Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
9
NICOLAI AND SLABTOWN: ROUGH
AND READY
BOUNDARIES:
NW Front Ave., NW Nicolai St., NW 24th Ave., NW Lovejoy St.
DISTANCE:
3 miles
DIFFICULTY:
Easy
PARKING:
Free on street; small lot near start/finish
PUBLIC TRANSIT:
TriMet Bus 16 (NW Front Ave. and Nicolai St.)
This walk covers an odd little slice of Portland between the posh NW 23rd and 21st
Avenues and the river, with the hard-core Industrial Northwest neighborhood to the
north. It's a funky, gritty, and not always attractive mix of freight containers and ware-
houses, coffee laboratories and mysterious museums. It's also one of the few parts of
Portland that still feels refreshingly rough around the edges, even as indicators of
sophistication (Italian motorcycles, Italian-style coffee) gradually venture in.
The neighborhood overall is poised to see massive and dramatic changes, thanks to
freight company Con-way's plans to develop 18 acres in the area that are currently oc-
cupied by endless parking lots and the occasional colorless warehouse. (Con-way cur-
rently employs some 750 people in the offices on its property here.) The plans for de-
velopment, to which the city has just recently given final approval, include a revision
of one particularly snarly intersection (the trickiest part of the plans, and the reason it
took so long for the project to win city approval), plus 2,500 homes, some parks, a
library, and a mix of retail, including an upmarket grocery store. It's unclear how
quickly the development will happen, but when it does, this neighborhood will be ut-
terly transformed. Stay tuned!
Start your walk with some high-grade caffeine at Ristretto Roasters, a
gorgeous coffee shop inside the restored Schoolhouse Electric & Supply
Co. warehouse building at NW Nicolai St. and 21st Ave. You can get a
pour-over and, at the same time, an aesthetically pleasing object lesson in
what's been happening recently, architecture-wise, in the industrial and
formerly industrial parts of Northwest Portland. (Schoolhouse Electric
itself is pretty cool, too—browse its impressively restored 5,000-square-
foot showroom for beautifully designed and redesigned lighting, luxuri-
