PORTLAND, Oregon — A new $115 million project on 1.7 acres of land will be bringing 85 affordable apartments and 20 townhomes as well as a hub for Black-owned businesses to the North Portland area.
Bryson Davis — the board chair for the Williams & Russell CDC, the organization developing the lot — said, "This development is here to kind of — right a wrong that occurred when Legacy Health expanded with the help of the city back in the early '70s."
He added that it won't just right a wrong due to gentrification — but will bring more Black people into the community.
"This will hopefully give them several locations, to both buy and rent back in the neighborhood where the community used to be," Davis said.
A Portland local, Tom Colligan, remembers when the area at North Russell Street and North Williams Avenue used to be a thriving Black neighborhood.
He said it's way overdue: "The community has definitely been squeezed out of this neighborhood. Everyone knows that more services would welcome them back and let more people stay in their homes would be great."
Others say it's a step in the right direction to provide an avenue for wealth creation for the Black community.
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Randall White, who supports the development, said, "I think that Black-owned businesses are going to thrive and prosper."
Project leaders say they took time to listen to the needs of the people in order to make sure the project was what the community needed.
"This was a long time coming and one of the things that makes this process slow down is to make sure we involve enough people to make the development reflects the desires of the community," said Davis.
The Williams and Russell project will break ground on the first phase in May 2025. The complete project is expected to be completed in 2027.