A long-vacant parcel of land near Legacy Emanuel Medical Center in North Portland took another step toward development last week when the board of Prosper Portland, the city’s development agency, approved a $10 million non-repayable loan to build apartments, homes and office buildings on the site.
The land, at the corner of North Williams Avenue and Russell Street, was once home to a thriving black community. Prosper (then called the Portland Development Commission) expropriated the so-called Hill Block and demolished it to make way for the expansion of Emanuel Hospital in the mid-1970s, and the land has sat undeveloped ever since.
The Williams & Russell Community Development Corporation plans to build 85 affordable rental apartments, 20 housing units targeted to buyers making 60% to 120% of the area median income, and a 30,000-square-foot Black Business Hub with office and retail space.
Prosper’s loan is the latest capital injection for the project. In 2022, the Portland Clean Energy Fund provided $4.5 million for the solar panels and heat pumps. Later that year, Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley announced they had secured $850,000 from a federal omnibus bill for Williams & Russell. The two senators secured another $750,000 for the group this year, and $2 million for Portland Community Reinvestment Initiatives, a partner in the residential portion of the project.
In testimony before the Prosper vote, Williams & Russell principal Bryson Davis spoke candidly about the history of the Prosper neighborhood and its historic site and black community. The neighborhood was demolished in the 1970s, but the legacy of redlining persisted into the 1990s, he said.
“This site has a long history of damaging relations between the Black community and the city,” Davis said. “When we started this project, confidence in Prosper was pretty low. I think we’ve all heard of Profit Portland.”
But Prosper allowed Williams & Russell to develop the project in its own way, Davis said.
“I know that Prosper and the Housing Authority took a risk by putting this project in the hands of local residents, most of whom are not professional developers,” Davis said. “They’re letting our community decide what they want to build and how they want to build it.”
Democrats’ chant this year has been, “We’re not going back,” Davis said.
“With this project, we make it clear that we have no intention of going back to a time when the city did not share in the inherent risks that come with community development,” Davis said. “We’re not going back to the 1970s, we’re not going back to the 1990s. This project is the future of our community.”
