Building Up and Out at HarborSky
West Coast Home Solutions turned to Leeb Architects for their first multifamily project, expanding from their single-family and townhouse roots to meet the growing demand for multifamily rental properties.
YMCA Beaverton Groundbreaking
The YMCA of Columbia-Willamette Valley celebrated the groundbreaking for the new YMCA Beaverton Youth Development Center.
From Hotel to Hot Property
Leeb Architects has taken an older hotel and converted it into a new apartment community, a welcome conversion for this Portland site in the Lloyd District.
On the Boards: Pacific Valley Apartments
This new apartment complex will bring much-needed housing to the Woodburn area. Pacific Valley Apartments will have a total of 204 residential units in 10 separate three-story buildings.
On the Boards: Burnside Apartments
Just inside Gresham city limits, near East Burnside Street and Southeast 167th Place, a multifamily
development is in the works for a 0.52-acre parcel. The project, designed by Leeb Architects for
developer West Coast Home Solutions, will add 24 apartments to the market.
“It obviously allows people to use the MAX (light rail) to commute,” said Robert Leeb, the firm’s principal
in charge. “And I think that in terms of the building and the design, we were trying to coordinate the
building with the context of the neighborhood. We had a group of townhomes next to us on the east, and
we wanted to be compatible with those owner-occupied row homes.”
Single-family developer taking on apartments
Wilsonville-based West Coast Home Solutions, since its inception in 2005, has developed single-family houses and townhomes in the Portland-metro area. But on a site along the Columbia River in North Portland, the company is making its first foray into apartment development. The Harbor Sky Apartments also represents West Coast Home Solutions’ faith in that market’s future.
On the Boards: Fairview Meadows
A new apartment complex coming to Fairview promises to provide views of the Columbia River Gorge. Fairview Meadows, planned for a 4.8-acre site at 22199 N.E. Sandy Boulevard, will feature five separate buildings, which will hold 196 residential units and four live-work units. The buildings will be three to four stories.
West Coast Home Solutions is the project's owner, developer, and contractor, and Leeb Architects is the designer. TM Rippey is providing structural consulting, with Vancouver, WA-based Standridge Design contributing civil engineering.
"We're trying to add to the success of Sandy Boulevard," Leeb project architect Steve Sandstrom said. "Fairview's become a lot more attractive as far as housing."
With companies like Amazon building large warehouses in nearby Troutdale, Sandstrom said the area is gaining jobs and a greater need for housing. Plus, the Fairview City Council last year voted to provide incentives for development on vacant land, he said.
Goose Hollow mixed-use project moves ahead
A proposal for a seven-story mixed-use building with 107 apartments in the Goose Hollow neighborhood has received the Portland Design Commission’s approval.
Vista St. Clair, DJC TopProjects Finalist
The Daily Journal of Commerce is considering Leeb Architects for an award under the category, Major Renovation for the work on Vista St. Clair in Portland, Oregon.
Developer continues to build its brand
A series of high-profile Portland projects for Mill Creek Residential Trust is continuing to grow.
The latest, Modera Buckman, will be a seven-story mixed-use residential building on a half-block parcel at the northeast corner of Southeast Belmont Street and 12th Avenue in the Central Eastside. The rectangular building will feature 170 apartments – a mix of studios, one-bedroom units and two-bedroom units. It also will have over 6,500 square feet of ground-floor retail space.
“I don’t know if it’s a template,” said Rex Ingram, an associate and lead designer for Leeb Architects. “But they’re looking for a certain mix of units and they’re careful about where they put their projects and properties for the benefit of the neighborhoods they go into. This project is kind of special; the first floor is a lot of retail, which is great, and we have some really nice amenity spaces as well.”
Are Today’s Outskirts Tomorrow’s Bustling Urban Neighborhoods?
Hillsboro’s Orenco Station invents the anti-suburb.
Three sharp new apartment buildings, with inscrutably marketable names like Vector, Hub9, and the Rowlock, border a tree-dotted plaza. Zipcars zip. Children frolic in fountains. The coffee shops, microbrew tap house, and organic grocery stand within convenient walking (or stumbling) distance. The Platform District, the newest pocket of Hillsboro’s Orenco Station neighborhood, became real last summer, fulfilling a vision of dense urbanity in the last major suburb before the metro area’s west side gives way to farmland: “city” living, 14 miles from downtown Portland.
A threesome of transit-oriented projects
The Platform District at Orenco Station is a 135-acre transit-oriented development in Hillsboro, Oregon’s fifth-largest city. The TriMet MAX Blue Line light rail connects to downtown Hillsboro, to downtown Portland—14 miles away—and to the airport. It consists of a 5.5-acre public plaza (by landscape architect Walker/Macy) and three mixed-used buildings designed by Leeb Architects: the 343,500-sf Rowlock (shown here), with 255 apartments and townhomes; Hub 9 (124 apartments, 168,000 sf); and the 339,200-sf, 230-unit Vector, which provides the park-and-ride component at the transit stop. The Orenco TOD totals 609 residences and 25,000 sf of retail space.