Downtown Portland is the city center of Portland,

Oregon Oregon () is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of its eastern boundary with Idaho. T ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

. It is on the west bank of the

Willamette River The Willamette River ( ) is a major tributary of the Columbia River, accounting for 12 to 15 percent of the Columbia's flow. The Willamette's main stem is long, lying entirely in northwestern Oregon in the United States. Flowing northward b ...

in the northeastern corner of the southwest section of the city and where most of the city's high-rise buildings are found. The downtown neighborhood extends west from the Willamette to Interstate 405 and south from

Burnside Street Burnside Street is a major thoroughfare of Portland, in the U.S. state of Oregon, and one of a few east–west streets that runs uninterrupted on both sides of the Willamette River. It serves as the dividing line between North Portland and South ...

to just south of the

Portland State University Portland State University (PSU) is a public research university in Portland, Oregon. It was founded in 1946 as a post-secondary educational institution for World War II veterans. It evolved into a four-year college over the following two decad ...

campus (also bounded by I-405), except for a part of northeastern portion north of SW Harvey Milk Street and east of SW 3rd Ave that belongs to the

Old Town Chinatown Old Town Chinatown is the official Chinatown of the Northwest section of Portland, Oregon. The Willamette River forms its eastern boundary, separating it from the Lloyd District and the Kerns and Buckman neighborhoods. It includes the Portland ...

neighborhood. High-density business and residential districts near downtown include the

Lloyd District The Lloyd District is a primarily commercial neighborhood in the North and Northeast sections of Portland, Oregon. It is named after Ralph Lloyd (1875–1953), a California rancher, oilman, and real estate developer who moved to and started ...

, across the river from the northern part of downtown, and the

South Waterfront The South Waterfront is a high-rise district under construction on former brownfield industrial land in the South Portland neighborhood south of downtown Portland, Oregon, U.S. It is one of the largest urban redevelopment projects in the Unite ...

area, just south of downtown in the South Portland neighborhood. Portland's downtown features narrow streets— wide—and square, compact blocks on a side, to create more corner lots that were expected to be more valuable. The small blocks also made downtown Portland pleasant to walk through. The long combined blocks divide one mile (1.6 km) of road into exactly 20 separate blocks. By comparison, Seattle's blocks are , and

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

's east–west streets are divided into blocks that are from long.

Urban development

1900s

By the early 1970s, parts of Portland's central city had been in decay for some time. New suburban shopping malls in the neighboring cities of Beaverton, Tigard, and Gresham competed with downtown for people and money. Unlike many downtown revitalization efforts around the United States at this time, Portland's plan did not call for widespread demolition and reconstruction. Robert Moses, the designer of

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

's gridded freeways, expressways, and bridges, designed a plan to revitalize downtown Portland. Moses charted a highway loop around the city's central freeways, which would become Interstate 405 as it links with I-5 south of downtown. Additionally the creation of a downtown transit mall in 1977, a new waterfront park in 1978 (later named after Governor

Tom McCall Thomas Lawson McCall (March 22, 1913 January 8, 1983) was an American statesman, politician and journalist in the state of Oregon. A Republican, he was the state's thirtieth governor from 1967 to 1975. A native of Massachusetts, McCall grew up t ...

) in place of a freeway, the creation of the

Pioneer Courthouse Square Pioneer Courthouse Square, also known as Portland's living room, is a public space occupying a full city block in the center of downtown Portland, Oregon, United States. Opened in 1984, the square is bounded by Southwest Morrison Street on ...

in 1984, the opening of the Portland–Gresham light rail line in 1986, and the opening of

Pioneer Place Pioneer Place is an upscale, urban shopping mall in downtown Portland, Oregon. It consists of four blocks of retail, dining, parking, and an office tower named Pioneer Tower. The mall itself is spread out between four buildings, interconnected b ...

mall in 1990 successfully drew or retained businesses and lured customers. After 1990, downtown Portland dominated the city's development, with more development there than on the east side (

, Central Eastside Industrial District, and Lower Albina).

2000s

Downtown Portland has many surface parking lots, which the city is attempting to reduce in order to promote higher density, create storefronts, and make downtown more vibrant. Some changes are being made slowly, such as the creation of the Smart Park garage system, and conversion of a surface-level parking lot into a park with underground parking at Park Block 5 between the

Fox Tower The Fox Tower is a 27-story, office skyscraper in downtown Portland, Oregon, along Broadway between Yamhill and Morrison streets. The tower was completed in 2000 at a cost of $64 million, and was named after the Fox Theatre that occupied the s ...

and

Park Avenue West Tower Park Avenue West Tower is a high-rise in downtown Portland, Oregon, United States. The 30-floor tower consists of commercial office space, ground floor retail, and apartments. It is the fourth tallest building in Portland behind the Wells Fargo ...

. In 2020 and 2021, during the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

, Downtown Portland faced an increase in homeless camps, and a reduction in office workers due to remote work. During and after the

Black Lives Matter Black Lives Matter (abbreviated BLM) is a decentralized political and social movement that seeks to highlight racism, discrimination, and racial inequality experienced by black people. Its primary concerns are incidents of police br ...

protests, there was an increase in graffiti, property damage, and windows being boarded up.

Bridges

Portland is sometimes known as "Bridgetown," due to the number of bridges that cross its two rivers. There are nine

bridge A bridge is a structure built to span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or rail) without blocking the way underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, which is usually somethi ...

s entering downtown and immediately adjacent areas. The bridges are (north to south): *

Fremont Bridge Fremont Bridge may refer to: * Fremont Bridge (Portland, Oregon) * Fremont Bridge (Seattle) The Fremont Bridge is a double-leaf bascule bridge that spans the Fremont Cut in Seattle, Washington. The bridge, which connects Fremont Avenue North an ...

, carrying I-405 past the

Pearl A pearl is a hard, glistening object produced within the soft tissue (specifically the mantle) of a living shelled mollusk or another animal, such as fossil conulariids. Just like the shell of a mollusk, a pearl is composed of calcium carb ...

and Northwest districts and into downtown * Broadway Bridge, connecting the

to Old Town Chinatown and carrying the

Portland Streetcar The Portland Streetcar is a streetcar system in Portland, Oregon, that opened in 2001 and serves areas surrounding downtown Portland. The NS Line runs from Northwest Portland to the South Waterfront via Downtown and the Pearl District. The Lo ...

's east-side line *

Steel Bridge The Steel Bridge is a through truss, double-deck vertical-lift bridge across the Willamette River in Portland, Oregon, United States, opened in 1912. Its lower deck carries railroad and bicycle/pedestrian traffic, while the upper deck carries r ...

, the only double-deck bridge with independent lifts in the world, and carrying

MAX Light Rail The Metropolitan Area Express (MAX) is a light rail system serving the Portland metropolitan area in the U.S. state of Oregon. Owned and operated by TriMet, it consists of five color-designated lines that altogether connect the six sectio ...

and

Amtrak The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, doing business as Amtrak () , is the national passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates inter-city rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous U.S. States and nine cities in Canada ...

into Old Town Chinatown *

Burnside Bridge The Burnside Bridge is a 1926-built bascule bridge that spans the Willamette River in Portland, Oregon, United States, carrying Burnside Street. It is the second bridge at the same site to carry that name. It was added to the National Register of ...

, connecting the east side to downtown and the Old Town Chinatown neighborhood *

Morrison Bridge The Morrison Bridge is a bascule bridge that spans the Willamette River in Portland, Oregon. Completed in 1958, it is the third bridge at approximately the same site to carry that name. It is one of the most heavily used bridges in Portland. It ...

, leading directly into the central business district from the east side *

Hawthorne Bridge The Hawthorne Bridge is a truss bridge with a vertical lift that spans the Willamette River in Portland, Oregon, joining Hawthorne Boulevard and Madison Street. It is the oldest vertical-lift bridge in operation in the United States and the o ...

, Portland's oldest highway bridge and, leading directly into the central business district from the east side; Oregon's most heavily used bridge for bicycles *

Marquam Bridge The Marquam Bridge is a double-deck, steel-truss cantilever bridge that carries Interstate 5 traffic across the Willamette River from south of downtown Portland, Oregon, on the west side to the industrial area of inner Southeast on the east. ...

, a two-deck bridge carrying

I-5 Interstate 5 (I-5) is the main north–south Interstate Highway on the West Coast of the United States, running largely parallel to the Pacific coast of the contiguous U.S. from Mexico to Canada. It travels through the states of Californi ...

traffic *

Tilikum Crossing Tilikum Crossing, Bridge of the People is a cable-stayed bridge across the Willamette River in Portland, Oregon, United States. It was designed by TriMet, the Portland metropolitan area's regional transit authority, for its MAX Orange Line lig ...

, Portland's newest bridge, limited to public transit, bicycles, pedestrians, and emergency vehicles *

Ross Island Bridge The Ross Island Bridge is a cantilever truss bridge that spans the Willamette River in Portland, Oregon. It carries U.S. Route 26 (Mount Hood Highway) across the river between southwest and southeast Portland. The bridge opened in 1926 and was ...

, which connects

U.S. Route 26 U.S. Route 26 (US 26) is an east–west United States highway that runs from Seaside, Oregon to Ogallala, Nebraska. When the U.S. highway system was first defined, it was limited to Nebraska and Wyoming; by the 1950s, it continued into Idaho and ...

(SE Powell Blvd.) to the

Outside the downtown area there are three other road bridges within Portland limits that cross the Willamette River: the St. Johns Bridge and

Sauvie Island Bridge The Sauvie Island Bridge crosses the Multnomah Channel of the Willamette River near Portland, Oregon, United States. The original Parker truss bridge, built in 1950 with a main span, was replaced with a tied arch bridge with a span in 2008 due t ...

(to the north) and the

Sellwood Bridge The Sellwood Bridge is a deck arch bridge that spans the Willamette River in Portland, Oregon, in the United States. The current bridge opened in 2016 and replaced a 1925 span that had carried the same name. The original bridge was Portland's firs ...

(to the south).

Transportation

Most streets in downtown Portland are one-way.

Naito Parkway Naito Parkway is a major thoroughfare of Portland in the U.S. state of Oregon. It was formerly known as Front Avenue and Front Street and was renamed in 1996 to honor Bill Naito. It runs between SW Barbur Boulevard and NW Front Avenue, and adjac ...

(two-way, formerly known as Front Avenue) is the farthest east, while most of the high-rises end by I-405 to the west. Interstate 5 runs on the opposite bank of the river, crossing over on the Marquam Bridge.

connects downtown Portland to the

Oregon Coast The Oregon Coast is a coastal region of the U.S. state of Oregon. It is bordered by the Pacific Ocean to its west and the Oregon Coast Range to the east, and stretches approximately from the California state border in the south to the Columbia ...

and the Cascade Range. Downtown is also served by several forms of public transportation.

TriMet TriMet, formally known as the Tri-County Metropolitan Transportation District of Oregon, is a public agency that operates mass transit in a region that spans most of the Portland metropolitan area in the U.S. state of Oregon. Created in 1969 ...

, the regional mass transit agency, operates

MAX light rail The Metropolitan Area Express (MAX) is a light rail system serving the Portland metropolitan area in the U.S. state of Oregon. Owned and operated by TriMet, it consists of five color-designated lines that altogether connect the six sectio ...

on two alignments in downtown, one running east/west on Yamhill and Morrison streets and north–south on 1st Avenue, the other running north–south on 5th and 6th avenues. On the latter two streets, an extensive

transit mall A transit mall is a street, or set of streets, in a city or town along which automobile traffic is prohibited or greatly restricted and only public transit vehicles, bicycles, and pedestrians are permitted. Transit malls are instituted by communi ...

—known as the Portland Mall—limits private vehicles and provides connections between more than fifty bus lines, MAX light rail, and the

. The southern part of downtown and the West End are also served by the Portland Streetcar system, operating from South Waterfront north into the Pearl and Northwest Portland districts. The system currently has two routes, measuring end to end, and connects in South Waterfront with the Tram (aerial cableway) to

Oregon Health & Science University Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) is a public research university focusing primarily on health sciences with a main campus, including two hospitals, in Portland, Oregon. The institution was founded in 1887 as the University of Oregon Med ...

(OHSU). Starting in 1975 and continuing for almost four decades, all transit service in downtown was free, as downtown was entirely within TriMet's Fareless Square, which also covered a portion of the nearby

after 2001. However, in 2010, free rides became limited to MAX and streetcar service – no longer covering bus service – and the zone renamed the "Free Rail Zone", and in September 2012 the fareless zone was discontinued entirely, because of a $12 million shortfall in TriMet's annual budget.

Sites of interest

Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall The Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall (opened as the Portland Publix Theatre before becoming the Paramount Theatre after 1930) is a historic theater building and performing arts center in Portland, Oregon, United States. Part of the Portland Cent ...

Portland Art Museum The Portland Art Museum in Portland, Oregon, United States, was founded in 1892, making it one of the oldest art museums on the West Coast and seventh oldest in the US. Upon completion of the most recent renovations, the Portland Art Museum beca ...

* Oregon Historical Society *

Tom McCall Waterfront Park Governor Tom McCall Waterfront Park is a park located in downtown Portland, Oregon, along the Willamette River. After the 1974 removal of Harbor Drive, a major milestone in the freeway removal movement, the park was opened to the public in 19 ...

Buildings

Several high-rise buildings are located in downtown Portland. The five tallest are: *

Wells Fargo Center Wells Fargo Center may refer to: *Wells Fargo Center (Los Angeles), California *Wells Fargo Center (Sacramento), California * Wells Fargo Center (San Francisco), California * Wells Fargo Center for the Arts, Santa Rosa, California * Wells Fargo Cen ...

: rises to 166 meters (546 feet) and was constructed in 1972 *

U.S. Bancorp Tower The U.S. Bancorp Tower (also known as the Big Pink) is a 42-story, skyscraper in Portland, Oregon. It is the second tallest building in the city after Wells Fargo Center, and with its nearly office space, it is the largest in Oregon in terms of ...

: rises to 163 meters (536 feet) and was constructed in 1983 *

KOIN Center Koin or KOIN may refer to: * KOIN, a TV station in Portland, Oregon * Koin, Guinea Koin, Guinea (Pular: 𞤂𞤫𞤧-𞤯𞤢𞤤𞤭𞥅𞤪𞤫 𞤑𞤮𞤴𞤭𞤲) is a town and sub-prefecture in the Tougué Prefecture in the Labé Regi ...

: rises to 155 meters (509 feet) and was constructed in 1984 *

: rises to 153 meters (502 feet) and was constructed in 2016 *

PacWest Center PacWest Center is a 30-story, office skyscraper in Portland, Oregon. It is the fifth-tallest building in Portland, and the fourth largest with . The building was designed by Hugh Stubbins & Associates of Cambridge, Massachusetts, and completed ...

: rises to 127 meters (418 feet) and was constructed in 1984

Adjacent districts

– northeast, and extending south of West Burnside St. near the river *

Pearl District The Pearl District is an area of Portland, Oregon, formerly occupied by warehouses, light industry and railroad classification yards and now noted for its art galleries, upscale businesses and residences. The area has been undergoing significan ...

– north, adjacent to Chinatown * Goose Hollow – residential, west of PSU, north of US 26 * Southwest Hills – residential, west of PSU, south of US 26 *

Marquam Hill Marquam Hill is a populated hill located just south of Downtown Portland, Oregon, United States in the Homestead neighborhood. It is also called Pill Hill because it is home to Oregon Health & Science University, Portland VA Medical Center and Sh ...

(colloquially "Pill Hill") – south, including

OHSU Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) is a public research university focusing primarily on health sciences with a main campus, including two hospitals, in Portland, Oregon. The institution was founded in 1887 as the University of Oregon Med ...

and the Veteran's Hospital *

RiverPlace RiverPlace is a mixed-use district of Downtown Portland, Oregon. Although not an officially recognized neighborhood, its borders can be considered to be Naito Parkway to the west, the Willamette River to the east, and the Marquam Bridge (whic ...

– at southeast corner of downtown *

– south of downtown, east of Interstate 5

References

External links

Portland Downtown Neighborhood Association

Official City of Portland websiteDowntown Street Tree Inventory Report
{{Portland neighborhoods Neighborhoods in Portland, Oregon Economy of Portland, Oregon Portland