Construction crews will break ground Friday on a luxury hotel, condominium and office tower planned on the former site of a landmark downtown Portland food cart pod.
Portland-based developer BPM Real Estate Group announced the date Monday after securing a $460 million construction loan for the project. If all goes according to plan, the building, at 900 S.W. Washington St., would open in 2023.
The building’s Ritz-Carlton hotel will be the luxury brand’s first in the Pacific Northwest and the first hotel of its class in the city. BPM’s chief executive, Walter Bowen, has billed it as the state’s first five-star hotel.
In addition to 251 guest rooms, it will also include 150 co-branded condominiums, where owners would get the same services as hotel guests, including room service and housekeeping.
The building will also include 140,000 square feet of office space and ground-floor retail storefronts, including a food hall.
An affiliate of Mosaic Real Estate Investors, a Los Angeles firm, provided the construction loan, which was brokered by George Smith Partners, also of Los Angeles.
BPM previously said the tower would cost $600 million to build.
The site until last month hosted the city’s largest collection of food carts in one of its earliest pods. Many of the pod’s best-known carts had already left in anticipation of the planned development, and the rest had to vacate by the end of June.
The city, meanwhile, is weighing alternatives to maintain food carts as a downtown presence. One concept, the Culinary Corridor, would put them along city streets in certain curbside parking spots outfitted with utility service. As a temporary measure, officials are considering moving the carts to the North Park Blocks.
Some of the carts are being stored in the meantime at the U.S. Post Office in the Pearl District, which has lots of free space since the Postal Service moved its sorting and distribution operations to a facility by the airport.
Portland officials have a plan to save the Alder Street food cart pod
Portland’s famous food cart pod on Southwest Alder Street, which is facing eviction at the end of June to make way for construction of a Ritz-Carlton hotel, may have a new home.
