This is the third in a three-part series about the biking potential of the Lloyd District. Read the first two here.

If 1,597 new homes were about to land in the space where, seven years ago, new homes in the Portland metro area would have been most likely to land, they would be the biggest news story in the area.

In the rural outskirts of east Vancouver (yes, that counts as Portland metro), beloved farms would be shutting down. Work crews would be widening intersections and stripping away street parking to make room for more turn lanes. For miles around, residents and businesses would be bracing themselves for traffic paralysis.

But in the next few years, 1,597 homes are lined up to land somewhere else instead: right in the middle of Portland.

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(Image: Oregon Historical Society)

This is the second in a three-part series. Read the first installment here.

For most of Portland’s history, the land we know today as the Lloyd District was best known for failure.

Holladay Park: named for a scoundrel who planted its trees and then gambled away his fortune. The state and federal buildings along Lloyd Boulevard: advance outposts of a government center that never arrived. And Lloyd himself: an oil multimillionaire who died all but cursing the city he’d fallen in love with 40 years before.

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The Lloyd, waiting to be born. City of Portland Archives: A2012-005, April 24, 1964.

This is the first in a three-part series made possible by Hassalo on Eighth.

At first glance, the changes sweeping across the Lloyd District right now look like a story Portland has told at least twice before.

Developer makes big bet on underused land near downtown. Residential towers shoot up. Amenities multiply. Streetcar whistles through. Bikes roll in by the hundreds and eventually the thousands.
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