flux.
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Mike J.
By Mike J.
our downtown area was also revitalized, its seems as though cities know that downtown is a very important part
By dallas1
Financial capital refers to the funds provided by lenders (and investors) to businesses to purchase real capital equipment for producing goods/services.
By Quick House Sale
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