Grand Central Bowl

Yesterday I liked my job! Yes, I said I LIKED my job. I had the opportunity to take students on a field trip presented by CREW (Commerical Real Estate Women). The group is not all women as you would expect. Every year CREW has a mentoring program in which they choose a property that they know will be built, refurbished or restored in the near future. They invite students from the tri-county area to come in and develop a plan on how to move forward with the property. Yesterday the property was a bowling alley that takes up an entire city block between SE 8th and 9th and Belmont/Morrison.
In the morning session they were given logistics. For example, zoning was discussed on what type of property could go in, they were told about the Tri-met bus lines that ran, they were told that 17,000 employees could walk or catch a bus to the location on a daily basis and that 50,000 cars that pass the area daily. Then an architect spoke about structural, engineering and integrity. He had a really good statement about what he thinks of when starting a project (it came from some Roman or Greek guy) - a building should have....firmness, commodity and delight! The last gentlemen that spoke was the actual property owner. He discussed a bit about financing and use of space. Which none of the students understood to mean - you have to have a return on your investment or the bank will not give you the cash!
We then went on a walking tour of the neighborhood and the interior of the building. Very interesting and informative. They talked about residents, foot traffic, bike lines, other business.
Once we were back inside, the students were broken into groups and assigned an adult facilitator and they got to work. I was very impressed with several groups ideas regarding mixed use space. Some of them failed in that they were creating space only for teeenagers (it is all about them).
I got to mill around the building while the students were working. I know that the property was originally built in 1929 as a Grand Central Market. It was the first enclosed market on the east side and had beautiful skylights and windows all around. The windows were boarded up with a facade of sheet metal in the 50's when the bowling alley went in and some of the interior space was used very poorly. The building has a huge 70 car underground garage which is unheard of in a building of this age.
I talked to the owner for quite sometime and he was very down to earth. He explained that they applied for historical preservation and they would be taking the building back on the exterior to it's 1929 days. It has four turrets on each corner that would be great live/work spaces they are each about 900 square feet. He was a very fun guy to talk to and at the end of the day he gave me an invitation to a pub that he is opening downtown and TWO pairs of bowling shoes - one for me and one for the cow.
I had a good day.