Commercial Real Estate Newsbits

A good bit of interesting commercial real estate news over the past few days!

The big news that REI choose Keizer Station for a Salem area store.  It makes sense - new construction, easy for tenant improvements, big parking lot, easy access to I-5 for its regional draw.

But still.

Vacant big box - former Safeway on Middle Commercial

As the Transportation and Growth Management proposal recently awarded a grant says,"several parcels such as the old Safeway store remain vacant or underutilized" in the middle Commercial district.

REI also would have been a terrific anchor-type tenant for the Boise redevelopment project. Or maybe a different parcel in or near downtown. The Portland store on NW 14th and Johnson might have been a model more than the Jantzen Beach store, which closed when the downtown location opened.

Faux Streetcar style of Keizer Station

Instead, they'll by-pass Salem for the faux "town center" of Keizer Station.


It's a real missed opportunity.  It would be nice for the City to discuss publicly their attempts (or involvement) to recruit REI and why they by-passed Salem for Keizer.

Also interesting was the announcement by Book Bin that they'll be opening a store in the old Borders location on Lancaster just off Sunnyview.  Lancaster needs a book store, and hopefully the Salem market will be able to support both locations.  (It would be terrible if this were a prelude to a transition out of downtown!)

Finally, there's new construction by Gilmore Field. 

Boulder Creek North - Arbuckle Costic
Note sidewalk and footbridge

Two medical and office clinics are planned for the north and south sides of Clark Creek here.  They're breaking ground first on "Boulder Creek North."  (The name, frankly, is baffling.  There's no Boulder Creek here:  It's Clark Creek!)

12th Street narrows curiously here and is difficult for people on foot and on bike.  12th isn't all that busy here except during the evening commute south.  Because of the bridge over Clark Creek and what is apparently a reduced right-of-way, the sidewalk disappears between Hoyt and McGilchrist.  The left auto travel lane becomes a turn-only lane onto McGilchrist and the industrial area near the airport.  Through traffic for brief intervals backs up in the single through-lane then during the rush hour - but not in any meaningfully persistent way.

People on foot are forced to salmon upstream in the bike lane, and it's not uncommon here for people on bike also to salmon.  After dark this is especially problematic.  The triangle of 12th, McGilchrist, and 13th (as well as the intersection with Cannon) is poorly designed for non-auto travel - and can be confusing, too, for those in cars.

12th Street at the Clark Creek Bridge and Culvert
Between Hoyt and McGilchrist the sidewalk disappears
the new construction is on the left, just past the bridge railings

In the architectural rendering above, you can see a new sidewalk, and then a curve as it follows the creek in a bit, and then an angled footbridge as the continuation of the sidewalk.

Hopefully this is a meaningful representation and not an abandoned set of preliminary concepts.

Unfortunately, this development met city requirements and went through a non-public administrative permitting process. Fixing the missing sidewalk here should be a condition of development, and we don't know how the city is treating this.  The parking lot rather than the building fronts the street, so we aren't looking to this for a very "walkable" configuration, alas.  (If I find out more, I will update this post.)

Update Tuesday

This is an odd little project. Basically, the developer's not going to build the sidewalk across the creek and instead paid into a fund for the City to do it.

As I understand it, the sidewalk along 12th on the lot frontage will be built as part of construction. This is good, since the missing sidewalk north of McGilchrist is also first priority project in Bike and Walk Salem, the updated walking chapter of the Transportation System Plan. The creek crossing will be the most difficult part of the gap, and the Boulder Creek development will complete another part. (The gap remaining will be at the used car lot at Hoyt.)

City widening project from McGilchrist to Fairview - CIP map
Note that it does not cross the creek!

South of there, the City has a funded project to widen 12th Street between McGilchrist and Fairview and add a right turn-only lane at Fairview. Public Works will tie the northern end of that project into a crossing of the creek.  The City hasn't started designing it yet, so this remains something of a hope and hypothetical. But since the City hadn't done any design work, it was all too possible that the office building's footbridge and sidewalk design would be incompatible with the City's road design - or at least introduce complications.

12th Street Project from adopted Capital Improvement Program
Note the $132K system development charge

(It feels a little like a part of the project that might be value-engineered out or otherwise fall through the cracks.  It's hard to imagine that the City has actually charged the developer the full cost of the improvement they are getting a pass on. Congestion here is also of brief duration, and instead of using the congestion to promote, say, bicycling, this will yield an overbuilt solution for a small problem and induce yet more demand.)

Here's another view from the other side - you can see the way the two parts of 12th don't exactly line up - and a walking salmon in the bike lane.

Love the google!  Walking Salmon + slight jog in road alignment