Willamette Falls
Thursday's Metro Council meeting in Oregon City was positively cheerful, and it was easy to see why.
Downtown Oregon City is booming, with small businesses supporting a growing film industry and, soon, housing. Nearby, Metro is close to acquiring another 12 acres at the Newell Creek area, a move that will help create a public access to the site.
But looming over all of that is the roar of Willamette Falls, and a four-years-and-counting effort to turn a shuttered factory into a regional asset.
The Oregon City Commission took a major step forward in that on Wednesday, giving preliminary approval to a change in the city's master plan, a change that creates a "Willamette Falls Downtown District" that includes the old Blue Heron Paper Mill.
"A mix of open space, retail, high-density residential, office, and compatible light industrial uses are encouraged in this district, with retail, service, and light industrial uses on the ground floor and office and residential uses on upper floors," the new plan says. "Allowed uses in the District will encourage pedestrian and transit activity."
As Oregon City Mayor Doug Neeley and others pointed out, that didn't happen by accident. Neeley, whose term as mayor ends this year, choked up Thursday as he told the Metro Council about his experiences with the project.
"It's such a great thing for me to have this thing go through during my term in office," Neeley said. He'd only been mayor for a month when the Blue Heron company announced it was filing for bankruptcy protection, shuttering the mill.
At an Oct. 16, 2014 meeting of the Metro Council in Oregon City, Metro Sustainability Center director Jim Desmond and Oregon City planner Christina Robertson-Gardiner talk about plans for the Willamette Falls redevelopment project.
Neeley recalled talking to Metro Sustainability Center director Jim Desmond, who championed the project with the regional government.
"Jim right from the outset, and you almost immediately after, became our No. 1 partners," Neeley told the Metro Council Thursday. "I want to thank you so much for that partnership. It has enabled us to go forward in ways I don’t think we could have alone."
Metro Councilor Carlotta Collette, whose district includes Oregon City, complimented Neeley as well.
"This was an act of courage," Collette said. "I don't think we could have done it if we hadn't all trusted each other and said we've got a great mayor, a great partner at the county, a great staff at all levels, we have the support of the Metro Council," Collette said to Neeley. "It didn't just happen during your watch, it happened because of your watch."
Oregon City city manager David Frasher also lauded the teamwork.
"I've never seen a stronger, more resilient, more vibrant partnership than the one we've had," Frasher told the Metro Council. "I'm just so proud of the partnership and I want to thank the staff and tell you guys you have a remarkable team here. We're benefitting from regional government that works for us."
Metro and Oregon City collaboratively led the early phases of the Willamette Falls project, with the regional government considering using its natural areas bond money to buy the paper mill outright from bankruptcy. But a private bidder, George Heidgerken, put in a $2.2 million bid for the site earlier this year, and is now the lead developer of the project.
Metro and its partners are negotiating with Heidgerken on a plan to build a pedestrian promenade along the Willamette River, opening up public access to the falls for the first time in decades. The falls are the second highest-volume waterfall in North America.
"The integral first step in this project is to design and develop the first phases of the river walk itself," Desmond said at Thursday's Metro Council meeting in Oregon City. "It will allow people to experience the falls and allow us to begin the important habitat restoration work on the river itself, which has always been a big driver of Metro's interest in the project.
"The river walk will be catalytic project that will spur economic development and help the city and downtown reach its aspirations," Desmond said.
An update on the river walk is expected next month.
The rest of the site was master planned by Oregon City, with help from Metro's Community Planning and Development Grants, funded by its construction excise tax.
Metro Councilor Craig Dirksen, whose district includes southern Washington County, said the Willamette Falls redevelopment has support from around the region.
"If I'm talking to the mayor of Sherwood or the community planning organization leaders in Aloha or talking to other people in the barber shop in Tigard where I get my hair cut, and I talk about the Willamette Falls Legacy Project, no one takes any convincing," Dirksen said. "Everyone immediately recognizes what a regional asset this is and how valuable it's going to be to the entire region."