New Life for Montgomery Park

 

Picture postcard, late 1930s (GBD Architects)

 Northwest Portland’s biggest and most unusual historic building is headed for a makeover intended to make it more lively and interesting to the industrial and residential neighborhoods it straddles.

 It is the huge former Montgomery Ward & Co. warehouse and retail store that years ago had railroad spurs allowing rail cars to be shunted from N.W. Wilson Ave. directly into its basement.  (See lower right corner of postcard.) For more than 50 years, the big building helped Ward compete against Sears for mail-order business long before anyone dreamed of Amazon.

 Ward shuttered the retail store in 1972 and departed the rest of the building in 1982.  It was bought by the entrepreneurial Naito family, who converted the building to offices and exhibition space.  Bill Naito took great pride in renaming the building Montgomery Park by merely changing two letters in the huge neon sign looming above the building.  The building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, in addition to being a Portland landmark.  

Unico Properties, a major Seattle-based property investment firm with large holdings in Seattle, Portland, Denver and a few other cities, bought Montgomery Park in 2019.  The firm’s goal is to develop mixed-use properties in and around it.  

 Under plans approved by the Portland Historic Landmarks Commission, Unico intends to open retail and food opportunities on all four ground-floor frontages of Montgomery Park.  The firm also wants to add a restaurant at the top of the east bay, including access by visitors to the roof and spectacular east-looking view below the huge Montgomery Park sign.

Pop-out vestibule to be removed (GBD Architects)

 The most noticeable change will be on the west side.  Unico plans to remove the pop-out vestibule added by the Naitos when they switched the main entrance to the building’s west side.  In its place, the design calls for a glassy, three-story tall curtainwall panel set just proud of the main walls.  The entry would feature two doors thirty feet tall and 10 feet wide that could pivot open in good weather to add fresh air to the central atrium.

Proposed west-side entrance (GBD Architects)

 Dark metal framing of the curtainwall struck one commission as “too dramatic” for the style of the historic building.  Others believed it reflected a boldness characteristic to the building’s overall size, and approved it as proposed.

 The building was erected in two L-shaped phases, the first in 1920 and the second in 1936.  The two Ls created an open plaza to the west, which was covered by a tilting glass ceiling by the Naitos to create a dramatic atrium. 

 The reinforced steel beams on all facades show a clear expression of the building’s structure, with little effort to dress them up with architectural ornament.  The hundreds of windows have industrial-style steel sashes that appear to have weathered well over the years.  Glass panes that were painted or covered over the years will be cleaned, according to the plans.

Kimberly Moreland, a landmarks commissioner, suggested that the building and grounds should have historical markers.  The site itself was part of the 1905 Lewis & Clark Centennial Exposition, and bygone neighbors included the Guilds Lake World War II housing project and the Vaughn Street baseball stadium.

(GBD Architects)

 Should anyone be wondering, yes, the big Montgomery Park sign will remain.

-----Fred Leeson

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