Meeting Guides · Wednesday, July 22

Companion to the Programmatic JV Playbook. Each guide runs about 45 minutes of material; pick the threads that the conversation earns. Both meetings end with the same two closers.

Meeting 1 · Rudy Kadlub, Costa Pacific Communities

Who he is for our purposes. CEO of Costa Pacific (Wilsonville). Residential co-developer of Orenco Station in Hillsboro (1,834 homes, NAHB Master Planned Community of the Year 1999) inside PacTrust's master plan, and developer of Villebois in Wilsonville across two decades. Costa Pacific took on an outside investor group in 2001, so he has lived both sides of our situation: the vertical developer working inside someone else's master plan, and the sponsor courting programmatic capital.

Frame to open: "You have sat in both chairs we care about. We are the master developer courting patient capital, and we are also recruiting builders to work inside our plan the way you worked inside PacTrust's."

The master developer relationship (our Door 3, from the other side)

• What did PacTrust do, structurally, that made it work for Costa Pacific as the vertical developer? What would have made you walk?
• How were land takedowns priced and triggered? Fixed schedule, appraisal at takedown, or formula? Who carried entitlement risk versus vertical risk?
• What did the master plan hold constant (standards, design, phasing) and where did you have real freedom? Where did the boundary chafe?

The capital partnership

• The 2001 investor group: what did their paper get right, and what did you renegotiate later?
• On approval rights: where is the line between a partner protecting capital and running your company? What thresholds actually worked day to day?
• Promote structure across a decade-long community: crossed, per-phase, or something else? What would you insist on now?

Market and product

• Orenco's lesson everyone quotes is walkability; what is the lesson nobody quotes?
• Villebois ran through two cycles. What kept capital and city aligned through the 2008 trough?
• Attainability: what actually moved the needle on delivering homes below the metro price point?

Salem-specific

• Does a state-capital submarket change the underwrite in your eyes? What would make you believe Salem absorbs 1,000 homes in a decade?
• Who from the Orenco/Villebois era should we know? (Capital, city, builders.)

Role map (Ritchie, July 22): Rudy is not capital

His value is not a check; it is delivery capacity and credibility. Four doors, and the meeting should be run so any of them can open:

1. Residential development partner (the star outcome). He has delivered Orenco and Villebois, two of Oregon's premier master-planned communities: hundreds of homes over multiple phases, which is exactly the capacity Edgewater needs.
2. Phase builder. Example: Phase 2 at ~250 apartments and 50 townhomes, Costa Pacific as developer of the phase while Now City remains master developer. Exactly how PacTrust worked, with the chairs rearranged.
3. Advisory board (possibly the highest ROI). Rudy attached to Now City immediately increases credibility with capital and with cities.
4. Future co-GP. If the relationship deepens, co-GP on select residential phases is absolutely plausible.

Close on the advisory door; it is the one that opens the other three.

Meeting 2 · Jim Atkins and Dike Dame, Atkins Dame

Who they are for our purposes. Principals of Atkins Dame Inc. (formerly Williams/Dame and Associates). Dame co-led the Pearl District and South Waterfront in Portland, the exact precedent our own materials call Edgewater's closest structural mirror. Their current project is Eugene's Downtown Riverfront, The River District: a 2020 development agreement with Eugene's Urban Renewal Agency on city-owned riverfront land, six residential buildings planned toward 500 to 1,000 homes, Heartwood delivered, an affordable building partnered with Homes for Good, and a recently approved ~$20.7M tax exemption for riverfront housing. It is our play, eight years ahead, one hour south.

Frame to open: "Our site names the Pearl as Edgewater's closest structural mirror. You are running the next version of it in Eugene right now. We want your scar tissue."

The development agreement (the City Compact, made real)

• How does the Eugene DA allocate infrastructure obligations between the URA and you? What is the takedown mechanism on the city land, and what triggers each phase?
• What did you learn from the Pearl's developer-city compact (density for streetcar and parks) that you changed for Eugene? What translates to a still-smaller capital city like Salem?
• The ~$20.7M exemption fight: what won it politically, and what would you do earlier next time? (Our analog: Salem MUHTIP, single-property TIF, the URA grant ladder.)

Capitalizing early phases in this environment

• How were Heartwood and the early buildings capitalized: bank debt, agency, HUD, and whose equity? What did the 2022 to 2025 rate run break, and what fixed it?
• Rolling takedowns versus one land close: how do you keep a capital partner committed to buildings four through six before one through three have seasoned?
• Did you run programmatic capital (one partner across the buildings) or building-by-building raises? Why, and would you choose differently?

The master developer craft

• Pearl, South Waterfront, Eugene: what is the invariant in how you structure the master developer position? What do you never give up?
• The affordable partnership with Homes for Good: how is it structured so it strengthens rather than complicates the market-rate program? (Our analog: Salem Housing Authority.)
• Placemaking sequencing: which early public-realm moves bought the most private capital confidence per dollar?

Salem-specific

• You know the I-5 corridor: what is your honest read of Salem as the next riverfront district market?
• Would you look at Edgewater as advisors, as friendly critics, or ever as participants? (No ask beyond the door being open.)
• Who else should we be learning from before we structure our capital partnership?

Role map (Ritchie, July 22): interviewing our future self

They are doing today what we intend to be doing in eight years. Four doors, in order of value:

1. Master developer mentor (highest value). Not an advisor title; someone we can call every few months. This is the relationship to win.
2. Phase development partner. If Edgewater outgrows our delivery capacity, Atkins Dame as a phase development partner under our master plan is very plausible.
3. Development agreement advisor. They have negotiated city development agreements repeatedly; that knowledge is worth millions when we sit across from Salem's URA.
4. Political strategy. Underrated. Ask how they built trust with city council, the URA, affordable-housing advocates, utilities, and DOT. That experience cannot be Googled.

Both meetings · the two closers

1. The scar-tissue ask. "If you were us, structuring one patient capital partner across a four-phase, ten-year district: what is the one term you would never sign, and the one you would insist on?"
2. The relationship ask. "May we keep you close as this takes shape? Even one call a quarter would change our odds." (Bench and advisory roles only; no capital ask, no compensation talk in the room.)

Afterward: each meeting gets a dated addendum in the Playbook (section 9): what we heard, which section it changes, what we now believe that we did not before.

Research · Orenco Station

Background brief for the Kadlub meeting (Ritchie). The essential thing to understand: Orenco Station was not simply a transit-oriented development beside a train. It was a suburban town-making experiment that used transit, nearby technology employment, a custom development code, carefully designed housing, and a curated town center to create a market that largely did not exist before. It gives us a third distinct Oregon model. The Pearl teaches activation, South Waterfront teaches anchoring, and Orenco teaches how to convert a plan into a desirable consumer product.

1 · The most important correction to the Orenco story

Orenco is often described as a successful MAX-oriented community. True now, but not fully true at the beginning. The original PacTrust-Costa Pacific neighborhood was north of Cornell Road, about a quarter-mile from the MAX platform; an early observer called it good New Urbanism but weak TOD because riders initially walked through vacant land between the station and the neighborhood. That missing link was not resolved until the much denser Platform District was built around the station roughly two decades later. (CNU, A 25-year laboratory) The point that matters: Orenco's initial market success did not depend primarily on residents becoming daily rail commuters. It depended on creating a neighborhood people preferred to conventional suburban subdivisions. The first buyers were purchasing walkability, parks and public space, architectural character, smaller lots with better amenities, a local town center, proximity to Intel and other tech employers, and a sense of community. That is a more applicable lesson for Salem than "build housing near transportation."

2 · Origins and timeline

The land was once associated with the Oregon Nursery Company and the former Orenco company town, and much of it sat vacant for decades. PacTrust acquired the principal site in 1985, but formal planning did not begin until 1994; construction began April 1997, sales that September, first homes closed January 1998, and the MAX station opened later in 1998. The original ULI case study described a 190-acre master plan for 1,834 homes plus retail and office; later sources cite roughly 200 to 209 acres, while Hillsboro now describes a 135-acre Orenco mixed-use area (different planning boundaries, not contradictions). The original PacTrust-Costa Pacific development itself covered about 68 acres, with PacTrust selling the remaining parcels to other developers. (ULI, Orenco Station case study)

The sequence in brief: 1985 to 1994 was land patience (a long control period on a low basis that gave room to experiment); 1994 to 1996 was planning and regulatory invention (Metro designated a regional town center; Hillsboro, PacTrust, TriMet, and others built a custom zoning framework over about two years); 1997 into the early 2000s was neighborhood-first (small-lot detached homes, townhouses, accessory units, parks, and the original town center); the 2000s saw multiple developers fill out the district as PacTrust sold parcels (diversifying capital and product but reducing control); and 2013 to 2018 saw Holland Partner Group finally make the station the center with the six-story mixed-use Platform District. The district was built over more than 20 years and several cycles. (CNU, A connected and walkable suburb)

3 · Who did what

PacTrust, master developer and commercial curator. Pacific Realty Associates controlled the master plan, commercial components, and much of the land disposition, and, crucially, curated the town-center tenants: the FTA account credits PacTrust with recruiting tenants to deliver the community services residents requested, not just building retail shells and handing off leasing. The commercial mix was part of the product. (FTA, Planning for Transit-Supportive Development)

Costa Pacific and Rudy Kadlub, residential development partner (not master developer). Rudy's team translated the urban plan into homes suburban Oregon buyers would actually purchase: product design, pricing and positioning, residential marketing, buyer research, small-lot execution, townhouse and detached integration, accessory-unit experimentation, and proving buyers would pay for better neighborhood design. Costa Pacific's site still credits the company with co-developing Orenco's 1,834-home community. (Costa Pacific, About)

City of Hillsboro, regulatory and infrastructure partner. The city did not merely approve; it helped create the legal and engineering framework that let the development exist, with street widths, utility easements, paving, lighting, and right-of-way details resolved before entitlements. Metro and TriMet set the regional frame: Metro's 2040 plan made Orenco a town center with a density gradient near the station, and TriMet's Westside MAX created the connectivity and the long-term rationale for greater intensity.

4 · They researched the customer before designing the product

One of the smartest moves was surveying employees at the surrounding high-tech companies about housing and design preferences, affordability, and desired character. Respondents liked the feel of older Portland neighborhoods: Craftsman and cottage architecture, gardens, local shops, walkable streets. The team used that to package higher density in a visually familiar, emotionally appealing form. They did not ask whether the market wanted "transit-oriented development"; they asked people how they wanted to live, then used architecture and public space to make an unfamiliar model feel familiar. For West Salem the equivalent audience research should include state employees, Salem healthcare workers, OSU graduate students and researchers, young professionals, empty nesters, sports and entertainment workers, makers and small manufacturers, Portland-area residents considering Salem, existing West Salem residents, and employers recruiting talent. The question is not only what unit size they can afford; it is what complete lifestyle would persuade them to choose this district.

5 · The development code was part of the invention

After two years of negotiation Hillsboro created a custom Station Community Residential Village district that allowed or required what ordinary suburban rules prevent: narrower streets, reduced setbacks, alleys, rear-loaded garages, side-yard easements, accessory dwellings above garages, live-work units, mixed-use buildings, multiple housing types per block, minimum densities near the station, and parking maximums as well as minimums. The FTA's retrospective lesson is directly relevant: resolve the small technical matters with public-works and building officials before entitlement, because a beautiful plan can be quietly destroyed by standard fire access, utilities, drainage, parking, lighting, and right-of-way requirements applied one department at a time. For Now City this argues for a district implementation code, not just a master-plan rendering, coordinating street sections, emergency access, district utilities, loading and service, parking ratios and shared parking, ground-floor uses, stoops and entries, frontages, greenway connections, temporary uses, adaptive reuse, and future subdivisions. (CNU, Orenco Station)

6 · The physical design strategy

A spine, not an isolated center: the station sat at the southern edge, and a north-south pedestrian and vehicular spine connected the platform to the town center, crossed Cornell Road, and ended at a village green, with smaller parks branching off as a string of pearls. The principle is to create a memorable sequence of destinations, not one isolated public space. Small private lots were traded for better public space: detached lots ran roughly 3,680 to 4,500 square feet with houses close to the street, narrow streets, compressed intersections, alley-loaded garages, and front porches for sociability. The team concluded buyers accept smaller private space when the neighborhood supplies better public space, and post-purchase research confirmed community orientation, the pedestrian environment, and parks as major reasons people bought. Density becomes acceptable when the public realm makes the resident feel they are gaining something rather than losing space. Housing types were mixed rather than segregated: townhouses were integrated into detached blocks, accessory units sat above garages, and some town-center buildings held housing or offices above retail. A successful mixed-use district does not require every building to contain retail; it requires the district as a whole to support a complementary mixture.

7 · The original economics

The 1999 ULI case study covers a 61.2-acre, 446-unit portion, not the whole district. In late-1990s dollars: site acquisition $5.4M, site improvements $12.0M, construction $45.8M, soft costs $13.1M, total $76.3M, roughly $171,100 per dwelling and $120 per residential square foot on the study's methodology. Sales reportedly averaged 7.5 homes per month at prices about 20% to 30% above area averages, with buyers mostly singles, professional couples, and empty nesters. The likely formula: low long-term land basis, higher-than-suburban density, a design premium, strong absorption, and multiple product types, which let the team spend more on parks, streetscape, and architecture without relying on high-rise construction.

8 · The Platform District: the second-generation Orenco

The original Orenco proved the neighborhood market; the Platform District later proved the high-density station market. Holland Partner Group built three six-story buildings around the station with roughly 579 apartments and more than 20,000 square feet of retail at about $121M, with sources reported around a $73M construction loan, $44M private equity, a $700K Metro TOD grant, about $650K associated with TriMet land, and roughly $4M in SDC credits and financing. Hillsboro allowed 95% of relevant system-development charges to be financed over ten years after a 5% down payment, and buildings received vertical-housing property-tax exemptions of 60% to 80% for ten years. The station plaza is a useful public-private model: Holland funded about $2.6M of construction using SDC-related resources, the city took long-term ownership, maintenance, and programming, and Holland agreed to contribute $75,000 annually for the first ten years toward programming and management. The developer did not merely build the plaza; it contributed to the operating system that made the plaza active. For West Salem, the greenway, event spaces, and plazas should have operating agreements and revenue plans from the outset, not just construction budgets.

9 · What demonstrably worked

Consumers paid for place (homes sold faster and higher than conventional local product, with buyers explicitly valuing the community design, town center, parks, alleys, and pedestrian orientation). Small lots worked because streets, architecture, and parks compensated. Accessory units worked (about a quarter of early buyers chose the optional carriage unit). Social interaction increased (a 2001 survey found 94% considered the design superior to conventional suburbs and 78% reported a greater sense of community than their previous neighborhood). Transportation performance improved though imperfectly (22% used transit for work or school, above the regional comparison, though about three-quarters still commuted by car; later research found vehicle-trip generation roughly half conventional ITE estimates and peak parking demand less than half the suburban guideline). And the plan accommodated several generations of development, from low-rise homes to six-story station buildings by different parties over two decades. (CNU, Residents like the high-density life)

10 · What did not work, or only worked later

The original phase was not truly station-adjacent (undeveloped parcels separated the first neighborhood from the platform; the Platform District repaired it a generation later). Salem lesson: do not leave a dead zone between the catalyst and the first completed neighborhood. Cornell Road remained a barrier that bisected the community. Salem lesson: Edgewater and Wallace Road should not divide the district's pedestrian experience. Live-work demand was overestimated (many planned live-work units functioned as residential townhouses). Salem lesson: build adaptable ground floors but do not underwrite large quantities of specialized live-work without demonstrated users. The early community was not especially diverse (about 95% white, older, relatively affluent, and the researcher cautioned this homogeneity may have contributed to the reported cohesion). Salem lesson: community feeling is not the same as inclusion; affordability and cultural diversity require intentional structures. Families were not the dominant early market. Salem lesson: family housing requires deliberate unit design, schools, play areas, storage, and pricing, not merely two-bedroom apartments. And affordability came later (the original project was principally market-rate; later phases added affordable senior housing and several affordable Passive House developments using tax credits, grants, HOME funding, and nonprofit developers). Salem lesson: reserve affordable parcels and financing pathways early rather than hoping to retrofit affordability after land values rise.

11 · What Rudy is uniquely positioned to tell us

Dike and Jim can tell us how districts are negotiated and engineered; Rudy can tell us how an unconventional development proposition is converted into something consumers understand and purchase. Listen for: how the high-tech employee survey shaped the actual plans; how Costa Pacific overcame resistance to small lots; which design features buyers would truly pay for and which sounded good but did not matter; how the price premium compared with the extra placemaking costs; how PacTrust and Costa Pacific divided responsibility and economics; how much master-developer control was required; how residential builders were kept aligned with the vision; what happened when parcels sold to other developers; how retail was supported before the population matured; which city departments were constructive and which standards caused friction; and what he would change after 25 years. His phrase for Orenco's proposition was the ability to walk to a quart of milk: can a resident meet ordinary daily needs without turning every outing into a vehicle trip.

12 · Implications for Now City and West Salem

1. Research the first residents before finalizing the plan. Orenco went to the likely customers, not generic demographics. Now City should run a West Salem consumer and employer research process that shapes unit mix, price points, ownership versus rental, ground-floor uses, workspace, mobility, greenway programming, family amenities, architecture, and entertainment.
2. Begin with a complete piece of town. The first phase should feel like a neighborhood on opening day: an adaptive-reuse destination, 250 to 350 homes, food and beverage, a completed greenway segment, maker or innovation workspace, a small plaza or event street, shared parking, and a visible connection to downtown Salem.
3. Use familiar forms to introduce unfamiliar density. Draw from authentic regional forms: timber industrial buildings, river infrastructure, warehouses and bow-truss structures, agricultural buildings, Oregon masonry and wood, covered outdoor spaces, and a working-waterfront maker aesthetic.
4. Create value through public space before maximizing height. Orenco's first success came from two- and three-story placemaking; density rose later. This reinforces the stadium-optional strategy: become desirable before becoming maximally dense.
5. Control retail curation. Do not sell all ground-floor commercial condominiums or scatter retail control; keep enough coordinated ownership or management to shape tenant mix, hours, outdoor dining, events, local-business support, temporary uses, leasing incentives, and design standards.
6. Separate permanence from adaptability. Make the street network, greenway, public spaces, and block structure permanent; let buildings and uses evolve. That is how Orenco moved from small-lot homes to six-story station buildings without losing the place framework.
7. Resolve technical standards early. A district implementation team should include city engineering, fire, utilities, planning, parks, transportation, and building officials before the design is fixed. The unglamorous questions decide whether the urbanism survives: can streets be narrow, can utilities share corridors, where do fire trucks turn, can loading occur from alleys, can parking be shared, who maintains the greenway, who pays for plaza programming, can ground floors change use without major reconstruction.
8. Structure the master-developer role clearly. Orenco shows a viable model where a master developer sets the plan, infrastructure, and identity, develops some components, and sells other parcels to specialist builders. Control the district platform; do not assume you must vertically develop every building. But parcel sales must carry enforceable obligations on phasing, architecture, sustainability, affordability, ground-floor activity, and public-realm contributions.

13 · Questions for Rudy

Market and product: what did the high-tech employee research tell you that most changed the design; what convinced buyers to accept smaller lots and which feature created the premium; were customers buying transit access, the town center, the architecture, or the community; which product type outperformed; which product you believed in that the market rejected; why did live-work underperform while accessory units succeeded; what would you change to attract more families and a broader economic mix.

Partnership and execution: how were responsibilities and economics divided between PacTrust and Costa Pacific; what did PacTrust do as master developer that a normal land seller would not; how much control did the master developer keep after parcels sold; which decisions required the greatest trust with Hillsboro; which city standards had to be rewritten; did the public sector move quickly enough on technical conflicts; how did you keep engineering and value engineering from eroding the urban design.

Finance and phasing: how much of the success depended on the 1985 land basis; what was the minimum viable first phase; how did you finance parks and streets before the homes sold; did retail open too early, too late, or on time; would you still begin with for-sale housing today or lead with rental and adaptive reuse; at what point did the development become self-reinforcing rather than developer-driven.

West Salem: what is the smallest first phase that could establish a genuine neighborhood; which customer groups should we interview before finalizing the program; what physical features would let West Salem command a premium over ordinary Salem apartments; how should we combine existing industrial buildings with new housing; what should Now City control permanently and what should we sell to vertical developers; where does Orenco's model transfer to West Salem and where does it not; what would make you personally believe our plan is executable.

A strong opening. "We have been looking at Orenco as a different development model from the Pearl and South Waterfront. Our read is that Orenco's early success came less from high-density transit development and more from taking an unfamiliar urban form, smaller lots, alleys, mixed housing, and walkability, and translating it into a consumer product suburban buyers preferred. Transit and Intel created the regional framework, PacTrust supplied patient land and master-developer control, Hillsboro helped invent the code, and Costa Pacific proved people would pay for the neighborhood experience. The much denser TOD around the platform came later. We would love to understand what in that reading is right, what is wrong, and what you would do differently starting Orenco today."

Research · Pearl District and South Waterfront

Background brief for the Atkins Dame meeting (Ritchie). The most useful way to understand these projects is that they are two very different models of district creation. The Pearl was an incremental, culture-led urban regeneration story that the city later accelerated with zoning, tax-increment financing, streetcar infrastructure, parks, and a long-term master-development agreement. South Waterfront was an anchor-institution-led megaproject built around OHSU, major transportation infrastructure, environmental remediation, and high-rise development: far more capital-intensive and far more exposed to the real-estate cycle. Strategic read: West Salem should borrow the sequencing and fine-grained urbanism of the Pearl while using the anchor strategy and infrastructure coordination of South Waterfront, and avoid South Waterfront's early dependence on towers and condominium absorption.

1 · The Pearl District: development followed identity

The origin story. The Pearl began as a rail-yard, warehousing, and light-industrial district. As those activities declined after the 1950s, inexpensive industrial space attracted artists, galleries, makers, and small businesses, so by the 1980s the area already had an emerging identity before any formal redevelopment. The city did not invent the Pearl's desirability; it recognized and amplified a market and cultural ecosystem already forming. The planning sequence was unusually long: early-1980s urban-design work, the 1988 Central City Plan, the 1992 River District Vision, the 1994 River District Development Plan, the 1998 River District Urban Renewal Area (roughly 315 acres, aimed at a high-density mixed-use neighborhood combining housing, employment, retail, attractions, transportation, and open space), and the 2001 Pearl District Development Plan. (Prosper Portland, River District)

The crucial public-private agreement. The heart of the model was a master-development agreement between the Portland Development Commission and Hoyt Street Properties covering the former rail yards. It did something sophisticated: it linked the private developer's permitted density to delivery of public infrastructure and amenities. An independent case study describes the density ladder as roughly 15 units per acre initially, about 87 units per acre after removal of the Lovejoy viaduct, about 109 once streetcar construction began, and about 131 after further public improvements. Public investment created private land value, and the agreement raised development intensity in return. The lesson for Salem: do not give the entitlement value away at the beginning; build a ladder in which additional development rights, public financing, or infrastructure commitments release as measurable obligations are met. (Energy Innovation, Pearl District Case Study)

Streetcar as real-estate infrastructure. The 2001 plan treated the Portland Streetcar as a transportation asset, a neighborhood amenity, a development incentive, and a way to reduce parking and car dependence, funded through city revenue, TIF, federal participation, and a local improvement district assessing benefiting properties along the route. The deeper lesson is not "build a streetcar," it is to create a visible, dependable connective system that changes how investors perceive the site. For West Salem that could be a riverfront greenway, a protected mobility connection, frequent shuttle or transit service, district parking, and a strong pedestrian link to downtown, not necessarily rail. (Prosper Portland, Pearl District Development Plan)

Parks were development infrastructure. Jamison Square, Tanner Springs Park, and The Fields Park became a connected series of distinctive public spaces rather than leftover landscaping; the rail-yard agreement included park land dedication, and the 3.2-acre Fields Park was conveyed by Hoyt Street Properties using development-related credits. Each park does a different job: Jamison is active and family-oriented, Tanner Springs is ecological and contemplative, The Fields is larger neighborhood recreation. The Pearl built a public-realm network serving different users and phases, not one generic central green. (PlannersWeb, A Tale of Three Parks)

Adaptive reuse came before large-scale new construction. Historic warehouses, galleries, restaurants, and loft conversions made the district interesting before the highest-value towers arrived. That generated activity before full buildout, let demand be discovered incrementally, created authenticity new construction could monetize, spread risk across building types and owners, and let the district evolve across cycles. Directly relevant to the Patterson Street bow-truss buildings and other adaptive-reuse opportunities in West Salem.

What the Pearl got wrong. Two failures worth naming. First, displacement of the culture that created the value: the 2001 plan already warned that rising rents threatened the artists and independent businesses who built the district's identity, and there was no durable mechanism to preserve cultural production space. For Now City the lesson is to secure long-term affordability for makers through ground leases, community ownership, below-market commercial covenants, cross-subsidy from residential, a nonprofit cultural-space owner, and permanent rather than temporary artist space. Second, affordable housing fell short: the original Hoyt Street framework envisioned roughly 35% affordable, but Prosper Portland's later evaluation reports the target was not fully met, with about 25% of units affordable at or below 80% of area median income. Substantial, but it shows district-wide targets need enforceable parcel-level milestones, land-control remedies, and replacement obligations. (Prosper Portland, Understanding TIF Investment Impacts)

2 · South Waterfront: development followed an anchor

Starting condition. A contaminated, disconnected industrial area south of downtown. The 447-acre North Macadam TIF District was established in 1999 with maximum indebtedness near $288.6M. Unlike the Pearl, South Waterfront had no existing gallery-and-restaurant ecosystem; it required creating a market almost from scratch, and its catalyst was Oregon Health & Science University. OHSU needed room beyond its constrained Marquam Hill campus, so the public-private strategy combined OHSU expansion, the aerial tram, a streetcar extension, streets and utilities, greenway and parks, environmental remediation, market-rate and affordable housing, and high-rise development. (Prosper Portland, North Macadam)

The central district structure. The roughly 38-acre Central District was co-developed by Gerding Edlen and Williams & Dame in partnership with OHSU and the PDC, presented at the time as a roughly $2B project and one of the largest urban infill initiatives in the country. A fundamentally different proposition from the Pearl: where the Pearl made an emerging neighborhood legible and investable, South Waterfront built a new institutional and residential district by coordinating a massive package of infrastructure and vertical development at once. (Edlen & Co., South Waterfront Masterplan)

The anchor institution did three jobs. OHSU was more than a large tenant: it provided permanent employment demand, a political rationale for public infrastructure, and a long-term institutional balance sheet that could outlast a housing cycle. That third function proved decisive after 2008. A stadium alone probably cannot play all three roles for West Salem, but a combination of OSU-related research, AI and advanced-industry activity, medical or educational uses, sports and entertainment, and residential can. The strongest version of the Salem strategy is therefore not "stadium district" but a riverfront innovation, employment, housing, and culture district in which the stadium is one catalytic component.

Infrastructure created the market. The partnership invested roughly $125M in streets, parks, affordable housing, and transportation including the tram, helping unlock more than $1B in subsequent private investment. The Portland Aerial Tram eventually cost about $57M and was intensely controversial as costs rose, yet became both essential OHSU infrastructure and a defining district symbol. The nuanced lesson: iconic infrastructure can change a district's investment story and can also become the symbol of public-private mistrust when costs and responsibilities are not transparent. The political narrative must be managed as carefully as the engineering. (Portland Aerial Tram, Tram Turns Ten; OPB, From Controversy to Icon)

Development-agreement complexity. The original Central District Development Agreement was approved in 2003 among the PDC, OHSU, and several Williams & Dame entities, and by May 2010 it had been amended nine times. The ninth amendment abandoned a contemplated Phase 1 parking-garage site, removed an obligation to build affordable apartments above that garage, allowed alternative garage locations, and created a mechanism for public tax-increment resources to cover up to 50% of qualifying OHSU parking costs, subject to a $25M cap plus inflation. This is a gold mine to discuss with Dike and Jim. Amendments are not inherently bad; a 20-year agreement must accommodate change. The question is whether it contains clear performance measures, automatic adjustment mechanisms, transparent public-benefit accounting, remedies when obligations disappear, a distinction between district infrastructure and project-specific rescue capital, and rules on who captures the upside after public investment.

The 2008 stress test. South Waterfront's first residential phases were heavily high-rise condominium. When the crisis hit, condo demand collapsed, lenders took some towers, units were auctioned at deep discounts, and planned condos converted to apartments. The vulnerabilities: too much simultaneous product, too much reliance on one buyer profile, large indivisible construction commitments, high-rise cost structures, retail dependent on residential occupancy, and infrastructure installed ahead of a suddenly weak market. It did not die: the institutional anchor, transit, OHSU investment, and already-built infrastructure carried it to recovery. Prosper Portland now reports more than 2,000 completed housing units in the district, including more than 600 affordable, plus OHSU facilities, greenway, streetcar, tram, and regional transit. (Sean Z Becker Real Estate, SoWa booming again)

3 · The critical comparison

4 · Dike Dame and Jim Atkins

Dike Dame was president and co-owner of Williams & Dame with roughly five decades in real-estate development across multiple cycles and nearly every part of the process; his signature appears on the South Waterfront amendments as manager for River Campus Investors, North Macadam Investors, and Block 39. His strongest perspective will be public-private negotiation, political durability, partner alignment, capital-cycle survival, how to maintain momentum through years of uncertainty, and what cities promise versus what they can actually deliver. (Oregon Legislature, Williams/Dame testimony)

Jim Atkins has a civil-engineering and construction-management background and more than 30 years in neighborhood-scale, mixed-use, and brownfield redevelopment, credited with more than 10,000 housing units across Los Angeles, Portland, Seattle, and Eugene, and was an NMI/RCI representative on South Waterfront's technical group. He will be most valuable on infrastructure sequencing, brownfield risk, civil and transportation constraints, phasing and constructability, development budgets and schedules, and translating a master plan into buildable parcels. (City Club of Eugene, Riverfront Development Part 2) They formed Atkins Dame in 2017 and now apply this experience to Eugene's Downtown Riverfront, where the city calls Atkins Dame its vertical-development partner.

5 · The strongest implications for Now City

1. Create the platform, not just the project. Both districts succeeded because someone assembled a district-level platform covering land, entitlements, infrastructure, public space, transportation, housing, anchor uses, and development obligations. That is exactly where Now City distinguishes itself from a conventional stadium or multifamily developer.
2. Use Pearl sequencing. The lower-risk order for West Salem: secure land control and a district framework; activate existing buildings with makers, sports, food, events, and live-work; establish the greenway and visible public realm; deliver an initial residential and commercial phase at a market-tested scale; build the employment and innovation cluster; proceed with the stadium when its economics and operating partnership mature; introduce taller or more expensive buildings only after rents and absorption are proven.
3. Use South Waterfront anchoring. The district needs something that generates weekday activity and survives cycles, likely a network rather than one institution: OSU research and graduate programs, AI, robotics, advanced materials and construction technology, sports medicine or healthcare, food and beverage production, creative and maker uses, public agencies, and stadium and entertainment programming.
4. Keep the stadium optional, make the district inevitable. West Salem should be financially credible whether the stadium proceeds on schedule, is delayed, or does not occur. The stadium should increase value, not be required to rescue the thesis.
5. Make the greenway a first-phase asset. Do not treat the riverfront as an amenity completed after the profitable buildings. The initial greenway segment should connect real destinations, contain active programming, and visibly announce that the area is becoming a district.
6. Build enforceable reciprocity into public-private agreements. Every public contribution should have a corresponding measurable private obligation: TIF infrastructure tied to unit delivery, density tied to affordable housing, public parking support tied to shared use, greenway investment tied to adjacent development, land-price adjustments tied to entitlement value, grants tied to employment or innovation outcomes, stadium support tied to year-round community access.
7. Design the agreement for bad markets. Ask how they would draft it knowing another 2008 will eventually come: what happens if rates make a phase infeasible, can a condo phase convert to rentals automatically, who funds completed infrastructure if vertical pauses, can obligations move between parcels, do delayed obligations accrue, what if the anchor changes strategy, who owns the public realm during an incomplete phase, and which public benefits cannot be negotiated away.

6 · Questions for Dike and Jim

The Pearl: which three decisions created most of the Pearl's value; how much came from planning versus the artists and businesses already experimenting there; which public improvement changed investor confidence first (viaduct removal, streetcar, parks, or zoning); what should have been done differently to retain makers and affordable commercial space; why did affordable housing fall short of target and how would you enforce it today.

South Waterfront: would you still begin with high-rise condominiums today; which infrastructure had to precede vertical development and which came too early; what did OHSU contribute beyond being a landowner; which agreement provisions proved too rigid and which too easy to renegotiate; where did public money create permanent district value versus support individual projects; what warning signs appeared before the condo market broke; what allowed the district to survive once the initial model stalled.

West Salem: what is the minimum credible first phase that would convince you this is becoming a district rather than a proposal; would you lead with adaptive reuse, new residential, employment space, the greenway, or stadium infrastructure; what anchor could play an OHSU-like role in Salem without relying on one institution; how should we structure the landowner's participation so they receive entitlement upside while the project retains control and financeability; what would you need to see in the next 12 months to believe Now City can execute; where are we overreaching, and where are we not being ambitious enough.

A strong opening. "Ritchie and I have been studying the Pearl and South Waterfront as two complementary but very different development models. The Pearl succeeded through incremental activation, adaptive reuse, public realm, and infrastructure that amplified an emerging market. South Waterfront depended much more on OHSU as an anchor and on a comprehensive public-private infrastructure package, but it carried much greater capital-cycle and execution risk. For West Salem we want to combine Pearl-style sequencing and authenticity with South Waterfront-style anchoring and infrastructure coordination, while keeping the stadium optional and the district viable under multiple scenarios. We would love to hear where that reading is right, where it is wrong, and what you would do differently today."

Research · Eugene Downtown Riverfront

Background brief for the Atkins Dame meeting (Ritchie). Eugene is the closest of these Oregon precedents to West Salem: a medium-sized city trying to turn former riverfront industrial land into a new mixed-use neighborhood without Portland-scale rents or an OHSU-sized anchor. The core model: the public sector assembled and de-risked the development platform, and Atkins Dame accepted phased land-purchase, vertical-development, and market risk. The City of Eugene and its Urban Renewal Agency controlled the former EWEB property, handled planning, environmental work, streets, utilities, the riverfront park, and much of the entitlement framework; Atkins Dame then entered a long-term development agreement to purchase and develop parcels over time. Strongest conclusion for West Salem: Eugene shows how a city can prepare the table for private development, and also how long, subsidy-dependent, and market-sensitive the process stays even after the city has controlled the land and removed the obvious risks. (Eugene, Downtown Riverfront)

1 · What the project actually is

Usually called the Downtown Riverfront or EWEB Riverfront redevelopment. The city describes the active area as roughly 16 acres; other documents refer to a larger former EWEB property or a roughly 20-acre planning area (overlapping boundaries, not a single parcel count). The site sits between downtown Eugene, the Willamette, the University of Oregon area, Fifth Street Market and the 5th Street District, the historic EWEB Steam Plant, and the Ferry Street Bridge viaduct. The objective was not merely to build apartments but to reconnect downtown and surrounding neighborhoods to the river, create a mixed-use neighborhood, and make the public riverfront a citywide destination. The master plan contemplated a substantial residential neighborhood, ground-floor retail, a riverfront park and plaza, a connected street and pedestrian network, affordable housing, reuse of the Steam Plant, development under and around the viaduct, and a progression from Fifth Street Market toward the river.

2 · The origin story: publicly owned utility land

The biggest difference from West Salem. The property was owned and used by the Eugene Water & Electric Board; EWEB and the city began planning its transformation around 2007, EWEB decided to sell in 2013, and the Urban Renewal Agency completed a roughly $5.75M acquisition in April 2018. Because the land was publicly controlled, Eugene could coordinate environmental investigation and remediation, master planning, rezoning and entitlement, street and utility construction, park delivery, developer selection, parcel disposition, affordable-housing reservations, and timelines and remedies. That is a far stronger starting position than a district assembled from multiple private owners. For Now City the comparable challenge is: how can privately controlled West Salem land be made to behave like a coordinated public development platform? Likely a combination of development agreements, owner participation, options, contribution agreements, district infrastructure financing, and shared design standards.

3 · Atkins Dame's selection and role

Atkins Dame was selected through a city-led process and presented an initial concept in 2017. A development agreement was approved in 2019 but kept evolving; in 2020 Eugene and Atkins Dame revised it to address affordability, infrastructure cost-sharing, sidewalks, density, parking, commercial flexibility, and timing, and a replacement agreement was approved in November 2020. Atkins Dame is not merely a builder buying a finished multifamily site; its role spans master-development coordination, urban design, residential development, parcel acquisition, phasing, capital formation, coordination with the city and other developers, recruiting commercial partners, and translating a civic plan into financeable buildings. Eugene retained a much more active role than an ordinary municipality, remaining responsible for major pieces of the public realm and platform. The division of labor:

4 · Atkins Dame's development philosophy

Their original presentation emphasized the "first 30 feet," the part of buildings and public space pedestrians actually experience: active, transparent ground floors, frequent doors and entries, human-scale architecture, a strong pedestrian environment, retail and public activity where they can realistically succeed, high-quality sidewalks and streetscapes, connecting public spaces rather than isolated amenities, and architectural diversity within a coherent framework. For West Salem, success will be judged at eye level, not in aerial renderings: are the first blocks lively, are garage and loading conditions hidden, does the greenway connect to occupied uses, are there enough doors and destinations, does the district feel complete before full buildout, can someone walk between the buildings and the river without crossing dead zones. Eugene is a good example of district-scale mixed use rather than insisting every building be mixed-use: some initial residential buildings have no retail, and commercial is concentrated where it has a realistic chance. (Eugene, Riverfront Redevelopment presentation)

5 · Fifth Street Market is the quiet anchor

Eugene has no single institutional anchor like OHSU. Instead Atkins Dame treated the established Fifth Street Market and 5th Street District as the economic and placemaking foundation, extending the existing energy of Fifth Avenue eastward toward the river rather than manufacturing a new retail market blocks away. That gives the district existing restaurants and retail, established visitor traffic, hotels, local identity, a known destination, a natural pedestrian route, and a private neighbor already invested nearby. For West Salem the analogous question is tougher, because there is no Fifth Street Market next to the riverfront land. Possible substitutes: Edgewater Street's existing businesses, adaptive reuse of the Patterson Street industrial buildings, the greenway, sports and event programming, food and beverage production, a stadium or sports complex, innovation and employment uses, and a curated market hall or maker destination. The lesson: retail must grow from an existing stream of activity; it cannot simply be drawn on the first floor of every building and expected to materialize. (KLCC, Down by the River, Part 2)

6 · The public-private deal structure

The original 2019 framework anticipated Atkins Dame buying roughly eight acres for about $2.7M (about $7.95 per square foot) and leasing two commercial or restaurant parcels at market rates, with more than 360 homes, a parcel for at least 75 affordable units, commercial uses, open space beneath the viaduct, and a city-built three-acre park plus about one acre of plaza. It also provided for shared infrastructure expenses, construction deadlines, city repurchase rights if Atkins Dame failed to begin, phased land transfers, affordable-housing requirements, and public-space obligations. Those terms changed as the program densified. The current structure sells the land to Atkins Dame through multiple closings, with final purchase expected by 2027 and total consideration around $11.1M. In March 2021, after diligence, Atkins Dame made a $4.5M nonrefundable deposit that helped fund the city's second infrastructure phase; first parcels closed October 2021, the second group December 2022. That deposit is an interesting alignment mechanism: it demonstrated real commitment, gave the city capital to continue infrastructure, reduced walk-away risk after public investment, and likely strengthened Atkins Dame's control over future phases without acquiring all the land at once. For West Salem this suggests an alternative to an all-or-nothing land close: a meaningful nonrefundable commitment that funds entitlement or infrastructure, combined with phased closings and clear performance milestones.

7 · Infrastructure and environmental de-risking

The city absorbed much of what normally prevents brownfield redevelopment from starting. The site operated under DEQ environmental agreements including a Prospective Purchaser Agreement; EWEB retained certain cleanup obligations while Eugene built streets, utilities, and public improvements, and by 2025 the city reported required contamination mitigation complete and the property declared clean by DEQ. The private developer was not asked to simultaneously solve unknown environmental liability, district-scale streets, utility relocation, park development, entitlement uncertainty, vertical construction, lease-up, and commercial activation; the city stripped several of those away before or alongside the private buildings. West Salem will need an explicit risk matrix naming who owns existing-soil contamination, demolition and hazardous materials, floodplain and riverbank conditions, utility capacity, street and intersection upgrades, greenway construction, off-site transportation obligations, entitlement appeals, district parking, and environmental approvals. Without that allocation, each private building carries unfinanceable uncertainty. (This is the same PPA and no-further-action requirement Dame raised in the July 22 call; see the addendum below.)

8 · The riverfront park came first

Eugene delivered roughly three acres of riverfront park and then about one acre of plaza; the first major park phase opened June 2022, before the first Atkins Dame building was complete, and the plaza finished in 2025. The public realm was not deferred until the neighborhood was profitable; it was used to establish the destination, reconnect the city to the river, demonstrate municipal commitment, support values, give early residents an immediate amenity, and create identity before buildout. Highly applicable to West Salem: a completed first greenway segment could be worth more than spreading the same money across preliminary landscaping district-wide. But Eugene also shows a beautiful park does not automatically create a complete neighborhood; the buildings, shops, programming, and links still have to catch up.

9 · Residential phasing and current delivery

Heartwood, the first Atkins Dame building, has roughly 95 market-rate apartments; construction began August 2022, completed June 2024, with 2021 underwriting projecting about $42.9M in total development cost, roughly $452,000 per unit (an early projection, not audited). The Portal, the second, has roughly 130 market-rate apartments; construction began August 2023, completed June 2025, with original underwriting near $58.6M, again close to $450,000 per unit. Both underwrote at roughly $450,000 per apartment before the full effects of subsequent inflation and rate changes, which helps explain why the apartments need relatively high rents, why tax exemptions mattered, why density alone did not make them feasible, and why the buildings had to compete for upper-end Eugene renters. The city reports five Atkins Dame projects approved under the multifamily tax exemption totaling roughly 617 market-rate units, with the broader development generally expected between 500 and 700 homes. As of late 2025 later phases remained dependent on financing conditions, stabilization and lease-up of The Portal, construction costs, performance of the initial buildings, and securing retail and commercial partners. A signed master agreement and completed infrastructure do not eliminate ordinary project-level capital-market tests: each building must still finance, construct, and lease. (KLCC, Down by the River, Part 4)

10 · The importance of MUPTE

Eugene's Multiple-Unit Property Tax Exemption exempts qualifying new residential improvements from property tax for up to ten years while the land stays taxable, intended to make multifamily feasible where returns would otherwise be insufficient. The Atkins Dame applications explicitly argued the projects were not viable without it, seeking a development yield sufficiently above prevailing acquisition cap rates to justify construction and attract financing. A useful lesson for Salem: a tax exemption is not merely a giveaway when it produces development that would not otherwise occur, but it should be evaluated against measurable benefits: units created, construction timing, design quality, energy performance, local employment, affordable contributions, public-space delivery, ground-floor activity, and long-term assessed-value creation. The strongest public-finance story is that the city temporarily exempts tax value that does not yet exist in order to create buildings that later expand the permanent tax base. (Eugene, MUPTE)

11 · Affordable housing: promised, funded, but slower

The agreement reserved a pathway for at least 75 affordable homes at or below 60% of area median income, with Homes for Good (Lane County's housing authority) and affordability expected to hold at least 30 years; in February 2025 Eugene authorized roughly $7.5M in urban-renewal support for the affordable component, and in 2024 amended the Riverfront Urban Renewal Plan to add $75M of capacity (district-wide, not solely Atkins Dame). The challenge: affordable units have not kept pace with the market-rate buildings, and completed market-rate rents run well above what a median-income Eugene resident can comfortably afford. The Pearl lesson repeats: reserving an affordable parcel is not the same as delivering affordable housing. Delivery requires a capable partner, tax credits or dedicated capital, public subsidy, a parcel at a workable basis, coordination with infrastructure schedules, a firm deadline, and a contingency if the capital stack fails.

12 · The Steam Plant: potential anchor, ongoing caution

The historic EWEB Steam Plant was meant to become a signature adaptive-reuse project (hospitality, food and beverage, offices, events), pursued separately by Dream Plant and deChase rather than Atkins Dame; Eugene previously committed about $1.5M and approved another $6M in 2024, but it remains complicated and financing keeps evolving. It is both opportunity and warning: it could provide historic identity, a riverfront destination, food and hospitality, an architectural icon, and a bridge from industrial history to new neighborhood, but adaptive reuse of a complex industrial structure can become expensive, slow, hard to finance, subsidy-dependent, and vulnerable to changing operators. For the Patterson Street buildings, West Salem should distinguish three different capital projects and not blend them into one optimistic cost: low-cost activation (basic life safety, weatherproofing, utilities, flexible interim use), full adaptive reuse (permanent occupancy, seismic, accessibility, quality finishes), and iconic restoration (preservation-intensive destination development).

13 · What Eugene has done well

Public control enabled coherent execution (coordinating infrastructure, park, affordable reservations, and parcel sales rather than negotiating with unrelated owners). The park created visible momentum before the private neighborhood was substantially complete. Phased closings reduced all-or-nothing risk, letting Atkins Dame adapt each phase while the city kept remedies and timing controls. The agreement was allowed to evolve rather than forcing an obsolete plan through a changed capital market. The team avoided indiscriminate retail, concentrating on extending Fifth Street Market. Public incentives were tied to actual construction, not plans and renderings. And two substantial buildings were delivered through the pandemic aftermath, construction inflation, and rising rates, which is a real execution accomplishment.

14 · What remains unresolved

It has taken a long time (planning began well before the 2018 land purchase; the first building finished 2024). The completed housing serves the upper end of the market. Affordable housing has lagged the market-rate phases despite funding and a partner. Retail has not fully arrived, and residential occupancy must mature before certain commercial uses finance. The Steam Plant has not yet fulfilled its anchor role despite years of planning and added public support. The viaduct remains a physical challenge requiring strong design, lighting, programming, and maintenance to avoid becoming a barrier. And future phases remain exposed to interest rates, construction pricing, lender requirements, and demonstrated rents even though the infrastructure is public and long-term.

15 · What this means for West Salem

1. Eugene is not proof that private development alone can build the district. It is proof that private development can perform after the public sector absorbs substantial land, environmental, infrastructure, planning, park, entitlement, and carrying-time risk. West Salem must identify who plays that platform role: the City of Salem, the Urban Renewal Agency, Now City as master developer, landowners contributing land into a coordinated entity, a public-private infrastructure district, a special-purpose development authority, or a blended-capital fund.
2. The development agreement must accommodate several capital cycles. Eugene's concept changed substantially between 2017 and today. West Salem's agreement should preserve the vision while allowing changes in tenure, height and construction type, parking, commercial quantity, stadium timing, affordable finance, parcel sequence, and capital partners, without letting public benefits disappear: flexibility should let one viable delivery method replace another.
3. Use phased land closings. The landowner and other owners may not need to sell or contribute the whole district at once. A Eugene-inspired structure could include initial option or exclusivity, a nonrefundable predevelopment contribution, entitlement milestones, parcel-by-parcel closings, an agreed pricing or valuation formula, owner participation in upside, repurchase or reversion rights, and minimum-development obligations.
4. Build one complete riverfront segment. The first greenway phase should open with adjacent activity, connecting existing West Salem, the first housing, adaptive-reuse buildings, food and beverage, event space, downtown bridge access, and future stadium or sports uses.
5. Find West Salem's Fifth Street Market. Eugene had an adjacent destination to extend; West Salem may have to create its own from the bow-truss buildings, maker and innovation space, a food hall or market, sports and recreation, live music and events, greenway programming, local production, and existing Edgewater businesses.
6. Do not overbuild retail. Design flexible, high-ceiling ground floors at the most strategic locations, but do not require continuous retail frontage throughout early phases.
7. Plan the subsidy architecture now. Affordable housing, infrastructure, public space, and high-quality private development will require multiple layers: urban-renewal tax increment, construction excise tax resources, SDC financing, property-tax exemption, affordable land write-down, state infrastructure grants, brownfield funding, federal transportation or environmental resources, Opportunity Zone capital, and shared parking and district utilities.
8. Make later phases dependent on verified absorption. Eugene waited for lease-up information before proceeding. West Salem should set measurable gates for each phase: occupancy, achieved rents, employer commitments, retail performance, event attendance, parking utilization, financing availability, and infrastructure completion.

16 · Questions for Dike and Jim

Selection and partnership: why Eugene, and what made you believe the market could support a new riverfront district; what did the city do before your involvement that made it investable; which risks did Eugene retain that you would never have accepted privately; where did the city underestimate complexity or cost; what made the relationship durable through revisions and market changes.

Land and development agreement: how did the phased land-sale structure evolve to the current $11.1M total; what did the $4.5M nonrefundable deposit secure; which deadlines or repurchase rights created useful accountability and which created unnecessary risk; how do you prevent a phased agreement from leaving the city with an unfinished district; which provisions would you rewrite today.

Infrastructure and public investment: which public investment created the greatest private-development value (remediation, streets, utilities, park, or entitlement); was any infrastructure delivered too early; what if the city had required the private developer to finance the park and district infrastructure; how did the Prospective Purchaser Agreement affect lender and investor confidence; what is the best mechanism for recapturing public infrastructure investment through later land value.

Housing economics: how did actual Heartwood and Portal costs compare with the roughly $450,000-per-unit underwriting; what were the biggest cost surprises; how important was MUPTE to the stack; why begin with four-story buildings rather than pushing to higher density; what occupancy and rent performance must The Portal hit before the next phase; would these projects be financeable starting today.

Retail and activation: why was extending Fifth Street Market more credible than a separate riverfront retail destination; why omit retail from the first apartment buildings; what foot-traffic threshold makes the remaining commercial parcels viable; what retail-development partner are you seeking; what should have happened earlier to make the Steam Plant successful.

Affordable housing: why has the affordable component taken longer than the market-rate buildings; is 75 units enough for genuine economic diversity; how much public subsidy per affordable unit is now required; how do you ensure the affordable building gets comparable design quality and amenity access.

Applying Eugene to West Salem: what transfers when the city does not own the land; could contributed private land replace public ownership; what is the smallest viable first phase; which infrastructure must Salem fund before private vertical capital engages; can adaptive reuse, the greenway, and sports programming substitute for Fifth Street Market as an adjacent anchor; what should Now City control permanently and what should be sold to specialist developers; where are we likely underestimating the time, subsidy, or political work required.

A strong opening. "We see Eugene as a fourth Oregon district-development model. The city and Urban Renewal Agency created the platform by assembling and cleaning the former EWEB property, entitling it, building streets and utilities, and delivering the riverfront park. Atkins Dame then accepted phased land-purchase, construction, financing, and lease-up risk under a development agreement with enough flexibility to evolve from the original concept. Instead of depending on one institutional anchor, the project extended the existing energy of Fifth Street Market toward the river. Our impression is that the model has delivered public space and the first 225 homes through a very difficult market, but that affordability, retail, the Steam Plant, and later phases show how much public support and patience are still required. We would love to know where that reading is right, where it is wrong, and which pieces could transfer to West Salem when the city does not already own and de-risk the land."

Addendum · July 22, 2026 · First call with Dike Dame and Jim Atkins

Notes by Barry. What we heard, what it changes, what we do next.

What we heard

Dike Dame: - Extensive experience with what he calls urban subdivisions on land adjacent to the Willamette; would be interested in developing a plan, outline program, and cost. His warning: somebody without a civil engineering background doing this "would get themselves in trouble." - Salem market skepticism (an Oregon resident since 1960): does not think Salem is a high-end rental market and does not know if the market is there. His Wood Village property manager, asked about Salem apartment projects, reported traffic slow, rents not as good, about 90% occupied. - Retail: "retail just does not work in Oregon." Atkins Dame's 184-unit Wood Village project could not borrow even $1M against the retail without a personal guaranty. - Environmental: in Oregon you need a prospective purchaser agreement (PPA) and must get a no-further-action letter; any buyer will want it. - The pattern he has watched for years: great excitement over the vertical, but you start with what is going on horizontally: infrastructure, access, traffic, ingress and egress. - Capital posture: would not want to be an equity investor, but could probably bring the needed expertise.

Jim Atkins: - Edgewater's infrastructure work will be pretty extensive; he has run comparable scopes in Eugene and downtown Los Angeles. - The underwriting question: with Salem rents soft, can the pro forma support underwriting without public assistance? And in the current environment the state is politically forcing union prevailing wage, which kills pro formas. - The Eugene 20 acres, developed public-private: one of the keys has been meeting every week for eight years with city staff. It requires that level of deep commitment.

What it changes

1. Their role, confirmed. The no-equity posture lands exactly on the role map above: mentor and development-agreement advisor, with a concrete near-term engagement offered (plan, outline program, cost). Bringing no capital ask was the right call.
2. Diligence additions, immediate. PPA and the no-further-action letter go into the environmental and legal workstream and the verification register now, before any buyer or partner asks.
3. Underwriting additions. Prevailing-wage exposure becomes a named sensitivity in the Upside Explorer, and retail is sized as district amenity, never load-bearing in debt sizing; their Wood Village story is the Oregon retail lending reality.
4. The market objection is ours to answer, and answerable. Their skepticism aims at high-end rental. Edgewater's basis is attainable, small-efficient product priced to local incomes. The rebuttal packet for the follow-up: unit-size and rent basis, in-migration data, sub-2% vacancy, and the distinction between our program and the product their Wood Village comp represents.
5. The horizontal-first sermon is our thesis, spoken by practitioners. Start with infrastructure, access, egress: that is the master developer role in their words. Use their language in city rooms.
6. The cost of the City Compact, quantified. Eight years of weekly city meetings is the real price of a public-private district. Budget the coalition method accordingly.

Next actions

• Decide whether and how to scope the Atkins Dame plan / outline program / cost engagement: their offer, our opening.
• Add PPA and no-further-action letter to the legal diligence register.
• Add the prevailing-wage lever to the Upside Explorer and rerun the floor.
• Assemble the Salem rent-depth rebuttal packet before the follow-up conversation.