TACKLING THE GAME — SEE SPORTS, B8 PortlandTribune THURSDAY, MAY 8, 2014 • TWICE CHOSEN THE NATION’S BEST NONDONDAILYONDAAILYILY PAPERPAPER • PORTLANDTRIBUNE.COMPORTLANDTRIBUNEPORTLANDTRIBUNE.COMCOM • PUBLISHEDPUBLISHED TUESDAYTUESDAY ANDAND THTHURSDAYURRSDSDAYAY ■ Coming wave of micro apartments will increase Rose City Portland’s density, but will renters give up their cars? kicks it this summer as soccer central Venture Portland funds grants to lure crowds for MLS week By JENNIFER ANDERSON The Tribune Hilda Solis lives, breathes, drinks and eats soccer. She owns Bazi Bierbrasserie, a soccer-themed bar on Southeast Hawthorne and 32nd Avenue that celebrates and welcomes soccer fans from all over the region. As a midfi elder on the Whipsaws (the fi rst fe- male-only fan team in the Timbers’ Army net- work), Solis partnered with Lompoc Beer last year to brew the fi rst tribute beer to the Portland Thorns, called Every Rose Has its Thorn. And this summer, Solis will be one of tens of thousands of soccer fans in Portland celebrating the city’s Major League Soccer week. With a stadium that fi ts just 20,000 fans, Port- land will be host to world championship team Bayern Munich, of Germany, at the All-Star Game at Jeld-Wen Field in Portland on Aug. 6. “The goal As fans watch the game in is to get as local sports bars and visitors fl ock to Portland for revelries, many fans it won’t be just downtown busi- a taste of nesses that are benefi ting from all the activity. the MLS Venture Portland, the city’s All-Star network of neighborhood busi- game ness districts, has awarded a The Footprint Northwest Thurman Street development is bringing micro apartments to Northwest Portland — 50 units, shared kitchens, no on-site parking special round of grants to help experience. and rents signifi cantly less than for studio apartments. Footprint CEO Cathy Reines predicts fewer than 10 of the building’s residents will have cars. businesses draw crowds dur- For Soccer ing MLS week. City Commissioner Nick City USA, Fish, the city’s ambassador to this is a MLS, gives credit to Heather really big TINY SPACES Hoell, executive director of Venture Portland. deal.” “We had her at our first — Nick Fish, meeting of the MLS coordinat- city commissioner ing committee and she boldly PUT SQUEEZE put it on the table, she wanted to see the benefi ts (of the All- Star game) extend beyond downtown,” Fish says. The idea for the grants came up as a way to complement the events that will be organized downtown and around the stadium, Fish says. ON PARKING Some of the events being discussed include pop-up games with players from the Timbers and Thorns and MLS players; a potential immi- grant and refugee soccer tournament; game- “I’m glad there are young watching parties on Jumbotron screens; and a Story by Peter Korn soccer-themed Sunday Parkways event on Aug. Photos by Jaime Valdez people out there who want 3, just before the All-Star game, that will culmi- nate with a concert in the park. to live light. That’s great. ... “The goal is to get as many fans a taste of the xplaining her view on park- I don’t see how you can live MLS All-Star game experience,” Fish says. “For ing in Northwest Portland Soccer City USA, this is a really big deal.” has become an agonizing light and own a car. To me Despite Portland being one of the game’s Eprocess for Northwest Port- that’s not living light.” smallest venues, Portland is “thrilled to be in the land resident Jeanne Harrison. global spotlight,” Fish adds. Harrison, co-chairwoman of the — Jeanne Harrison, All-Star Game organizers chose the Timbers neighborhood transportation commit- NWDA transportation committee co-chair to host “because they’re a model organization,” tee, for more than a decade was the city of Portland’s senior transporta- See SOCCER / Page 11 tion planner. She took the lead in land, in Gateway and downtown can drawing up parking policies for the developers widely choose to build city — policies aimed at getting more apartment buildings without provid- Portlanders to give up their cars and ing parking. accept a style of urban living based on Last month, Northwest’s neighbor- using mass transit. hood association, the NWDA, pre- But in March, Northwest Portland’s sented the city with a position paper neighborhood representatives started asking that new apartment buildings to tackle the problem Southeast resi- be required to provide at least some dents battled last year — a prolifera- off-street parking for residents. That tion of new apartment buildings with- is precisely the type of regulation that out off-street parking. In Southeast, Jeanne Harrison worked against in the developments were confi ned by her years guiding city policy. But Har- TRIBUNE PHOTO: ADAM WICKHAM city rules to major commercial streets rison signed on. Hilda Solis, owner of Bazi Bierbrasserie on The Freedom Center is the fi rst up-and-running micro apartment in such as Division. A quirk in those Ten years ago, Harrison says, she Hawthorne, helped to spearhead the Kick Kick the Pearl District, but about half of its tenants own cars, and all but rules, however, leaves Northwest believed that apartment buildings Score promotion that will lanch on MLS week in eight park them on the street. All 150 units are rented, and developer Portland much more open to such de- Portland in August. She and city leaders hope the See PARKING / Page 2 Mark Madden says the demand for more such buildings is strong. velopments. Only in Northwest Port- All-Star Game’s benefi ts will spill into neighborhoods for the whole city to enjoy. GOP Senate hopefuls share goal, not strategy are taking different roads in “It does not matter how great cumbent in the Oregon House in Wehby, Conger hone their bids to face Democratic a candidate you are if nobody 2010. He has raised far less than game plans as they U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley in the knows who you are and you can’t Wehby and hasn’t been on the fall. get your message out,” she says. airwaves in the Portland media vie for Merkley’s seat Monica Wehby, a Portland She also has big-name en- market, which reaches more surgeon, advertises herself as a dorsements from Mitt Romney, than half of Oregon’s voters. By PETER WONG fresh face in politics. But she’s the 2012 GOP presidential nomi- But Conger is relying on his The Tribune also relying on big campaign nee, and Newt Gingrich, the for- legislative record and his life contributions — some of them mer U.S. House speaker. story — which took him from WEHBY CONGER The two leading Republi- from Washington, D.C. — that Jason Conger, a lawyer from cans in the May 20 primary have put her on the airwaves. Bend, unseated a Democratic in- See SENATE / Page 5 “Pamplin Media Group’s pledge is to Portland Tribune STUMPTOWN deliver balanced news that refl ects the “AIN’T MISBEHAVIN’ ” stories of our communities. Thank you Inside for reading our newspapers.” — SEE LIFE, PAGE B1 — DR. ROBERT B. PAMPLIN JR. OWNER & NEIGHBOR A2 NEWS The Portland Tribune Thursday, May 8, 2014 Parking: Mass transit doesn’t fulfi ll needs ■ From page 1 ing development on Southeast Division Street pushed resi- without parking made sense be- dents to lobby City Hall for re- cause mass transit would be- lief. As a result, the city adopted come more available and conve- an ordinance that basically re- nient. That, she says, was the quires new developments on basis of policies she authored commercial streets to provide that allowed parking-free devel- parking for one fourth of its opments. But it hasn’t happened. apartments. “You shouldn’t have to look at A recent city survey of east- your watch or look at a sched- side apartment buildings that ule,” Harrison says of the city don’t have parking showed that she envisioned when writing 72 percent of the tenants owned regulations she knew would cars. According to city planner make it tougher on inner-city Matt Wickstrom, the survey al- drivers. “You should be able to so found that most of those ten- walk to a corner and within fi ve ants did not drive to work or minutes a bus comes.” drive much at all, just like their Exacerbating the problem, Northwest Portland counter- she says, is that banks have be- parts. But they still held on to come willing to finance large their cars. apartment buildings that don’t And the same issues facing provide parking — something at Northwest Portland will soon which they previously balked. confront many Portland neigh- So now, an anguished Harri- borhoods as developers turn to son supports measures to limit a different apartment model the development of apartment that allows them to build in any buildings without parking. For area of the city without includ- those who have followed city ing parking: micro apartments. transportation issues during These tiny units cost develop- the past decade, that’s a major ers just a fraction of what it turnaround. would cost to build full-scale In fact, Harrison says, mass apartments. Because micro transit availability has declined apartments often have shared TRIBUNE PHOTO: JAIME VALDEZ in her neighborhood and around kitchens or other communal fa- Footprint CEO Cathy Reines says prospective tenants are already calling about the 200-square-foot micro apartments she’s building on the city over the last few years, cilities, developers are able to Northwest Thurman Street, just off 23rd Avenue.