Just east of downtown Bend lies the focal point of a long-planned revitalization aimed at transforming the widely undeveloped Bend Central District into a walkable, mixed-use community hub.
With a vision that transforms the so-called “underutilized” area, advocates have been working with community members and the City of Bend to help invest in the central area, creating a pedestrian-friendly neighborhood where people can live, shop and dine in the heart of Bend. The area, which consists of housing, retail and industrial-use businesses, as well as empty lots, is between the Bend Parkway to the west, 4th Street to the east, and NE Revere Avenue to the north and the railroad to the south.
In 2016, the City of Bend identified the BCD as an opportunity area, suitable for new growth. It was highlighted as a place that could welcome additional residential units and higher-density growth. As a result of this, the City prescribed different development standards in the BCD, allowing mixed-use developments and greater heights – four or five story developments.
But since that initiation nearly 10 years ago, progress has been slow.
With advisory boards and City decisions, certain infrastructure and planning efforts have moved forward, promoting more development in the area. Recently, a beloved Bend cocktail bar, Dogwood, moved onto Second Street in the BCD, paving the way for other businesses to follow suit, giving the area more charm and appeal. A brewery, Funky Fauna, also recently took over a space previously occupied by Humm Kombucha on Second Street.
Kurt Alexander, the president of the BCD Business Association and the developer for Dogwood, believes a continuation of businesses coming to the area will entice housing developments to go up.
“These cool, small artistic businesses are catalyzing forces… Campfire Hotel was a catalyst. Dogwood at the Pine Shed is a catalyst. Funky Fauna was a catalyst,” he told the Source. “One of the reasons I did Dogwood was to make it more palatable for me and the other developers to be able to develop up, create housing and to make this the live/work district.”
Housing developments are seen as the next step to accelerate the overall development of the area. But uncertainties around the vision and the City’s plans for the area are leaving some developers hesitant to make the first move.
In recent years, the City has made several attempts to assist in revitalizing the district. Last summer, the City approved plans for a pedestrian bridge, called the Hawthorne bridge after the street it will be placed upon, that will serve as an amenity and connection to and from Bend’s downtown, set to start construction in late 2027 or early 2028. In September, the City purchased several lots along Franklin Avenue and Second Street, with plans of turning them into a new city hall building and public plaza space.
The current priority for the City is infrastructure in the BCD, upgrading streets and sidewalks on Second Street and improving pedestrian safety on Franklin Avenue, officials say.
But with the city hall project lacking an official timeline, developers say it’s difficult to move forward without clarity on the City’s other official plans for its properties.
Investing in a vision
Central Oregon LandWatch, the public lands watchdog organization, has been involved in the BCD since about 2016, when the City was looking for opportunity areas within the city limits of Bend.
“Looking at all of those places, it was like, there’s one place here that really has so much potential, but just really needs a lot of TLC. It needs more time, needs more resources, it needs more attention,” said Corie Harlan, LandWatch cities and towns program director.
“This is just one of the places in our community that has so much potential and does really have tremendous community support behind what the vision for that place is.”
Harlan serves as the chair of the City’s Core Area Advisory Board, which advises the Bend Urban Renewal Agency on implementing core area tax increment financing, which can be used to invest in future projects in the area. The program allows any new tax dollars generated from yearly growth or redevelopment of the property to go back into the area.
“TIF is really the main tool that we have to support developers coming in, from a financial perspective,” said Matt Stuart, the City of Bend’s real estate director.
The dollars can be used in various ways to promote development: through transportation projects, development or businesses assistance or affordable housing systems. The first round of funds, according to Stuart, is currently going toward street improvement projects on Second Street and Franklin Avenue.
While Harlan acknowledged that progress has been slow, she hopes the current infrastructure improvements in progress, including one currently underway on Second Street, will help catalyze more private developments.
According to Harlan, CAAB hopes to see more clarity from the City regarding its timeline on the vision for the city-owned properties in the BCD. More information about future plans, she said, will help promote development and, specifically, housing.
Housing first
Dale Van Valkenburg, director of planning for local developer Brooks Resources, agrees that housing is a priority in the BCD to spark other development. However, no one wants to be the first.
“Being that first project to prove that it can work — being the first resident in some new housing down there, you have to have some faith in what the vision is and that it’s going to change,” said Van Valkenburg, who also serves as vice-chair on the CAAB.
Brooks Resources became involved in the BCD around 2016. The group currently owns a property off of Franklin Avenue and Second Street, most recently used as temporary shelter building for The Lighthouse, as well as the Blue Dog RV facility. It owns another property along Hawthorne Avenue, next to the planned pedestrian bridge.
As the pandemic was starting, Van Valkenburg said, the company, along with Taylor Development, had plans to build 150 residential units in a mixed-use building. The group, however, put the project on hold due to escalating costs and uncertainty around City-owned properties in the BCD.
While Van Valkenburg says he believes in the vision and wants to see more development, high costs and economic uncertainty are adding another barrier for developers.
“Costs are really high. So, you just have a difficult time being able to foresee getting the rents that will actually pay for the project. And then, you add to the fact that it’s sitting in the Central District which, right now, is not a real comfortable place. There’s issues down there,” Van Valkenburg said.
Among those “issues” that property owners report: the high concentration of services for the city’s houseless population.
Within the defined BCD, are two shelters and a BottleDrop Redemption Center, which is heavily utilized by the population as an income source.
“That’s kind of what people think of first when they think of the Central District right now.” said Van Valkenburg.
Tension within the BCD
In the last few years, crime in the BCD has taken its toll, adding another difficult factor to the overall vision. Last year, Bend Police made a targeted attempt at crime reduction due to the number of offenses within the area.
According to Sheila Miller, Bend Police communications manager, officers respond to NE Second Street for calls of all kinds on a daily basis, from trespassing, unwanted subjects on private property, mental health issues, drug issues, people leaving trash or human waste or drinking out of open containers.
Between August 2023 and August 2024, there were 4,854 calls for service in an area between Hawthorne and the railroad tracks to the south, and from the Bend Parkway to NE Fourth Street. Within those calls, officers took 732 cases, identified 1,145 offenses and made 600 arrests. Some 17% of all arrests in the City of Bend took place in this corridor during that time frame.
Eliza Wilson with the Homeless Leadership Coalition questioned crime statistics in the BCD, saying it could be simply due to more people in the area calling the police.
“Are there actual crimes occurring more in that general location, or are people calling the police more often? There’s a difference. People have bias toward people experiencing homelessness in the same way they have bias toward other marginalized groups. And so, when I hear that, I’m always like, ‘OK, is that accurate, or are people just calling more often,'” Wilson said.
The BottleDrop Redemption Center, on Second Street and between the City’s properties and Dogwood at the Pine Shed, is a highly trafficked area. Many people loiter within the vicinity of the facility.
Upon reaching out to the Oregon Beverage and Recycling Cooperate, the nonprofit that runs the Bottle Drop facility, it referred the Source to a statement it made in a January article from The Bulletin. The statement said that moving the facility requires a complex evaluation process and has the potential to negatively impact local residents and nonprofits.
Another of the City’s properties in the BCD includes a former motel transformed into a shelter, the Rainbow Motel. Developers say they are unclear on the City’s timeline for the shelter, which was initially meant to be temporary.
According to Stuart, the motel property is the potential site for a future city hall. In the meantime, the City is using it to address shelter needs. Since the continued use of the area is dependent on state funding, Stuart said, there is no set timeline for discontinuing shelter operations.
“I think that some people don’t want to see people experiencing homelessness, or struggling. I get that, but it’s the reality of every city in America, Wilson told the Source. “We have a housing crisis. I want business in our community, but we also want to make sure people have access to the care that they need.”
A push for clarity and momentum
“There’s a lot of tension, maybe, with redeveloping an area that is also providing and has turned into kind of a hub for unhoused services,” said Harlan with LandWatch. “That’s a tension that we really just need to get in and grapple with and start to figure out – how are these puzzle pieces gonna fit, what needs to move, what’s staying. Those are the kinds of questions that having them answered is going to be so helpful for moving the vision of that place forward.”
Brooks Resources sees the City’s plans for the city hall as a big step in the right direction, as well as converting the Rainbow Motel from a shelter to a long-term supported and affordable housing project.
“I think that the uncertainty over what exactly the City is planning, where exactly it’s planning it, and the timing of it are causing people to sit back and watch a little bit,” Van Valkenburg told the Source.
According to Stuart with the City of Bend, there is currently no decision on what’s going where and what the components are. The City, he said, is currently doing a financial technical analysis for the future city hall and has plans to do a larger master planning effort around the properties it owns.
Stuart said the City intends to wrap up that work toward the end of 2025, seeking direction from the City Council on how to move forward, which will help dictate a timeline for development. At this point, Stuart said, he does not foresee delivery of a new city hall prior to 2030, but the timeline will depend on the results of the analysis.
“We’ve talked with Council, and the direction is that we would like to look at moving city hall to this area. There’s obviously a lot of steps to that,” Stuart told the Source. “There’s a lot of pressure for this area to develop, but we also need to be patient and give it time to develop.”
The City is also in the final process of acquiring an additional piece of property in that vicinity that is necessary to meet the minimum site size needed for a potential city hall, according to Stuart.
Van Valkenburg with Brooks Resources says the CAAB is proactively pursuing ways to get projects up in the area and is working with the City to discuss how they can help them better pencil out.
“We’ve got to get more going on down there to help that momentum move forward. It’s an exciting project, tons of potential, the location is amazing. There are just some hurdles we’ve got to figure out,” Van Valkenburg added.
According to Harlan, the main challenge in front of the agencies involved is identifying incentives and partnerships that can get mixed-use and housing developments off the ground.
“The pieces are there, the seeds are planted, and it’s happening. Albeit, maybe a little more slowly than we’d all like to see, but it’s definitely happening,” said Harlan.
This article appears in Source Weekly June 5, 2025.
MAKE LOCAL JOURNALISM HAPPEN
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
This was a really well written and interesting piece! Thank. you!
Where the City of Bend and Brooks Resources go………..corruption and the will of Brooks Resources is sure to follow. This has stink all over it from both.
That’s a terrible location for this pipe dream. The amount of time, money, and resources that would be needed to revitalize that entire section is mind-boggling. It got a tiny bit of refreshment in the 90s, but the start won’t come to fruition for at least the next 30 years at the scale they’re envisioning. Not least of the issues standing in the way would be the amount of demolition of the existing structures and the updating of all that dated infrastructure from the 50s and 60s. Add the developer/investor buyouts of the existing buildings and businesses, which will be inevitably impeded by landowners unwilling to sell (there’s always a few).
Can we address the elephant in the room here? The fact that the BNSF railway has an active 3-line switching yard and throughway along the entire western edge of this region? It may be tempting to compare this to Santa Fe’s successful “Railyard” renewal district but that district is on a spur and does not have through traffic or parked tank cars containing who-knows-what. What kind of barrier along the west boundary of this area will work to separate this infrastructure from the envisioned”walkable” urban area and yet not be an eyesore itself?