Kmart

BRIAN BURK

ATTENTION, KMART SHOPPERS: A freight warehouse is coming to 13 acres in the Argay Terrace neighborhood.

Viking Raid

An NFL owner plans to build a freight warehouse in the last Portland neighborhood that needs it.

BY ANTHONY EFFINGER aeffinger@wweek.com

The Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability released a climate emergency plan last month outlining all the steps the city had to take to curb the effects of climate change before it’s too late: ditch coal-fi red power plants, promote bicycles, retrofi t buildings, and plant trees, among other things. Special efforts must be made in communities of color in “outer east,” the plan says, where the impacts of urban heat islands are greater. To help there, BPS proposes to convert the East Portland Community Center into an energy-effi cient “resilience center” where people can go during extreme heat, smoke, ice and cold. The residents of Argay Terrace, one of those “outer east” neighborhoods, have a question. If doom is truly impending—to the point the city must build some kind of climate refugee center—why is Portland letting the mega-rich owner of the Minnesota Vikings build a 260,000-square-foot freight warehouse that would draw even more diesel-powered trucks into a neighborhood that’s already blighted by them? “This would be the most awful use of this space,” says Megan Petrucelli, a marriage and family therapist who lives in Argay Terrace. “It’s dooming the neighborhood to be an industrial wasteland. It’s not strategic and it’s counter to all the goals the city says it wants to meet.” Most Portlanders probably visit just one address in Argay Terrace: the Costco on Northeast 138th Avenue. Or they know it as home to the abandoned Kmart on 122nd and Sandy with the sprawling parking lot where the Proud Boys gathered for a far-right festival in August 2021 that turned into a paintball and baseball-bat brawl with anti-fascists. That, as it happens, is where Vikings owner Zygmunt Wilf plans to build his tilt-up concrete warehouse and lease it to Prologis, the San Francisco-based company that helps companies like Amazon and Home Depot move merchandise around the world. The Viking conquest in Argay shows how well-intentioned places like Portland continue to conduct business as usual on climate, even as scientists warn that the old ways spell disaster. It also shows how low-income neighborhoods keep getting screwed, despite lofty talk about equity and the special burdens that climate change puts on people of color. Heatwise, Argay Terrace is just about the last Portland neighborhood that needs another fl at-roofed warehouse teeming with trucks, says Vivek Shandas, a geography professor at Portland State University who maintains a “heat map” of the city. His map shows what he describes as an arc of heat that runs along the industrial zone on the Willamette River, north through St. Johns to the Columbia River, then back down along Interstate 205.

“ Argay Terrace is right in the center of the arc of heat.”

“Argay Terrace is right in the center of the arc of heat,” Shandas says. “But we’ll probably never see the ground under this site again.” Argay Terrace residents say climate is only one of their concerns about the project. Wilf’s warehouse would be across 122nd Avenue from Parkrose High School, and a block north of Parkrose Middle School. The city approved an extra-big, 60-foot-wide driveway into the property just north of Northeast Shaver Street, which is designated a “safe route to school” by the Portland Bureau of Transportation. Residents worry that trucks coming west would try to dodge traffi c on Sandy Boulevard by turning south on 141st Avenue and taking Shaver to 122nd, where it’s an easy right turn into the big new driveway. PBOT traffi c maps show that somewhere between 101 and 500 trucks already rumble down Shaver each day, even though it is marked “no trucks.” “This industrial development is not fair to the residents who have lived here for years,” the Argay Terrace Neighborhood Association wrote to city commissioners in April. “It is going to devalue properties and do irreparable damage to the community values, livability, and walkability of our neighborhood.” Commissioner Mingus Mapps has heard complaints from residents in Argay Terrace, Mapps’ spokesman Adam Lyons says. Residents can fi le a land use appeal. Otherwise, there is little commissioners can do because the zoning allows the warehouse to be built, he adds.

Argay Terrace is bounded by 122nd Avenue to the west, the Columbia River to the north, 148th Avenue to the east, and Interstate 84 to the south. Development began in the 1950s when Art Simonson and Gerhardt “Gay” Stabney conceived a surburban neighborhood with ranch houses on curving, tree-lined streets. They combined their fi rst names to get “Argay.” “Living’s really wonderful when you live in beautiful Argay Terrace,” said an advertisement in The Oregonian on July 19, 1959. “Gracious living…just minutes from town.” Today, the Portland Bureau of Transportation’s “equity matrix” shows that 41.5% of Argay Terrace’s population are people of color, including Hispanic. The median income is $61,806. On an income scale ranging from 1 to 5, where 5 is the lowest, Argay Terrace is a 4, PBOT says. And the northern half of the neighborhood is now crammed with warehouses—or worse. In 2017, the Metro regional government approved a waste transfer station at 138th and Sandy, now run by City of Roses Disposal & Recycling. Next door is Speed’s Auto Auction, where cars impounded by the city get sold to the highest bidder. Wilf’s new freight warehouse might be more of a blight because it’s going on the south side of Sandy. That means there would be little separation between idling diesel trucks and the Hidden Oaks Apartments, a modest development just over a fence and a hedge from the old Kmart. Industrial properties on the north side are kept at a distance by Sandy and the rail line. The Kmart along 122nd Avenue closed in 2018, part of a nationwide purge of Sears-owned properties. That same year, the city of Portland opened the door to Wilf by changing the zoning for the 13-acre Kmart parcel as part of the 2035 Comprehensive Plan. The state has various planning goals, one of which is job growth. Job-creating industries require land, and Portland chose to change the Kmart lot from “commercial” to “general employment.” Planners had determined that there wasn’t enough “EG” land in the city and too much commercial, according to an email from Steve Kountz, senior economic planner at BPS to the neighborhood association. Other reasons, Kountz wrote, were pursuing “policies that advance social equity, including expanded growth capacity for widely accessible middle-wage jobs in East Portland” and “increasing income self-suffi ciency for people without four-year college degrees.” Commercial zoning would not have precluded a freight warehouse, but it would have reduced its scope to no more than 10,000 square feet, says BPS spokeswoman Magan Reed. Prologis declined to say how many permanent jobs the freight warehouse would produce. The new building would be LEED Silver certifi ed, Prologis senior vice president Ben Brodsky says in an email, and the paved area would shrink by 195,000 square feet. There would be beehives on the roof, native plants around the site, and spaces for food trucks, Brodsky adds. Ownership of the Kmart site is cloaked in an entity called RFC Joint Venture. Following leads in property records, WW linked RFC and the property to Zygmunt Wilf, who, along with his brother Mark and a cousin named Lenny, owns a New Jersey real estate company called Garden Homes. Wilf’s father Joseph, a Holocaust survivor who immigrated from Poland, started the company with his brother in 1954 to build single-family houses. Reached by phone, Mark Hoffman, director of development at Garden Homes, says the Wilf family has owned the Kmart property since about 1986, under various entities. A Garden Homes subsidiary, Garden Commercial Properties, manages 25 million square feet of retail and offi ce space. At 260,000 square feet, the new warehouse in Argay Terrace would increase Wilf’s commercial holdings by a little more than 1%, making it a property he could probably do without. Residents of Argay Terrace say they desperately need the property to be something else. “There’s nothing walkable out here,” says Petrucelli, the therapist. “This space could provide a lot of resources. You could go there to get groceries or a meal. We had daydreamed about what could happen at this site.”

CHASING GHOSTS

Every week, WW examines one mysteriously vacant property in the city of Portland, explains why it’s empty, and considers what might arrive there next. This week: 12350 NE Sandy Blvd.

In less than a week, the children of Portland will enter a magical place that recently seemed impossible to reach: a classroom. This is the fi rst August since 2019 that Portland Public Schools open with confi dence that they’ll complete a full year of face-to-face instruction. Forget the “hybrid model” or distance learning. This fall, students can get shoved into lockers in person! All joking aside, two years of pandemic showed what a necessary pressure release school attendance is. Many of the social ills of the pandemic—from feelings of anxiety to the rising number of armed robberies at cannabis dispensaries—can be traced to the school closures forced by COVID-19. Maybe your kid isn’t sticking up weed shops. But nearly everyone now admits that virtual classrooms were a poor substitute for the real thing. The Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University estimates that every American student lost seven to 10 weeks of math learning in the 2020-21 school year. Kids in high-poverty schools missed twice that amount: half a school year. Still, it’s little wonder kids and parents alike are feeling a twinge of apprehension. School now comes with new perils—including the likelihood of bringing home a still-dangerous virus. Consider the following pages a fall orientation. We surveyed students at eight Portland high schools about where the cool kids get coffee and which cafeteria is the least disgusting (page 14). A mom whose family just endured a week of COVID explains what to do when your child brings it home (page 16). Out in deep East Portland, we found a school district experimenting with a new strategy to make sure that the kids who return to class stay there (page 21). And we asked a dozen Portlanders who achieved fame—in politics, comedy and drag clowning—to thank the teachers who inspired them (page 18). Because if there’s one thing we’ve learned from a forced separation, it’s that we can’t thank teachers enough. Cheesy? Sure. But now we know there are worse things than being a nerd.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 14

HIGH SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL

Students at eight Portland high schools dish on where the cool kids sit.

BY VERONICA BIANCO veronicavvbianco@gmail.com

As a rule, shitty locker rooms, worse-than-average lunch food, and weird mascots are unavoidable parts of the high school experience. But each campus does them differently. For incoming freshmen, nothing is more terrifying than the possibility that they’ll violate some unwritten rule of high school life. This cheat sheet is for them. (Let’s be honest: It’s also for all the adults wondering what’s changed since they last set foot in the halls. Answer: Everything, you ancient millennial.)

WW conducted an extremely unscientifi c survey of students at Portland Public Schools high schools by interviewing a student from each school and asking them to rate different aspects of their campus on a scale of 1 to 10. The highest and lowest scores for each category are featured below, along with some reasoning for the rating. A few schools feature on the list more than others: Ida B. Wells High in Hillsdale was given the worst ratings for cafeteria food, school spirit, mascot and locker room. At the other end of the spectrum, Leodis McDaniel High on Northeast 82nd Avenue was reported as having the best mascot, colors and school spirit. (Do these school names seem unfamiliar? PPS schools saw several name changes over the past fi ve years, you ancient millennial.) That could be a result of our complete disregard for established survey methods. Or maybe it’s a sign that we’ve identifi ed some meaningful trends never before reported. Read on for some insight into what being a high school student looks like in the 21st century. Ekansh Gupta contributed reporting to this story.

Best Cafeteria Food

Roosevelt High School

8 stars out of 10 “We have a nacho bar, which actually has fresh food. The regular cafeteria food is disgusting, as per usual.” —Keenan Gray, Roosevelt senior

Worst Cafeteria Food

Three-way tie: Lincoln, Wells and Franklin high schools 5/10 “Nothing special, bang average for a school, I would say.” —Henry Reuland, Lincoln senior

If you eat lunch off campus, where’s the best spot?

Cleveland: Spielman Bagels & Coffee McDaniel: Rose City Food Park Wells: Basics Market Franklin: Namu Grant: New Seasons Jefferson: Atlas Pizza Roosevelt: Signal Station Pizza Lincoln: Nara Thai

Where do you go to get coffee?

Cleveland: K&F Coffee McDaniel: Dutch Bros Wells: Gigi’s Cafe Franklin: 50th and Division food carts Grant: Case Study Coffee Jefferson: 7-Eleven Roosevelt: Daydreamer Coffee Lincoln: Coava Coffee

Best Mascot

McDaniel High School

10/10 Mountain Lions “One of the considerations was the Stubby Squids, and I would’ve transferred if that’s what we had become. I love mountain lions, so I’m really glad we became that.” —Maleigha Canaday-Elliott, McDaniel junior

Worst Mascot Best School Spirit

Two-way tie: Jefferson and McDaniel high schools 10/10 “People go to games to hang out. When it comes to cheering and supporting everyone, it’s really good. Multicultural Week and Spirit Week are really good.” —Canaday-Elliott

Worst School Spirit

Wells High School

5/10 “It’s pretty bad. I have friends from other schools and it seems like they’re a lot more involved in anything than we are.” —Roey Kramer, Wells senior

Best Locker Room

Lincoln High School

10/10 “The new locker room is unbelievable. I think it’s just ’cause of how bad our old locker room was.” —Reuland

Two-way tie: Wells and Roosevelt high schools 3/10 Wells has a Guardian Owl, Roosevelt has a Rider. “Teddy Roosevelt liked to ride horses, so that’s what the mascot is, just someone who rides a horse. It’s dumb.” —Gray

Worst Locker Room

MCKENZIE YOUNG-ROY @MCKENZIEYOUNGART

Best School Colors

McDaniel High School

10/10 Red and light blue “I like the darker colors. It’s like three basic colors, not too complicated.” —Canaday-Elliott

Worst School Colors

Two-way tie: Franklin and Cleveland high schools 4/10 Franklin’s are gray and maroon, Cleveland’s are Kelly green and yellow. “I personally don’t like Franklin’s. Some people do, but it’s better than Cleveland because Cleveland’s colors suck and they’re ugly.” —Wrigley Scott, Franklin junior

Best School Tradition

Lincoln: Color Wars “People go all out, people spend three, four hours the day before after school, in the halls, putting paper all over the lights. You step into a hallway and it’s like a prism of one color.” —Reuland

Cleveland: Homecoming McDaniel: Multicultural Week Wells: Singing at football games Franklin: Arts Alive Grant: Toga Day Jefferson: Spirit Week

Roosevelt: Hoodies Up Day “In honor of Trayvon Martin, I think on his birthday, everyone wears a hoodie with their hoods up, because that’s technically against school policy and, like, part of why he was shot. It’s a really cool tradition.” —Gray