A former demolition dumping ground on Northeast 82nd Avenue is undergoing a major transformation into a nature preserve and solar farm.
In 2024, the Bird Alliance purchased a 12.5-acre piece of the lot, located just across the street from McDaniel High School. The site sits just west of the tree-dense Rocky Butte Natural Area, but the lot itself features mostly overgrown grass. Until the 1970s, the site was home to a quarry operated by Rose City Sand and Gravel, featuring an 80-foot excavation pit. For around a decade in the 1970s and ’80s, the old gravel quarry was used as a demolition landfill, and the pit was filled with construction debris and other trash.
The trash pit is now covered with a clay cap, making the site technically open for a new use. But the site has proven tough for commercial development—partially due to environmental challenges, but also because of neighborhood pushback…