The same railroad embankment that failed to stop the disastrous Vanport Flood of 1948 remains a weak link in Portland’s levee system designed to prevent floods. A new engineering assessment of the Columbia River levee system found four problem areas that don’t meet stiffer federal flood-protection standards enacted after Hurricane Katrina. The biggest one is … Read more
For entrepreneurs in the south Willamette Valley an organization, cleverly called RAIN, is aiming a spotlight on the resources available in communities south of Portland and gathering momentum for its own funding vehicle. The Oregon Regional Accelerator & Innovation Network ( RAIN) formally started in May and since then the board and its executive director … Read more
Portable classrooms, the bane of students and teachers everywhere, are getting a green makeover courtesy Portland State University. Margarette Leite, a PSU professor of architecture, initiated a project to reimagine the temporary classrooms as healthy, clean places for their inhabitants…
As students file back into school this fall, some will be studying in green modular classrooms designed at Portland State University. The first batch of the innovative portable classrooms are being deployed at five schools in the Edmonds School District in Washington and the Corvallis Waldorf School…
Bureau Plans to Develop 25-Acre Site for Off-Road Biking (Portland, OR) – An island of unused land at the confluence of two freeways takes another step towards becoming a new city park in east Portland, and a regional off-road biking destination. Portland Parks & Recreation (PP&R) has acquired the 25-acre Gateway Green property, with plans, … Read more
Eight companies were in the inaugural class of the Eugene RAIN business accelerator that launched Monday. The accelerator is an intensive 12-week mentorship and business development program. The program is part of a broader state-backed economic development initiative called RAIN, which stands for Regional Accelerator and Innovation Network…
A program to provide stable housing and a positive learning environment for Native American children in foster care reached a turning point this week. City, state and county officials – plus others, including an architecture firm, the Native American Youth and Family Center and the Lents neighborhood – signed a “Declaration of Cooperation” Monday during a … Read more
Portland city council members authorized $1.4 million in bonds to pay for a study of the levees along the south bank of the Columbia River on Wednesday. The study will focus on an 11-mile stretch of levees that protects industrial land and neighborhoods in North Portland…
Last fall, Joe Maruschak was among the skeptics concerning RAIN, the state-backed Regional Accelerator and Innovation Network that wants to help create startups and jobs in the southern Willamette Valley. Back then, he and others at the Fertilab Thinkubator business incubator he co-founded in Eugene “were shadow boxing a ghost,” he said. They wondered, “What … Read more
The 10-member board overseeing RAIN, the Regional Accelerator and Innovation Network, in the south Willamette Valley pulls expertise from private industry, as well as from local government and universities. The majority of votes on the board will be held by the people with business experience. The so-called “ex-officio” directors, chosen because of their positions, include … Read more