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<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\nIt might be hard to believe now, but downtown Portland\u2019s O\u2019Bryant Square was seen as a feat of urban design when it was built in the early 1970s. The currently-defunct plaza, which was constructed with a fountain and an underground parking garage, even won a national design award from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in 1976.<\/p>\n
But that was the high point for the plaza, which has been on a downward spiral ever since. Now, thanks in part to an ambitious vision from the nonprofit Portland Parks Foundation, O\u2019Bryant Square may soon get a second life. It might even be as cool as some of the plazas I saw on my recent trip to The Netherlands<\/a>. Before that happens however, the demolition crews have to come in.<\/p>\n O\u2019Bryant Square has been closed since 2018 due to structural issues with the underground parking garage and the city spent years trying to decide what to do about it. They finally made a firm decision at the end of last year<\/a> to demolish the parking structure and fill it with dirt to bring it to surface level: the first phase in O\u2019Bryant Square\u2019s new life.<\/p>\n The demolition process is set to begin this summer, and will cost $4.5 million. The project is under the purview of both the Portland Bureau of Transportation and Parks & Recreation bureau (PP&R) and will be funded through parking revenue and parks bureau fees. But neither PBOT nor PP&R have the funding to implement a long-term strategy for what the park will look like. That\u2019s where the Portland Parks Foundation (PPF) comes in.<\/p>\n O\u2019Bryant Square is located on a small lot at the corner of Southwest Park Avenue and Southwest Harvey Milk Street, in close proximity to several organizations that provide resources for people experiencing mental health and addiction crises, including Multnomah County\u2019s Behavioral Health Resource Center. People who utilize these services have long frequented this park, earning it the rather mean-spirited nickname \u201cParanoid Park.\u201d<\/p>\n But the neighborhood is changing: later this year, Portland\u2019s Ritz-Carlton will open just catty-corner from the plaza, bringing other new developments with it. PPF Executive Director Randy Gragg said he thinks the diverse conglomeration of people who mingle near O\u2019Bryant Square will create a unique opportunity to create a new public space that works for everybody.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a really fascinating and complicated space to try to create programming for, because everybody has to be in the public space,\u201d Gragg told BikePortland. \u201cBasically what we\u2019re assembling is a community vision for what could happen in the square the day the fences come down.\u201d<\/p>\n PPF is putting together an initiative called \u201cBack to Square One: Rethinking O\u2019Bryant Square\u201d: a collaborative effort between the foundation, Portland State University\u2019s Center for Public Interest Design<\/a>, Harvard University\u2019s Loeb Fellows<\/a> and PP&R to brainstorm about what this space should look like \u2014 and theorize about the value of public spaces like this in general.<\/p>\n Public plazas and parks have been a very hot topic recently, branching out beyond the traditional urbanist discourse sphere. Here in Portland, this discussion has been multifaceted and sometimes contentious. Carfree spaces popped up all over the city during the pandemic<\/a> to encourage people to get outside safely, and former PBOT Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty boosted carfree plazas as an effective way to prevent gun violence<\/a>. But others are fearful of these spaces being overtaken by drug paraphernalia and camps, which has led to stagnated planning efforts.<\/p>\n However, the benefits of these public spaces are clear \u2014 it\u2019s just a question of how the city will go about developing and maintaining more of them. What unfolds at O\u2019Bryant Square over the next few months will be a good case study in hot-button urban planning issues and could inform future plans.<\/p>\n PPF will host two events next week where the public can help come up with ideas for what they want to see in the future O\u2019Bryant Square: an open house from 8:00 am to 7:30 pm on March 8th, and a public forum from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm on March 11th, both at 820 SW Washington St. These will be opportunities to hear from urban planning experts and imagine the best future for downtown Portland. PPF has also created a survey asking for input about what people want to see at O\u2019Bryant, which you can find here<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a potluck element to it,\u201d Gragg said. \u201cWe\u2019re thinking of O\u2019Bryant as a table, and we\u2019re inviting people to bring their best dishes.\u201d<\/p>\n You can find out more about PPF\u2019s initiative at their website<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/div>\n