With today's growing preference for walkable communities and locally owned and operated businesses, historic streets and districts are re-emerging as the heart of the community that draw people together and help rebuild local economies. Learn how Metro's Development Center acts as a public partner in two programs for revitalizing downtowns and main streets that offer strategies from small – such as lighting and window display techniques – to grand, such as a comprehensive revitalization curriculum for a commercial district.

A presentation at that MPAC meeting said the region has more than 6,000 acres of brownfields, an area a little larger than Oregon City. Those range from the small commercial lots to operating factories to former industrial operations now used for offices and stores.

With local agencies clamoring for transportation funding, regional leaders approved an expedited process for selecting projects eligible for $34 million in federal funds on Thursday. Instead of following a local staff recommendation for projects to be nominated, evaluated and selected through September, members of the Joint Policy Advisory Committee on Transportation decided to try to pick projects by January.

Dancing dragons at OCOM opening.

Three projects in three corners of the Portland region – Northeast, Northwest and Southwest – opened in October with investment from Metro's Transit-oriented Development Program. Metro's TOD program provides incentives, primarily in the form of modest funding grants, to private developers to build mixed-use, higher density housing and retail projects near transit.

A bill, proposed by the alliance and Metro, would require the state to offer loans to local governments to prep industrial sites. The loans would be written off if a major employer, meeting certain criteria, sets up shop at the site.

The Community Investment Initiative's Leadership Council has been meeting for more than a year as part of a Metro-funded effort to look at the region's funding future. The council is adamant that the region's economy will stall without better infrastructure, free-flowing transportation corridors and solid school buildings.

Communities in the Portland metropolitan region are seeing streetscapes and skylines change with multifamily, mixed-use developments located near transit that not only provide needed rental housing, but create jobs and generate economic activity. Two transit-oriented projects tell a story repeated throughout the Portland region and the nation: the smart money is on development projects that push economic recovery.

Repositioning a business as a consumer destination can change an entire city, says Jon Schallert, nationally known marketing coach for independent business, retail and service providers. Business and property owners driving the revitalization of the region's downtowns and main streets spent a morning with Schallert as part of Metro's Get Centered! series to learn how to attract customers to their store – and community.

Humboldt Bay Energy, a corporation registered in Nevada but operating out of Eureka, Calif., has come forward as interested in buying the site, and the bankruptcy court trustee charged with selling Blue Heron's assets said the company is furthest along in the process of buying the property.

Review of the industrial replenishment concept show its benefits would be limited, Metro staff says. Meanwhile, work continues on creating an inventory of the Portland region's available large employment sites.