by Geon, Bryan
Basic Rights Oregon, 503-222-6151, www.basicrights.org, works for equal rights for gays and lesbians.
PFLAG (Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays), 503-232-7676, www.pflagpdx.org, sponsors monthly meetings and discussions; visit www.pflagpdx.org for information.
Portland Area Business Association (PABA) (www.paba.com) works to build business and career opportunities in the GLBT community.
Pride Northwest (503-295-9788, www.pridenw.org) organizes and promotes Portland’s annual Pride festival, held in downtown Portland each June.
The Q Center (4115 N Mississippi Ave, 503-234-7837, www.pdxqcenter.org) is a community center for GBLT and Questioning individuals.
Sexual Minority Youth Resource Center (2450 NE Sandy Blvd, Suite 100, 503-872-9664, www.smyrc.org) provides counseling and a free drop-in center for GLBT and questioning youth under age 24.
Shopping for the Home
A move to a new city almost always includes running lots of errands—from buying new curtains to replacing mops and brooms that didn’t make it into the moving truck. Portland offers plenty of shopping choices, from major national department stores and big-box behemoths to hole-in-the-wall thrift shops and unique local boutiques. If you’ve moved from somewhere other than Alaska, Montana, New Hampshire, or Delaware, you’ll be delighted to find that Oregon does not (yet) have a state sales tax. (If you’ve moved to Washington, you’re out of luck; see Money Matters for more details.)
Shopping Districts and Malls
Neighborhood Shopping Districts
Portlanders are rightly proud of the variety and distinctiveness of their city’s neighborhood shopping districts. While almost every city neighborhood has its own commercial node, some of these districts are larger and more diverse than others. The following are the main shopping districts that draw visitors from beyond the surrounding neighborhoods. Most of these districts have formal business organizations with websites.
Alberta Arts District, NE Alberta St between Martin Luther King Jr Blvd and 33rd Ave, www.albertamainst.org; since about 2000, this area has blossomed from a somewhat sketchy neighborhood into a thriving zone of cafés, boutiques, wellness centers, and art galleries. This mile-long strip offers a funky mix of businesses—including such unusual attractions as a grilled cheese–vending school bus (the Grilled Cheese Grill, NE 11th and Alberta, 503-206-8959, www.grilledcheesegrill.com) and a high-end vegan gourmet prix fixe restaurant (Natural Selection, 3033 NE Albert Ave, 503-288-5883, www.naturalselectionpdx.com). The neighborhood hosts an evening art fair on the last Thursday of each month.
Downtown Portland, www.downtownportland.org; downtown Portland has about every kind of good and service you might need, in almost every price range. Unfortunately, the stores are scattered all over the place, not in a nice little row, although the traditional center of gravity for downtown shopping is the area surrounding Pioneer Courthouse Square. Downtown shopping options include independently owned establishments; national chains, including some upscale chains such as Tiffany & Co.; and such department stores as Nordstrom, Macy’s, and H&M. Most downtown stores are an easy stroll from transit; if you’re driving, many downtown merchants will validate parking at certain garages.
Hawthorne District, SE Hawthorne Blvd between 12th and 58th Avenues (greatest concentration of businesses between 32nd and 39th/César Chávez), www.thinkhawthorne.com; the Hawthorne District has long had a reputation as Portland’s hippie shopping district, but the area actually offers a quite diverse shopping experience (the occasional bong store and tie-dye establishment notwithstanding). For several blocks, restaurants, bars, cafés, theaters, and many gift and specialty shops line the street. The district is on the whole quite laid-back and unpretentious (especially compared to, say, the Pearl), although chains are moving in and a few new, somewhat incongruous lofts have been built. A similar but slightly more compact shopping district extends along Belmont Street (www.belmontdistrict.org), which runs parallel to Hawthorne Boulevard a few blocks to the north. Paralleling Hawthorne a few blocks to the south is the burgeoning Division Street/Clinton Avenue district (www.divisionclinton.com), which has a few boutiques but is best known for its restaurants, several of which are among the very best in the city.
Multnomah Village, centered on the intersection of SW Capitol Hwy and 35th Ave, www.multnomahvillage.org; the “Village in the heart of Portland” harbors an eclectic range of specialty shops, antique stores, and restaurants, cafés, and pubs. Its Southwest Portland location means it tends to be less hipster-focused and more family-oriented than some Eastside shopping districts.
North Mississippi, North Mississippi Ave between Mason St and Fremont St, www.missisippiave.com; like the Alberta Arts District, North Mississippi Avenue was a down-and-out neighborhood not many years ago. Its subsequent transformation into a vibrant commercial district is, depending on your point of view, either an urban success story or an example of relentless gentrification. Either way, the result from the visitor’s perspective is an eclectic and booming collection of restaurants and interesting shops, including a comic book store, a gourmet salt shop, a small nursery, a pizza joint/pub that hosts a weekly spelling bee, and a light bulb superstore.
Northeast Broadway, NE Broadway between Grand Ave and 28th Ave (www.nebroadway.com); Northeast Broadway businesses cater both to residents of the adjacent (and generally affluent) Irvington neighborhood and to people from other parts of the city who come to shop and dine here. This district runs eastward from the Lloyd Center shopping mall area towards Hollywood, and includes a mix of unassuming old-line businesses such as Helen Bernhard Bakery (since 1924; 1717 NE Broadway, 503-287-1251, www.helenbernhardbakery.com), trendy bars, a variety of dining establishments, and some hot boutiques.
Northwest Portland (Nob Hill), NW 21st and 23rd Avenues, from Burnside St north to Vaughn St, www.nwpdxnobhill.com; Northwest Twenty-Third (sometimes derisively called Trendy-Third) Avenue (and, to a lesser extent, Northwest Twenty-First Avenue, which runs parallel two blocks east) is one of the brightest stars in Portland’s shopping firmament. The street is lined with a dazzling range of stores, with an emphasis on clothing, household goods, antiques, and knickknacks of all kinds, as well as restaurants and cafés that cater to all tastes and budgets. Chains such as Pottery Barn, Urban Outfitters, and Restoration Hardware have made inroads here in recent years, but many stores remain locally owned (or at least small-scale). Street parking can be hard to find on weekends and evenings, but the area is eminently walkable and easily accessible by bus and streetcar.
Pearl District, north of West Burnside St, between 8th Ave and Interstate 405, 503-227-8519, www.explorethepearl.com. Call it frou-frou, call it trendy, call it spendy—and you’d be right. The Pearl is not a neighborhood in which to seek bargains. Barring a few businesses such as Powell’s Books that predated the neighborhood’s transformation into a playground for the affluent, options generally range from upscale independent stores to upscale chain stores, although a few shops, bars, and restaurants do actually cater to patrons with an average income. That said, the Pearl offers lots of unique merchandise that cannot be found anywhere else in Portland. Shops and restaurants are sprinkled liberally throughout this expansive but densely built-up neighborhood, which makes the Pearl a great destination for a walking/shopping/gourmet food sampling expedition.
Sellwood/Westmoreland, centered on SE 13th Ave and Tacoma (Sellwood) and SE Milwaukie Ave at Bybee (Westmoreland) (www.sellwoodwestmoreland.com); Sellwood and Westmoreland are two separate districts only half a mile apart, and both offer a mix of interesting boutiques, popular restaurants, art galleries, and plenty of antique stores. Although it is not particularly far away from the city center, the area remains off the radar screen for many Portlanders, and so is (on the whole) less self-consciously trendy than some close-in shopping zones.
St. Johns (www.stjohnsmainstreet.org); the “downtown” area of St. Johns along North Lombard St at the east end of the St. Johns Bridge is a funky blend of bu
sinesses: places that seemingly have not changed since the Eisenhower presidency stand next to quirky, hip boutiques, vegan and ethnic restaurants, laid-back coffeehouses, and two different independent movie theaters. Still, everyone seems to get along just fine. This area still draws relatively few shoppers from the rest of Portland, but its splendid isolation is definitely coming to an end.
Shopping districts in most communities outside Portland tend to be of the strip mall variety, but some of the older, more established suburbs such as Milwaukie, Beaverton, Forest Grove, Troutdale, Hillsboro, Oregon City, and Gresham (www.gresham.org) have walkable downtown shopping districts; Vancouver’s Uptown Village district (www.uptownvillage.com) is also worth a visit.
While not a shopping district per se, the Portland Saturday Market (503-241-4188, www.portlandsaturdaymarket.com) functions as an outdoor weekend bazaar from March through Christmas. It is located under the west end of the Burnside Bridge and in a specially built plaza stretching southward, along the river.
Malls
Although Portland’s neighborhood shopping districts are fantastic, that doesn’t mean the vast seas of pavement surrounding the area’s malls are empty. Indeed, at the more popular malls it can be hard to find a parking space at all on weekends or during the holiday shopping season. If nothing else, malls are a great place to stretch your legs (and your credit limit) if you fear going out in the winter drizzle.
In addition to its ongoing love affair with traditional indoor malls, Portland is getting plugged into the one of the country’s newest shopping trends, the “lifestyle mall,” which features upscale retailers in faux–Main Street settings:
The Streets of Tanasbourne mall in Hillsboro (NW Cornell Rd at Stucki Ave, 503-533-0561, www.streetsoftanasbourne.com), which opened in 2004, was the local avatar of this trend.
Perhaps the area’s prime example is Bridgeport Village (503-968-1704, www.bridgeport-village.com), which opened in 2005 at Lower Boones Ferry/Bridgeport Rd and Interstate 5 (exit 290), straddling the Tigard-Tualatin border and across the freeway from Lake Oswego. In addition to national retailers such as Anthropologie and Crate and Barrel, Bridgeport Village has attracted several local retailers, including Mario’s (clothing). The complex also includes spas, salons, several restaurants, and cafés, with a Whole Foods supermarket across the street. Bridgeport Village is popular enough to cause traffic backups on I-5.
The success of these initial developments is likely to spawn imitators, and indeed, older indoor malls such as Washington Square, Clackamas Town Center, and Cedar Hills Crossing have revamped their exteriors to make them more open and accessible from the outside and less forbiddingly featureless.
Here’s a list of the major traditional shopping malls in the Portland area:
Cedar Hills Crossing, 3205 SW Cedar Hills Blvd, Beaverton, 503-643-6563, www.cedarhillscrossing.com; once upon a time this was the nearly moribund Beaverton Mall. Following a major redesign several years ago, it is now Cedar Hills Crossing, and boasts a crowded multiplex and such indicia of relevance as a Powell’s bookstore and a New Seasons supermarket.
Clackamas Town Center, 12000 SE 82nd Ave, Clackamas, 503-653-6913, www.clackamastowncenter.com; Clackamas Town Center is one of the area’s primary suburban shopping centers. Anchored by a Macy’s, Sears, Nordstrom, and JC Penney, Clackamas Town Center offers few surprises. The mall proper expanded by some 250,000 square feet in 2007, adding a “lifestyle center” zone, and several satellite shopping centers have sprung up around it, including Clackamas Promenade just across the street.
Lloyd Center Mall, NE Multnomah St at 11th Ave, 503-282-2511, www.lloydcentermall.com; one of the first enclosed malls in the country, Lloyd Center, in close-in Northeast Portland, is Portland’s primary “urban” mall. In addition to the usual mall shops, department stores (Nordstrom, Macy’s, Sears), discount stores (Marshall’s, Ross Dress for Less), a food court, and a multi-screen cinema, Lloyd Center houses an ice skating rink smack-dab in the middle of the mall.
Pioneer Place, 700 SW 5th Ave, 503-228-5800, www.pioneerplace.com; this downtown Portland mall is fairly unobtrusive (partly because it lacks an adjacent surface parking lot, and partly because much of it is underground). As a result, Pioneer Place manages to function reasonably well as part of the downtown shopping scene. Most of the stores are relatively upscale, and the only department store anchor is H&M. A new Apple Store, on the site of the former Saks Fifth Avenue, is a striking addition to the downtown streetscape. The underground food court gets ridiculously crowded during weekday lunch hours.
Washington Square, 9585 SW Washington Square Rd, Tigard, 503-639-8860, www.shopwashingtonsquare.com; along with Clackamas Town Center, Washington Square is one of the two dominant traditional suburban malls in the Portland area. Both malls have the same four anchor department stores (although Washington Square’s Nordstrom is the largest in the state). Washington Square’s overall retail mix is somewhat more upscale than most other area malls, reflecting the relative affluence of its Washington County surroundings.
Westfield Vancouver, 8700 NE Vancouver Mall Dr, Vancouver, 360-892-6255, westfield.com/Vancouver/; better known as the Vancouver Mall, this mall near the intersection of Interstate 205 and State Route 500 is a pretty standard issue suburban shopping complex.
Outlet Malls and Factory Stores
Factory discount stores often stock overruns and imperfect goods. While they can offer great bargains, shoppers should pay special attention to merchandise quality. There are two major outlet malls within a 45-minute drive of Portland. Columbia Gorge Premium Outlets (450 NW 257th Ave, Troutdale, 503-669-8060, www.premiumoutlets.com/columbiagorge/), with 45 stores, is just south of Interstate 84 at exit 17. Woodburn Premium Outlets (1001 Arney Rd, Woodburn, 503-981-1900, www.premiumoutlets.com/woodburn/), a 100-plus store complex of “craftsman-inspired” storefronts at exit 271 on Interstate 5, sometimes backs up traffic on the freeway for miles.
In addition to the outlet malls, several local companies operate stand-alone factory outlet stores:
Columbia Sportswear Outlet Stores, 1323 SE Tacoma St, 503-238-0118; 3 Monroe Pkwy #H, Lake Oswego, 503-636-6593
Danner Factory Store, 12021 NE Airport Way, 503-251-1111
Hanna Andersson Outlet Store, 7 Monroe Pkwy, Lake Oswego, 503-697-1953
Nike Factory Store, 2650 NE Martin Luther King Jr Blvd, 503-281-5901
Pendleton Woolen Mills Outlet Store, 2 Pendleton Way, Washougal, 360-835-1118
Department Stores
Most Portland-area department stores are attached to malls, although there are a few stand-alone establishments.
JC Penney, Clackamas Town Center, 503-653-8830; Washington Square, 503-620-0750; Vancouver Mall, 360-254-3800; Columbia Tech Center, 19005 SE Mill Plain Blvd, Vancouver, 360-253-9550; www.jcpenney.com; JC Penney sells everything from vacuum cleaners and mattresses to clothing and cosmetics.
Kohl’s, seven Portland-area stores, 866-887-8884, www.kohls.com; Kohl’s competes with Sears and JC Penney, and runs sales almost continuously on everything from clothing to coffee makers.
Macy’s, six Portland-area locations (including downtown Portland), 800-289-6229, www.macys.com. In 2006, Macy’s, which had never had a Portland presence, bought long-time Portland department store chain Meier & Frank. To some local consternation, it changed the names of all Meier & Frank stores to Macy’s (as it had done with other acquisitions, such as Marshall Field’s in Chicago) and “Macified” the stores and their product lines. Many Portlanders still refer to Macy’s stores as Meier & Frank.
Nordstrom, 701 SW Broadway, 503-224-6666; Lloyd Center, 503-287-2444; Washington Square, 503-620-0555; Clackamas Town Center, 503-652-1810; Vancouver Mall, 360-256-8666, www.nordstrom.com; thanks to its reputation for superb customer service, Nordstrom dominates the local market for high-end clothing and shoes.
Sears, Lloyd Center, 503-528-3200; Clackamas Town Center, 503-786-5200; Washington Square, 503-620-1510; Vancouver Mall, 360-260-4200; www.sears.com; kn
own for Craftsman power tools, Sears no longer sells the Craftsman bungalows and other kit homes that are scattered around many of Portland’s early–20th century eastside neighborhoods. The store is a mainstay for family clothing, appliances, and home electronics.
Discount Department Stores
Some upscale departments stores (such as Nordstrom—see Nordstrom Rack, below) have their own outlets where they sell discontinued, overstocked, or slightly irregular merchandise at reduced prices. Such goods are also sold through discount outlets such as Marshall’s, Ross Dress for Less, and T.J. Maxx. Other discount chains—Target, Kmart, and Walmart—carry name-brand goods, but generally not the designer labels available at upscale department stores.
Fred Meyer; most Fred Meyer supermarkets have an attached department store for non-grocery items. See “Supermarkets” below for details.
H&M, five Portland-area stores, 855-466-7467, www.hm.com/us
Kmart, four Portland-area stores, 866-562-7848. www.kmart.com
Marshall’s, Lloyd Center, 503-287-6441; 16200 SW Pacific Hwy, Tigard, 503-620-7230; 881 NE 25th Ave, Hillsboro, 503-547-2841; 10257 NE Cascade Pkwy, 503-249-8132; 2077 NE Burnside St, Gresham, 503-492-7121; www.marshallsonline.com
