Public Investment In Private Projects

Portland, Oregon, has been named America’s best place to live, the most romantic spot in the world, best place to vacation, one of the nation’s top retirement spots, and one of its “hippest” cities. Look behind the curtain of Portland’s success and you’ll find the Portland Development Commission pulling the strings. It is a 45-year- old public agency with enormous reach in planning and developing in Portland.

Bruce Allen is with the Portland Development Commission, one of the nation’s premier public development organizations with more than 20 urban renewal plans to its credit. The Cordish Company of Baltimore is a real estate development firm that takes pride in completing what the company calls “challenging” projects. That often means mixed-used entertainment projects and specialty retail centers in urban areas. Many of them are rescues of failed and underperforming city projects. They include Charleston Place in Charleston, South Carolina, Bayou Place in Houston, the Power Plant in Baltimore, and currently, the Galleria in Louisville.

Thanks to Sheila Edmundson