Sick of Portland Changing? Too Bad. Here Are 7 Places Where This City Could Soon Go Big.

Portland is in a construction frenzy. The horizon is thick with cranes: 3.

We live in a tremendously conflicted technology world in media. Things are changing so rapidly it’s literally impossible to catch up as new apps and companies. Current Projects. DOT generally presents projects at community board meetings where the public can ask questions and provide feedback. To find out more about these. I. The Raindrop Moment. A few months ago, the vision of Hollywood’s economic future came into terrifyingly full and rare clarity. I was standing on the set of a. Continues from: Part 4. If you need help identifying a long forgotten movie, you've come to the right place. We'd always recommend a bit of self-sufficient ke.

U. S. cities. As many as 1. The Oregonian reported last month. Developers will add a projected 6,5. All this change tends to unsettle some Portlanders. Brace yourselves: Even bigger changes are on the way. A handful of large- scale projects are expected to break ground in the next five years, and they could radically alter the face of both sides of the Willamette River. They could change Portlanders' commutes, and the jobs where they work.

Get the latest breaking news across the U.S. on ABCNews.com. Edmonton isn't likely to see a construction boom in 2017, but the landscape will continue to grow as big projects wrap up and new work gets underway, say commercial.

And these few projects could have an outsized effect on the cost of housing. One thing we can be sure of: Whatever we think won't change will," says Ethan Seltzer, professor of urban studies and planning at Portland State University. That may sound like hyperbole. But these proposed projects are big, ambitious and still unformed. If done right, they could help Portland grow into a major U.

S. city, make it a national model for transportation, and handle a wave of new arrivals without pushing out people who live here now. If done wrong, the projects will squander a building boom, clog the streets with cars and make this city a playground for the rich.(Rosie Struve) "We have a tremendous opportunity to shape entire neighborhoods, improve our economy and continue to put our values around sustainability into practice," says Mayor Ted Wheeler. We should think big." None of that future is certain. Some of these projects need champions.

Some of them require money. And others—the biggest opportunities of all—are still casting about for the right idea. Watch Schindler`S List Online Freeform. In the past month, WW has spoken to more than two dozen planners, architects and city officials. Many of them pointed to the same spots on the map—and said these places could herald a new cityscape. These could be the seven wonders of Newer Portland. Or the next developments you'll love to hate.

Either way, get ready.(Rosie Struve) Basically, a mini Silicon Valley—a swath of the city dedicated to companies focused on health, science and technology, lining the river on both ends of Tilikum Crossing. Oregon Health & Science University is awash in a billion- dollar fundraiser by Nike co- founder Phil Knight to find a cure for cancer. OHSU and Portland State University want lab space for startups that grow out of their cancer research and tech incubators. We need innovation to stay in Portland," says Erin Flynn, associate vice president of strategic partnerships at PSU, who is spearheading the project. The state's first and only bioscience- focused startup incubator, run by a group that goes by the catchy name Oregon Translational Research and Development Institute, or OTRADI, has a waitlist of more than 1.

The companies at the incubator are working on health tech ranging from new drugs to treat eye disease and stroke to a completely artificial heart. It's perfect timing," says OTRADI executive director Jennifer Fox. Our most pressing need is space for when they move out of the incubator. They are used to being clustered around each other. They have gotten addicted to collaboration." So OHSU and PSU have joined forces with the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry and Portland Community College. Together, they've concocted an ambitious scheme to take a section of the city with a lot of new development and vacant property, and roll it into one project. Watch The Union: The Business Behind Getting High Dailymotion.

They're calling it the Innovation Quadrant. The four organizations are betting they'll produce enough tech startups—especially around cancer research and genetic engineering—that they can attract developers to build lab space for those companies. Ground zero is OHSU's 3. Knight Cancer Institute, under construction in the South Waterfront. A block away, Zidell Yards just finished welding its last barge—and the Zidell family wants to develop the 3. The plans for Zidell Yards currently include 1. That's at one end of Tilikum Crossing.

On the other side, the east bank of the Willamette? A maze of train tracks and vacant lots, including roughly 1. OMSI. The museum board has for years been clamoring for a big development on the Central Eastside and is poised to go to the city this fall with new plans. Half a block north, Prosper Portland—the city urban renewal agency formerly known as the Portland Development Commission—bought three blocks of parking lots for $2.

June. It wants to develop them into space for light manufacturing and offices. These sites could hold tech company labs and offices or house their workers.(Carleigh Oeth) The wrangling of large institutions working together on a project could easily fall apart. They're supposed to formalize their partnership within the next two months, and say how much money they're each willing to invest. They haven't announced how many buildings they have in mind, who would occupy them, how much they would cost, or where the money is coming from. That's a whole lot of question marks. And the Zidells and OMSI are looking for the highest possible return on their real estate investments. Observers are skeptical of the basic concept.

Without major private capital pledging to invest in the businesses, having a lot of available real estate won't matter. We've been down this road before," says Seltzer, who describes what he's heard so far as a real estate play that doesn't have any big- money backing.

It didn't materialize. That's not how biotech is playing out across the country." Already, investors are making the first tentative moves. A private developer, Summit Development Group, is rehabbing a space on Southeast Alder Street into labs. It will open next year.

California- based tech company Auto. Desk, which currently has offices in Lake Oswego, will next year move hundreds of employees into the nearby Towne Storage building. The biggest chunk of property is Zidell Yards, and it's not yet clear how sold the barge- building heirs are on the tech dream, though they issue vaguely positive statements. OMSI will ask city planners for advice on its designs this month.

Prosper Portland aims to line up a developer by the end of the year. A firm hired to brand and market the Innovation Quadrant is already at work. Prosper Portland’s Lisa Abuaf and Kimberly Branam look out over the future Broadway Corridor development site at the central U. S. Post Office. (Thomas Teal) Since the millennium, the city's central U. S. Post Office site has been the white whale of Portland real estate. It blocks the upscale Pearl District from the dingy alleys surrounding Union Station—and city planners see linking those two neighborhoods as the key to smoothing out inequality.

Last year, Prosper Portland—the urban renewal agency—bought the site for $8. Having spent lavishly on the property, Prosper Portland is now looking to turn it into an apartment and retail center to match the Pearl (and work as a disinfectant on the squalor of Old Town). Prosper Portland says that's what will happen: 2,4. It's a once- in- a- generation opportunity," says Prosper Portland executive director Kimberly Branam. This is a development of regional import."More interesting to most Portlanders: The agency's plans call for 7. The U. S. Postal Service's hulking, drab mail- sorting center sits between the Pearl District and Chinatown, clogging the central city with a shrinking federal agency in a building that has all the charm of a 1. In 2. 01. 8, the post office will move to a new location near Portland International Airport.

Lisa Abuaf and Kimberly Branam look out over the future Broadway Corridor development site at the central U. S. Post Office. (Thomas Teal) Trying this experiment at the edge of Chinatown could backfire. Or the project could fail to build all the affordable housing units promised. Observers look at Prosper Portland's grandiose plans for shopping, offices and low- income housing and wonder how the agency will manage it all. Collapse Full Movie Part 1 there.

Longtime developers say trying to do too many things on one site can mean nothing is done well.