Rose in Glass

A historic landmark raises questions about the untapped potential of Portland’s waterfront park.

ADDRESS: 1020 SW Naito Parkway

YEARS BUILT: 1949

SQUARE FOOTAGE: 3,843

MARKET VALUE: $4.32 million

OWNER: The city of Portland

HOW LONG IT’S BEEN EMPTY: It’s not.

WHY IT’S EMPTY: COVID and reassessments

BY NIGEL JAQUISS njaquiss@wweek.com

Legendary Portland architect John Yeon wanted the Rose Building to be a visitor’s introduction to Portland. In a way, it is.

Built in 1949 from Yeon’s design as a visitor information center, the building occupies a singular position as the only office or commercial space in Tom McCall Waterfront Park. It’s located just north of the Hawthorne Bridge.

When it opened, the building ’s surroundings were very different. It stood next to Harbor Drive, an expressway that preceded the park, and the hulking headquarters of Portland’s afternoon daily newspaper, The Oregon Journal.

Both the expressway and the Journal building are long gone. But Yeon’s creation remains, repurposed as the headquarters of the Portland Rose Festival and somewhat worse for wear. Yeon’s native plantings are gone and the lily pond is dry. Blackened squares of aluminum foil, the detritus of fentanyl use, blow against the building’s exterior like autumn leaves.

There is little to no public interaction with the structure, which serves as an office to eight Rose Festival Foundation staffers, who are there regularly but occupy little space in the nearly 4,000-square-foot building. Our weekly column Chasing Ghosts typically examines a vacant property. The Rose Building is occupied—it’s just hard to tell.

That such an iconic property is consigned to desks for a festival that runs just three weekends a year is a reminder of Portland’s stubborn reluctance to enliven its waterfront, even as Vancouver, Wash., has followed San Antonio, Austin, Toronto and many other cities in developing amenities around waterways.

Ethan Seltzer, an emeritus professor of urban studies and planning at Portland State University, regularly rides his bike past the building. He notes that it’s adjacent to one of the park’s most visited features—Salmon Street Springs—and wonders if part of the building could be more engaging to visitors.

“If such a prominent public property is going to be used for private activity, what does the public have a right to expect?” Seltzer asks. “Maybe there’s a 365-day use, such as some version of a visitor center, that could do more.”

Portland writer Randy Gragg, the former executive director of the University of Oregon’s John Yeon Center for Architecture