City of Roses Motel: Metal and Wood. (Plus wall going up.)

Hey, it's a picture in daylight!  You can see the bottom floor (I assume there will be additional stories) is almost totally framed up. (Is framed up a term?)

What interests me is that the second half of the lot is not being framed with wood, but instead these metal poles are appearing.  I think the wood-framed part will be two-story townhouses and the metal posts are the first part in a larger building, maybe four to six stories?  It's kind of fun not having a picture of the completed project posted on the fencing. This way the construction is a guessing game for me.

And here is a wall going up!  After I took these pictures I turned to walk the rest of the way to the Max stop and found that a flagger was watching me with an amused expression on her face.

Crazy Basketball Player and Crazy Statement

Ten years from now we will all be amused by this hair, (facial and otherwise).

This is from an article about Green Zebra Grocery Store. It's a tiny grocery store that has the aesthetic of a natural foods store and the size of a convenience store. The owner is looking to expand to other neighborhoods and is drumming up investors.

Here she says, "The Kenton neighborhood is part of an urban renewal neighborhood, and they didn't have a grocery store."

But the paragraph above says, "When the store opened in Kenton, the nearest full-service grocery store was the Interstate Avenue Fred Meyer, about a mile away." 

I live in the Kenton Neighborhood and I think Sedlar doesn't have a good grip on the Kenton geography.  The Interstate Fred Meyer is four blocks away from me.  And about six blocks past that is a New Seasons.  I feel very well served by grocery stores.  Also, even if the Fred Meyer is a mile away from the furthest reaches of the Kenton neighborhood, that's pretty darn close.  Walkable in 20 minutes.  I'm thinking of my friend who lives in Cully.  Now that's an undeserved neighborhood for grocery stores.  

I'm all for putting fancy convenience stores in food deserts, but I think maybe the neighborhood should be a food desert.

City of Roses Update. Hard concrete.

It's hard enough that I see guys walking on it in the mornings.

Now the building begins.

City of Roses update: walls.

Based on where the walls are, it looks like there will be no parking in whatever this will be.  

This part of the construction seems to go so slowly.  I think it's probably because the concrete has to set and that takes time.

Good job, wind!

Just last week I noticed that the same billboard has been up since at least June 6, when I wrote this blog post.  "What we need is a good windstorm to scour that right off the billboard." I thought to myself.  

And the wind did provide.

City of Roses Motel site. Trenches.

We now have trenches dug.  I'm pretty sure this means there won't be any garages to drive down into in whatever they are building here.

City of Roses Motel, six days in.

So far I've not been able to use the sidewalk for six days and all they have managed to do is drop a construction trailer and park this moving van.  I understand the construction trailer.  The moving van I'm less certain of its purpose.  It's an empty lot.

Happenings at the City of Roses Motel Site.

What's this?  A fence directly in my way on my walk to the train?

It seems that I will not be accessing this sidewalk at least through the end of the year.

Some establishing photos:

The sign as it stands now. 

I have had mental plans for this lot for years.  This area will be the garden, ringed on the outside by orchard trees.

This smaller section will be where the small house I will build will be located.

Opposite view of sign.  I wonder if the rose bush will survive whatever is coming.

Stay tuned.  Change comes quickly.

Bikes!

Matt and I were going out to dinner, but first we stopped by Kenton Cycle Repair to have them look over his bike before his big ride.  Here's where the Kenton Bike Shop is located.

They had a lot of bikes for sale outside, so I took some pictures.  

I love these fenders.  They look really cool.

This is a nice little Raleigh.  With good fenders too.

I love this red road bike.

I wouldn't mind owning this one.

I always appreciate a nice Trek.

That's a lot of "no"

Outside the back book drop for the Library.  

No PGE (Portland General Electric)

No CTL (Century Link--phone and Internet)

No NWN (Northwest Natural--natural gas)

I wondered why we needed to know this and also who does this locating.  Is it a separate company from the utilities?

Morning surprises: Kittens! Mural!

Oh my gosh, two of them, sitting in front of a fence on the way to the Max train.  They froze when they saw me and bolted through the hedge into the cat wonderland that is the former City of Roses Motel.  (Chain link fence all around, flat ground, depressions with copious amounts of weeds growing.) There was one already waiting for them, so there were three!  Three kittens!

Sadly, I suspect they are feral. 

And, blooming on the side of a building, is the beginning of a mural.  That would be the grey thing on the left.  The exposed brick is the historic painted sign for the first indoor car dealership in Oregon.  The building was required to preserve it when they did the renovation.

Tree down!

One of those things I managed to capture in a non-dramatic way, but whatever.

See where that tree is on the ground?  Usually that's a side road.

You can see where the road turns to join Interstate, but is crossed by a tree.

There's a signpost in the midst of the mess too.

Initially I thought someone made a drunk driving turn and ended up on this side of the street and ran into the tree.  However, additional observation caused me to conclude that someone was traveling in this direction on Interstate, lost control of their car (probably drunk) and veered into the median where the tree and sign were, clobbering it.  Then the sped off through the DMV parking lot, leaving skid marks.

No matter how hard I thought, I couldn't remember exactly where the tree had been.

Graduation card received and discarded.

Found outside the DMV

I'm thinking Edwin must have included some cash with this, which Abby grabbed, while tossing the card.

Unique apartments.

These are near my house and I love them both.  I worry that they will be torn down for something fancier, so thought I would snap a few pictures just in case.

Here's the street side of this complex.  I love the swinging modern silhouette of the building and the fact that the garages are underneath, with the apartments hanging over.  Some of the garage doors still work, and some are permanently sealed shut.

Front entrance.  There is a pretty shrubbery outside of every door and a garden area on the other side of the parking lot.  I've never seen inside these units, but I imagine they are all one-bedroom jobbers.

This fourplex is right next door.  I like how it looks like it has been added onto over the years.  There's even a random bay-type window in one unit.  And the corners of the building have art deco glass.  A few of these units have been vacant for some time, and it's a hot rental market here, so this is building I'm most worried about.

Not the right Patty.

As someone who spent the first 20 years of her life as a "Patty" I can tell you that they mean St. PADDY, which is the shortened form for Patrick.  It's not Saint Patricia's day, no matter how much I might want it to be.  Of course, if you look at their logo, you can see that spelling isn't really their strength.

Transition

It's been Sonitrol for the entire time I've lived here, but I suspect that something has changed and that Sonitrol sign on the building is not long for this world.

Today's snow walk theme: signs.

I hearkened on the theme as I passed by the DMV.  I was pretty sure what all those orange sign said, but decided to take a closer look. Then, as I passed by the businesses in the neighborhood, I made note of their signs.

DMV. Rather apocalyptic in its repetitiveness and color.

Pizza Fino.  We Portlanders have to be reminded of proper etiquette concerning snow.

Liquor Store.  The Liquor Store in Kenton reminded us of the snow etiquette too.  But then they just gave up and closed due to snow.

"Glass" shop.  You can guess by the quotes and the bars on the window what kind of glass they sell.  The sign says:  Noon to 6pm Snow Hours

Po'Shines.  Notice the change from 3:30 to 3:00.  It was really coming down yesterday afternoon.

Lambeth Tag.  A prophylactic sign.

Panda Express.

Perfect Look Hair Salon.  I love the hand written sign, the parenthetical asides (snow) and the incorrect date.

Sherwin-Williams Paint

Gentle Dental. 

US Bank (located inside the open Fred Meyer store)

Revived Cellular.  I like how they just shut it all down on the first day of the snow.

Sweet Science Boxing Lab. They are open, but you have to be careful.

Bike Shop.  I can't find evidence of their name on the Internet.  Regardless, I like the instructions to "Go Play."