Mayor's Roundtable Aims To Reinvigorate Central City, With Or Without Key Stakeholders 

A few years ago, a large group of local elected, business, and community leaders met in private to discuss the economic future of Portland’s central city. It wasn’t a governing body, exactly, but it included a mix of government leaders working in tandem with well-connected business people and a smattering of non-profits. The group was convened at the behest of Governor Tina Kotek.

The result? A handful of recommendations, including a moratorium on new taxes, an increase in daytime services for homeless Portlanders, and drug recriminalization. It also resulted in a roadmap document, “All In on Portland’s Central City,” which outlined the express goals of increasing foot traffic, bringing office workers downtown, and building housing units.

Kotek’s task force sent its recommendations to Oregon Business and Industry in December 2023.

Now, the city of Portland has announced a new group focused on carrying out some of the recommendations of the governor’s task force, called the Central City Roundtable. It covers downtown, and the east side of the Willamette River from OMSI, to Lloyd Center, and north to the Albina District. 

In a February 24 press release, Mayor Keith Wilson touted the new group as a strong public-private partnership, saying downtown recovery depends on those collaborations.

“Portland has a downtown like no other, and the latest foot traffic statistics prove what we all know—the energy is coming back," Wilson said. “We're assembling a cross-sector team of senior leaders capable of transforming that spark into an innovative, ambitious, sustainable civic revitalization. We have all the ingredients we need to attract opportunity and supercharge the kind of economic activity that lifts our entire community.”

A close look at the membership of the roundtable, as well as who is not invited, gives insight into who is vested in the future of downtown.

Kotek’s full task force developed the roundtable’s charge. The Central City roadmap document outlined the role of the roundtable, which it said would begin operating in 2025. Its first meeting is scheduled for March 6.

“(The roundtable) would serve as a catalyst for investment and innovation, ensuring that Portland’s Central City remains a dynamic hub for commerce, culture, and community life,” the document said.

Molly Hogan, the executive director at Welcome Home Coalition, said she supports the idea of the roundtable, and wants the city to take working class people’s perspectives seriously.

“I love the idea of spending focused energy on revitalizing Portland,” Hogan said. “It's a beautiful city and has so much potential. I love the idea of offering more public support to help small businesses thrive.”

Welcome Home is a coalition of nearly 60 organizations and dozens of individual members focused on housing justice. It strives to eliminate inequities in housing outcomes. While Wilson’s roundtable includes the city’s largest homeless services organization, Central City Concern, neither Welcome Home nor any of its member organizations were invited to serve on the roundtable.

Wilson will co-chair the roundtable alongside Nolan Leinhart, a principal and director of planning and urban design at ZGF Architects. Leinhart was on the “Value Proposition” committee of Kotek’s task force. The firm designed the new main terminal at Portland International Airport, and is working on the Lloyd Center redevelopment and the Lan Su Chinese Garden expansion. 

ZGF Architects, which has offices in seven US cities, also designed the 630,000-square-foot expansion of a Department of Homeland Security building at Washington D.C.’s St. Elizabeth’s campus, expected to be completed in 2027.

Members of the roundtable largely include executives from companies like the commercial real estate developer Melvin Mark, Nike, health insurance company Regence, and the real estate company TMT Development. All participants are unpaid volunteers, according to the city.

The group also includes top brass at Portland State University, Oregon Health and Science University, and the Swickard Group—the auto dealership chain, owner of “Big Pink” and new owner of its neighboring building, Five Oak, which Swickard announced the same day the city announced the roundtable.

The restorative justice non-profit Albina Vision Trust and Central City Concern are the two voices on the roundtable that may benefit the city’s low-income and unhoused Portlanders.

Albina Vision Trust works to address racist urban planning practices and displacement, redeveloping the east side of the Willamette River to restore access for Black Portlanders, including through building affordable housing. Central City Concern supported 16,000 people with housing, health care, addiction services, and employment assistance in 2024, according to its annual report. 

Still, moneyed interests appear to carry an overwhelming voice in the group, while smaller organizations that are concentrated downtown, are left out.

Hogan said if the city is genuinely trying to create a holistic, revitalized society, it must include people from all class backgrounds, ages, and abilities.

“There’s so much institutional, existing power,” Hogan said. “We see this over and over again in governments, saying they're representing all of the people, but it's really institutional power making decisions. And it's not an authentic representation of the working class.”

Hogan, through Welcome Home, led focus groups during Kotek’s task force, asking people what a revitalized central city would look like. She said those conversations largely focused on building affordable, mixed-class communities, where poor and working class people can thrive with inclusive access to public spaces.

“We are passionate about people closest to the issue of homelessness and housing insecurity being closest to the solutions,” Hogan said.

Central City Roundtable members:

Peter Andrews, COO and VP | Melvin Mark
Jorge Casimiro, Chief Public Policy Officer | Nike
Michael Cole, President | Regence BlueCross BlueShield of Oregon
Dr. Ann Cudd, President | Portland State University
Heather Davis, CEO | Portland Timbers
Dr. Sharif Elnahal, M.D., President | Oregon Health and Science University
Kurt Huffman, Owner | Chefstable
Dr. Andy Mendenhall, M.D., President and CEO | Central City Concern
Lisa Mensah, President and CEO | Oregon Community Foundation
Erik Nordstrom, Co-CEO | Nordstrom
Andrew Proctor, Executive Director | Literary Arts
Rob Stuart, President and CEO | OnPoint Community Credit Union
Vanessa Sturgeon, President  | TMT Development
Jeff Swickard, President and CEO | Swickard Group
Winta Yohannes, Executive Director | Albina Vision Trust

Funders and Sponsors:

Oregon Business Council’s Action Lab
Staffed by ECOnorthwest in partnership with MSH Strategy