After a recent sold-out showing of “The Odyssey” at OMSI’s Empirical Theater, viewers scattered to their cars in surrounding parking lots, most of them making a beeline out of the gritty industrial district on the east side of the Willamette River.
Some day in the not-too-distant future, however, city planners hope many of them will exit Portland’s brick-and-glass dome of science and walk home, perhaps just across the street to one of several new apartment towers. Or they’ll linger to shop and eat at businesses surrounding a vibrant new public plaza and visit the riverfront educational park celebrating Indigenous cultures.
It’s an audacious vision for a moribund corner of inner eastside Portland, a plan in the making since 2008 — nearly two decades ago. And it’s an ambition that’s replicated in proposals for the Lloyd Center, the lower Albina neighborhood and downtown’s Broadway Corridor, each an entire city neighborhood slated for a complete makeover…