Brownfields Showcase Community Fact Sheet

Community Profile

Portland, Oregon

Portland has more than 1,000 brownfields properties dispersed throughout the city. Since 1994, public and private partnerships have cleaned up and recycled hundreds of acres of contaminated property and created thousands of jobs, while promoting brownfields redevelopment, pollution prevention, and greenspace protection.

Background

The Brownfields National Partnership has selected the City of Portland as a Brownfields Showcase Community. Portland has a population of 503,000, and is Oregon's oldest and largest shipping and commercial center. The city is pursuing a development strategy that combines aggressive business recruitment and job creation with long-term growth management and environmental protection. This includes investigation of 484 known contaminated sites and another 600 with suspected or threatened contamination.

Portland has a history of commitment to brownfields redevelopment, and has already established strong local, state, and federal partnerships to accomplish its goals. Recent brownfields efforts have stimulated an increase in mixed-use development in the city, while preventing urban sprawl. Redevelopment efforts along the waterfront have contributed to improved water quality, preservation of open spaces, and new jobs and housing. The city's federally-designated Enterprise Community (EC)—the location of many brownfields in close proximity to schools, churches, neighborhoods, and community centers—has also been the target of extensive outreach by the city. In order to replicate the successes it has achieved in other parts of the city, Portland plans to focus more of its efforts in the EC.

Portland's "2040 Growth Strategy" is a plan conceived in anticipation of a population increase of 500,000 for the metropolitan area by the year 2015 and the resulting pressures on the city's urban growth boundary and surrounding greenfields. The strategy addresses the prevention of sprawl by steering growth patterns to fit within the city's overall goals of redevelopment and economic improvement as well as improving water quality, eliminating contaminated pathway exposure, and protecting habitat and greenfield properties.

Current Activities and Achievements

Portland is the recipient of a Brownfields Assessment Demonstration Pilot grant from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and has leveraged those funds to provide increased awareness and interest in brownfields issues and redevelopment opportunities. Pilot activities include development of an Internet web site (http://www.brownfield.org) for outreach and creation of Brownfields Roundtable workshops. Highlights of Portland's brownfields redevelopment program include:

• Partnering with the Departments of Housing and Urban Development and Transportation on the current Central City Streetcar Project, an urban rail-based transit system, which has already helped to leverage support for two other planned redevelopment projects;

• Partnering with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Geological Survey, and the Port of Portland to investigate contaminated sediment along a stretch of the Willamette River adjacent to the EC;

• Redeveloping the South Waterfront Redevelopment Area—former home to a power station, lumber mills, and scrap yards—into a commercial, office, and residential site with future plans for a greenway trail;

• Converting a former power station into the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry; and

• Converting a former automotive fueling center into the Rose Garden Arena, home to the Portland Trailblazers basketball team.

Showcase Community Objectives and Planned Activities

Portland is continuing to proceed with innovation. The Portland Showcase Community project will build upon the city's established successes and recognition to serve as a model of cooperative partnerships, job creation, enhancement of environmental quality, and creation of a livable community. The city is focusing resources on showcase projects that demonstrate a high potential for restoration and reuse of land, in North/Northeast Portland neighborhoods and the Enterprise Community, central city waterfront commercial redevelopment areas and the city's industrial waterfront. A new project funded by EPA, "One Call for Brownfields," will make use of the utility excavation notification system to ensure that brownfields controls are maintained and enforced. Portland will use its Showcase Community resources to leverage investments from public and private sources to further its mission of creating a Livable Showcase Community that can build a model of sustainability through brownfields renewal.

For more information on the Brownfields Showcase Communities,
visit the EPA Brownfields web site at:
http://www.epa.gov/brownfields/showcase.htm