A contract for the demolition of buildings on three different sites in Newport was awarded recently by the Newport City Council, acting in its capacity as the Local Contract Review Board.
The property had been acquired by the Newport Urban Renewal Agency for the purpose of redevelopment, and in preparation for that to happen, existing structures at those locations need to be removed.
The contract for the work was awarded to Anderson Environmental Contracting in the amount of $739,263.88. Funding will include $420,000 for demolition activities through the North Side Urban Renewal District and $360,000 from the Urban Renewal Agency contingency fund, with the balance of $60,000 coming from a grant from Business Oregon.
One of the properties is at 143 SW Coast Highway, right next to Newport City Hall. This is the site of a former gas station, and although fuel tanks have already been removed, the building needs to come down.
Another property is located at 415-425 SW Coast Highway. The structure at this sight has housed three separate businesses in the past, although it is actually all one building. It is located between The Kite Company and Newport Tattoo, in Newport’s city center — referred to as the Deco District.
The third parcel is at the northwest corner of Southeast 35th Street and Highway 101 in South Beach, commonly known as 3335 S Coast Highway. This property was acquired to facilitate construction of the Highway 101 and Southeast 35th Street intersection and create an opportunity for commercial redevelopment. The highway intersection improvements are now complete, and the Urban Renewal Agency wants to redevelop the property. Preparation for site development includes the removal of existing structures, site grading and minor utility work. One of those buildings was previously occupied by South Beach Church.
“It’s really exciting to accumulate some property to facility future development in those areas,” City Manager Spencer Nebel told the Lincoln County Leader following the vote to award the contract for demolition. “The urban renewal plan calls for strategic purchase of a variety properties for the purpose of redevelopment. All of these were negotiated sales where we did an appraisal and then came to terms with the owner and acquired the property.”
Anna Iaukea, Newport Urban Renewal project manager, said the demolition work should begin soon.
“I think the earliest we would potentially start this project is the end of this month, maybe early June,” she told city council members. “The actual project is going to be phased. One of the priorities is to get the South Beach site completed so it’s development ready.”
The demolition of the building alongside Highway 101 in the Deco District could have an affect on traffic through that area. “We need to be careful with potential traffic impacts to 101 when we’re doing the site through town,” Iaukea said. “So there’s going to be some pieces that we’ll need to talk about. The contractor will need to get permits from ODOT, too, to do work through there.”
Nebel said the city had received a proposal for some type of retail food cart development at the South Beach location. “Unfortunately, that developer pulled out as we were trying so formalize our agreement, so we’ve got that back up requesting proposals for development. There’s a number of potential developments that would be appropriate for that site according to the Urban Renewal Revitalization Plan.”
When asked about future plans for the Deco District site, Nebel said, “At this point we’re going to demo the building. We’ll look for some interim uses for that site — we haven’t determined that yet. But we really want to get a sufficient footprint together that could facilitate, ideally, some sort of mixed use with some sort of office/commercial on the bottom floor and then housing above. That’s kind of what the intent is.”
Nebel said the city will also begin work in the next month or two on finalizing the City Center Revitalization Plan. That process was started some time ago and involved two alternatives to more efficiently move traffic through that area, “either the short couplet or the other plan, which is removing parking from 101 and bringing out the sidewalks and then improving Ninth Street as the secondary access,” Nebel said. “Those are the two alternatives that this group is going to be making a recommendation to city council on as we get into this next year.”
He added, “The intent is to not only determine how the traffic should be configured through that area and parking and pedestrian use, but also taking a look at incentives could be used to spur the development of city center. My evaluation of the site is that until we can handle the traffic, it’s not going to be an easy area to revitalize … because it’s not a comfortable place for people to park, it’s not comfortable for people to cross 101, and obviously the vitality of the area has suffered because of that.”
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