Argay Terrace and Parkrose Residents Bring Science to Fight More than Freight Warehouse

Residents of the Argay Terrace and Parkrose neighborhoods are not backing down in their fight to cease the wealthy owner of the Minnesota Vikings from creating a 260,000-square-foot freight warehouse on a piece of home he owns in their East Portland neighborhood.

The Parkrose Argay Chance Coalition, a group of residents, stated they are operating with a firm known as Argos Scientific to gather air excellent information and figure out if they really should file an “environmental justice complaint” with the Environmental Protection Agency.

Vikings owner Zygmunt Wilf plans to make the tilt-up concrete warehouse at the web page of the substantial, vacant Kmart on Northeast Sandy Boulevard at 122nd Avenue, and lease it to Prologis, a San Francisco-primarily based organization that ships merchandise for Amazon, Dwelling Depot and other folks.

“Argos Scientific produces hugely-sensitive air excellent gear and is deploying monitors in the neighborhood,” the coalition stated in a press release. “They will be modeling impacts that diesel truck pollution from these varieties of warehouses will bring to a component of Portland currently experiencing disproportionate amounts of pollution and visitors.”

Wilf’s parcel of land is across the street from Parkrose Higher College and adjacent to a low-earnings housing improvement known as Hidden Oaks Apartments. The freight warehouse would be the most up-to-date of lots of in the location. The other folks, even though, are north of Sandy Boulevard. This 1 would protrude southward into a largely residential neighborhood.

The web page became notorious in August 2021 right after the Proud Boys gathered for a far-proper festival that turned into a paintball and baseball-bat brawl with anti-fascists.

Wilf produced his fortune in genuine estate right after taking more than his father’s residential-creating organization, Garden Properties. Wilf has owned the Kmart home beneath a variety of entities considering the fact that the 1980s.

“The Coalition would appreciate to see the home owner, Garden Properties, function with the neighborhood to discover a far better use for the former Kmart ,” coalition member Angela Baker stated in a statement. “Community members have expressed interest in a grocery retailer, more housing, and restaurants, and Parkrose Schools are interested in utilizing the place as a STEM center.”

Neither Garden Dwelling nor Prologis straight away returned emails in search of comment.

Portland’s Bureau of Improvement Solutions stated its statement from 2022 nevertheless stood:

“At this time, a permit application is beneath evaluation by the Bureau of Improvement Solutions and other City bureaus. This application proposes a ‘new tilt-up concrete tilt-up semi-heated warehouse creating with 1 workplace tenant space’ and “associated web page function.”