More About the Rose Quarter Community Crossroads

Recently, 17,000 Portlanders communicated a clear set of values for our community. Through visionPDX—one of the country’s largest visioning efforts—they identified Equity, Sustainability, and Community Connectedness as the values that should guide decision-making. The Rose Quarter Community Crossroads proposal is based on these core values and is designed to address the top priorities expressed by community members in their vision for the future. Informed by these widely-shared values and priorities, we propose a space that brings diverse communities together and offers multiple uses to meet community needs.

A lively, 24-hour space, where new Portlanders from around the world live, work, play and learn alongside native and longtime Portlanders. Where young people mix and mingle with elders, where community groups connect, where neighbors shop and eat, and local entrepreneurs build their businesses. A space that honors sustainability in all its forms: environmental, economic, social, and cultural. A true community crossroads where all Portlanders can connect.

We envision the Memorial Coliseum as the core of a revitalized neighborhood that serves the needs of current and future residents, while honoring the history and contributions of the displaced native and African American communities that once thrived on this land. The re-purposed Coliseum will be a place that is designed and built by Portland, in Portland, and for Portland. We will preserve the integrity of the current building, but will also open it up to include new spaces and uses.

The inter-cultural center is a key component of our proposal, since it meets a widely-acknowledged need expressed by diverse cultural groups over the past couple of years to have a single, multi-use space for gathering, teaching, holding events, and building community. This will be a space that is large enough to accommodate a number of different groups, with office space, meeting space, training space, and common gathering areas for groups to build partnerships and strengthen ties.

In order to serve visitors to the Rose Quarter and the city, we have included an independently-owned boutique hotel in our plan. This hotel will provide family members and others coming to visit with a charming place to stay while creating a revenue stream and local jobs. In a city that has gentrified in recent years, we will be creating new affordable housing that will offer families at various income levels a safe, environmentally sustainable place to live and raise their children.

At the heart of this development will be the World Market and Retail Center, the largest indoor/outdoor year-round global market on the West Coast featuring Portland’s emerging diverse entrepreneurs, farmers, artisans and musicians. In addition to serving those living on the cite and in the surrounding neighborhoods, the World Market will provide a much-needed destination for visitors from the region and beyond.
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Watch our public forum input video and take a look at what's been envisioned for the site.