As construction crews work four stories high on two affordable housing projects at Glisan Landing, developers are planning a third building on the site. Recently, the Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization (IRCO) received conditional use approval for a new single-story preschool spanning a mid-block lot from NE 74th to 75th Avenues. The two-classroom building provides a buffer between the large multifamily buildings on NE Glisan Street and the single-family housing located south of the project while serving a vital community need.
The proposed IRCO Early Learning Center will serve 36 to 40 students in a new 2,784-square-foot building. Preschool classes feature developmentally appropriate and culturally specific books, toys, and curriculum. The nonprofit organization will offer no-cost tuition for up to 40 families. This new facility follows IRCO’s work with a similar Multicultural Preschool in Washington County. IRCO will not limit student spaces to children living in Glisan Landing units but anticipates many families from the apartment complex will utilize their services.
In addition to the two classrooms, the building offers a lobby, staff break room, office, kitchen, restrooms, and storage space. The building’s trapezoidal-shaped roof overhangs the base structure, covering portions of the outdoor play area at each end of the preschool. A continuous tree line along the southern property boundary creates a green buffer for residents living in the adjacent homes. A nine-bed community garden on the site’s NE 74th Avenue frontage will also provide more green space buffers. Glisan Landing residents will directly access the preschool property through a passageway from the complex’s central courtyard.
The preschool building sits on its own lot owned by IRCO Glisan Preschool LLC and is not directly related to Glisan Landing. However, IRCO’s common ownership stake in both buildings will complement the culturally specific wraparound services offered to families living in the neighboring Aldea apartments. This section of the former Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN) site that Oregon Metro acquired for affordable housing exists in a Residential 2,500 (R2.5) zone. Developers could not extend the four-story building created in a Commercial Mixed Use 2 (CM2) zone onto this parcel, creating an opportunity for a low-scale supportive use. This usage as a garden and daycare facility fits with the zoning standards for this land and helps transition the scale of the buildings from two-story single-family homes to a four-story development.
The land use review focused on an exception to the 15-foot landscape buffer required between institutional operations and residences. IRCO will provide a compliant hedge and tree screen but plans to build a 4-foot-wide maintenance pathway from a back door on the south side of the building to NE 75th Avenue in that buffer zone. That pathway would usually not comply with standards. In January, the Hearings Officer concluded that IRCO’s plans would meet the screening standards and approved the project to move forward to permitting.
The IRCO Glisan Preschool site is currently used for construction staging by crews working on Glisan Landing. Work on the site’s third building will begin after the housing projects are further along. When completed, it will provide an active daytime use and a quiet evening buffer for residents living south of NE Glisan’s mixed-use developments. Expect more information on this building and its programming after crews break ground in the coming months.
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