garage is in upper left, N.
Killingsworth St. is in lower right.
Portland Community College has approved plans for a new parking garage at their Cascade campus in North Portland — and it won’t be the four-story, $9 million structure that many people (including myself) were concerned about due to its potential impacts on the future Michigan Ave bike boulevard.
Instead, PCC announced today that a proposal for an underground parking facility on N. Jessup between N. Albina and Mississippi was approved in late December and they’re “going forward with it.”
Here’s more from Cascade Campus Community Relations Officer Abraham Proctor:
“The underground parking facility is to be located below what are now surface lots in the blocks between North Albina and Mississippi avenues. It will lie between two of the new (yet-to-be built) campus buildings — the Student Center and the New Academic Building — and should add about 75 parking spaces to the campus’ capacity.”
“To reach ambitious but achievable TDM goals is both an opportunity and a challenge. I believe we are up to that challenge and that we can be a great example to the rest of the PCC community.”
— Algie Gatewood, PCC Cascade Campus President
In a letter, PCC Cascade Campus president Dr. Algie Gatewood told staff, students and community stakeholders that the issue of parking, “has loomed large in the minds of the campus and neighborhood alike.”
Gatewood continued:
“In selecting the underground parking option over an above-ground option, the campus weighed cost; benefit to the community; safety, security and operational issues; efficient use of land, opportunities for future campus development; and impacts to the adjacent North Killingsworth business corridor. Building below-ground parking between the two new buildings helps the campus preserve a full city block for future development and maintain the character and aesthetics of the neighborhood.”
Gatewood also makes it clear that the new parking structure won’t satiate the campus’s demand (enrollment has increased by 27 percent since the bond paying for the project was passed by voters in 2008) without an accompanying commitment to reducing the number of single-occupancy vehicles (SOVs) driving to the campus.
To that end, Gatewood said the college is working with transportation demand management (TDM) experts on a variety of strategies, “that will help to facilitate the use of alternative transportation, reduce reliance on SOVs, help meet the goals of the College’s Climate Action Plan and maintain access to education.”
The transportation goals are “ambitious but achievable” says Gatewood. “I believe we are up to that challenge and that we can be a great example to the rest of the PCC community.”