Mayor Ted Wheeler, in partnership with Friends of Green Loop, announced Thursday the Alder St. Food Cart pod has been included in the budget allocation proposal for their relocation in downtown Portland. The proposal allocates $269,000 to support the food cart relocation, which will cover improvements and electricity to the new site on SW 8th, Ankeny, and SW Park. The Portland City Council will vote to approve the budget in June and funds would be allocated in July.
“This is an extremely exciting time and has been nearly two years in the making,” said Keith Jones, Executive Director for Friends of the Green Loop.
Friends of Green Loop, an initiative to create a six-mile linear park throughout the city, is leading the private-public coalition along with support from Mayor Ted Wheeler’s office, Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty, Commissioner Mingus Mapps, Commissioner Carmen Rubio, Commissioner Dan Ryan, Prosper Portland, Portland Parks & Recreation, Portland Bureau of Transportation, Portland Parks Foundation, Travel Portland and the Portland Business Alliance.
In 2019, 55 Alder Street food carts were moved from SW 9th and SW Alder for the development of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel. The carts have since been stored at the former US Post Office site in northwest Portland. The new location, which hopes to open in time for the 4th of July weekend, will serve as a new home for the displaced carts, many of which are immigrant-based and BIPOC owned businesses.
The proposed Culinary Corridor, which is planned for SW 9th Ave. between Director Park and O’Bryant Park and SW Park from O’Bryant Park to Burnside, would be one segment of the city’s Green Loop. It would borrow the festival street concept, where a portion of public right-of-way has been designated for the purpose of pedestrian-oriented activities, and food carts would occupy the curbside parking spaces. The Green Loop is a long-term plan to deal with the shrinking number of surface parking lots due to rising land value, spanning throughout downtown, as well as Lloyd and Central East Side.
To learn more, visit: https://www.pdxgreenloop.org/the-culinary-corridor/
For renderings of Ankeny West, please see this link.
Media Contacts:
Seraphie Allen
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707.953.6776
Jenica Villamor
jenica@lawrence-pr.com
503.889.6732