Timberland shopping center plans take shape

By Virginia Bruce

Polygon Northwest, the company developing the Timberland housing development on the former Teufel Nursery property in the heart of Cedar Mill, has partnered with Bruce Wood’s Foundation Real Estate Development (frednw.com) to create a shopping center on Barnes Road. Wood, who teaches courses on development at Portland State University’s Center for Real Estate, was Senior Director for Real Estate Development for Opus Northwest prior to starting Foundation. He participated in the development of the Bridgeport Center in Tigard, among other projects.

Wood and Polygon VP Fred Gast laid out their preliminary plans at a meeting in August for community leaders. The first phase of the commercial center will be the 15-acre parcel at the northwest corner of the Teufel property bounded by Barnes on the west and the new road on the south. An additional five acres on the other side of the “main street” will be developed in the future and may include some mixed-use housing/office buildings.

Woods said that traditionally a center of this size is “anchored” by a grocery, a bookstore, and an entertainment business. These stores bring in the regular traffic that will mean success for the rest of the center. They are talking to several possible grocery tenants, but the proximity of Cedar Hills Crossing with its bookstores and movie theater means that the center probably won’t have large chain operations with these offerings. An alternate entertainment business is under consideration. There will be approximately 40-45 stores in the development once it’s complete.

The land was annexed into Beaverton prior to purchase, so the proposed plans will likely be heard by the Beaverton Planning Commission, possibly later this fall. But Washington County has already told them that they should have a .5 Floor-to-Area Ratio (FAR) which means that no more than half of the total land to be developed can be parking. This fits in with Polygon’s plan that the center will be first and foremost an amenity for the residents of Timberland, and that these folks will use the paths throughout the community to walk to do their shopping.

Larry Bates, who was active in the “Save Cedar Mill” group that opposed the siting of Wal-Mart, attended the meeting and later pointed out that, “the broad outline of the commercial development was approved in October, 2004 as part of the overall Teufel project. So Polygon’s next visit to the planning commission will only be a design review to hash through the details.”

He sees two major issues that the planning commission might raise—traffic and the “main street.”

Bates says, “the original traffic study projected traffic impacts from a 300,000 SF shopping center out through 2009. Polygon has been living up to the City’s mitigation requirements, most notably with the improvements at Barnes and Cedar Hills Boulevard. It would be reasonable for Beaverton to ask to have the traffic study updated to reflect the actual traffic growth since the 2004 approval and a better estimate of the square footage.”

He continues: “Because of Town Center zoning, the new east-west commercial street is defined as a “main street.” They will have to clearly demonstrate a high degree of pedestrian friendliness. As Fred and Bruce indicated, the 0.5 FAR density requirement, which Beaverton incorporated into their Town Center regulations also, would not be met until the last five acres are developed. The Planning Commission may impose some specific conditions to make sure this requirement is ultimately met.”

During the early phases of planning for the development, Polygon demonstrated their desire to listen to the community by attending several community meetings and holding more than the required number of public sessions. Once again, they are demonstrating this commitment. They will present their plans at the CPO 1 meeting on September 4, and again at the Cedar Mill Business Association meeting on September 11. They hope to have at least some of the new center open for business by Christmas 2008, which will require an aggressive schedule in getting final plans approved. We’ll bring you more details about the center as information becomes available.

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