Developer has new vision for Sherwood’s ‘Old Cannery’
Contributed Illustration
This drawing shows Capstone Partners' vision for the public plaza in downtown Sherwood, but developers caution that this sketch is very preliminary.
The property city leaders call “the most important development in Sherwood,” has attracted the attention of a Pacific Northwest firm schooled in mixed-use development.
Capstone Partners, the real estate developers behind projects like North Portland’s new Vanport development and the $7 million Cornell Corners in Hillsboro, has answered Sherwood’s request for proposals on the Old Cannery site.
The developer proposes redeveloping the site, which sits in the heart of Sherwood’s historic Old Town, into a medley of retail shops, townhomes and offices -- something Sherwood’s leaders say is in line with what the citizens have envisioned for the Old Cannery.
“This (proposal) is really exciting because this is exactly what people told us they wanted to see on the Old Cannery site,” said Jim Patterson, Sherwood’s assistant city manager.
The city’s brokers received several offers on the property after the city’s RFP (request for proposals) went out this summer, but many of those offers called for a residential-only site. Simply building houses or town homes on the site is not something the city would have considered, Patterson said.
“People have said they do not want to see just residential there,” Patterson said. “Anything that was not mixed-use was not considered.”
But Patterson said the proposal from Capstone Partners is “totally in line with the city’s concept plan.”
The city-owned, six-acre parcel, which runs parallel to the railroad tracks in Old Town, was appraised at $3.7 million last January, and is considered to be one of the most crucial undeveloped parcels in Sherwood.
City officials have invested a lot of time and effort in this project, from going to the community to find out what Sherwood residents hoped to see on the site, to actually getting the site ready for development.
Capstone Partners, LLC was one of a handful of developers interested in the property, Patterson says, and seems to have come up with a redevelopment idea the city can accept.
“We want to come up with a plan that the city thinks is viable,” said Chris Nelson, of Capstone Partners. “It’s refreshing that the city is being very proactive with this site. We know they’re interested in having a legacy project done in downtown, that they don’t want an ordinary project or a one-dimensional project and our interst is in coming up with a solution.”
Capstone Partners have met four times with city officials and Nelson said his firm is focused on creating a win-win situation for the developers, the city and the residents of Sherwood.
“The more we learn about this project the more we like,” Nelson said. “We really want to better understand the vision the city has for this project and come up with something that adds to (Sherwood’s) charming downtown.”
City managers will bring proposals to the city council in January for a series of public hearings.
Although Capstone hasn’t made a concrete offer yet, Patterson called the firm’s proposal “promising.”
“These people have done a really good job,” Patterson says of the development firm and of Ankrom Moisan Associated Architects, the architectural group working with Capstone on this project.
One of the architectural visionaries of Portland’s Pearl District, Ankrom Moisan also has experience in Sherwood -- they were the architects behind the city’s recent downtown street improvement project.
“One of the things they’ve proposed is building a public plaza where Railroad and Pine meet, where people could gather,” Patterson said. “That was one of the things that people have said they wanted at that site -- a place to gather, and maybe somewhere to place the annual (Christmas) tree.”
City officials have also expressed interest in having a developer consider incorporating a cultural arts center at the Old Cannery site, but Patterson said the need for that will depend on the results of the city’s cultural arts needs assessment, which recently polled residents on their cultural arts needs.
At this stage, all of the discussions are very preliminary. Several things have to happen before the site actually gets developed. The city needs to come to a financial agreement with a developer, the city council needs to hold public hearings on the matter and the developer needs to come up with a concrete redevelopment plan.
“It’s still very preliminary at this point,” Patterson said. “The city has expressed interest in the developer buying the entire (10-block) site at once, but would be open to a phased development approach.”
Patterson said he’s “extremely excited” about some of the concepts that have come in so far, and that Capstone in particular has “captured the vision for the site” that is “consistent with where the city would like to go in the redevelopment of the site.”
For more information about this project, visit the Old Cannery informational Web site at www.sherwoodcannery.com.