Q&A: Some Saw a Total Mess; Bruning Saw Potential With Regional Shopping Center
By Dana Tims, The Oregonian, Portland, Ore.
Jul. 29–Fred Bruning, president of CenterCal Properties in Tualatin, has developed or is developing a number of prominent regional shopping complexes, including Gresham Station, Nyberg Woods in Tualatin, Cascade Station near Portland International Airport and The Rivers at Oregon City.
Among his Oregon projects, none has been more successful than Bridgeport Village, a 28-acre retail and entertainment complex straddling Tualatin and Tigard just west of Interstate 5.
When Bruning’s company secured the rights to develop Bridgeport Village, the site was an abandoned rock quarry, littered with fist-sized rocks, a gaping pit and debris from fallen trees. Few envisioned that the project would become a destination capable of luring first-in-state retailers such as Crate and Barrel and drawing customers from as far away as Medford and Olympia.
In a recent interview, Bruning talked about the elements that stoked Bridgeport’s success and why Tualatin’s downtown core, which has struggled for years to define its focus, now stands to benefit from the spillover.
QUESTION: Bridgeport Village is, by all accounts, one of the most lucrative destination-point shopping centers in the state. How do you account for its success?
ANSWER: I’d say it was the right project in the right place at the right time. Over the past 25 years, there has been a shift of residential patterns in the greater Portland area that led to Bridgeport’s success. Consider the growth in the immediate Tualatin area. Add to that what’s happened in places like Stafford, Lake Oswego and Wilsonville and you now have a critical mass. That residential shift occurred before the commercial shift, opening the way for what we’re doing there now. In that sense, Tualatin has been a destination for years. It’s just that no one knew about it.
Q: Strictly from a business standpoint, how is Bridgeport Village faring?
A: Extremely well. We have 3,000 people standing in line right now to see the new Harry Potter movie. The theaters here are selling about 1 million tickets per year, and the calculations we use to determine foot traffic show that we are drawing between 3.5 million and 4 million customers annually. The average purchase is $65 and the center is doing just north of $600 per square foot in sales. That puts Bridgeport in the top 5 percent of shopping centers in the U.S. and in the top 1 percent in the Northwest.
Q: When plans for Bridgeport were first unveiled, isn’t it true that the idea of redeveloping an abandoned rock quarry was still novel in Oregon?
A: Definitely, but the idea of filling in a rock quarry or taking on an old landfill as we now are in Oregon City, are very gratifying things. You’re taking land that others have thrown away and, rather than build something of lesser quality, you’re creating something of surprisingly good quality in an area that maybe had given up on itself as far as ever being a major destination.
Q: Do you see that sort of reclamation taking place not only in the suburbs, but in downtown Portland, as well?
A: I see a real resurgence in downtown in the next two to five years and I hope we’ll be part of that. It’s all about persuading people who live in a particular area to stay in that area to shop. I think we’ll see the same things in many downtowns, such as Tigard and Oregon City. There are extra costs involved, but they are worthwhile. In Oregon City, for instance, we’re spending an additional $30 million for pilings and methane remediation in what used to be a landfill. But in doing so, we’re creating a halo effect, where those who will have the biggest return are nearby landowners. My hope is, we’ll show that there is something better than just a big-box solution for these projects.
Q: What are your impressions of Tualatin as a city, as a destination point?
A: The entire city is really going through a metamorphosis from a sleepier mind-set to the regional center it is now. That leads to questions such as, how can we improve access to the rest of the city? And, how can we bring the Lake of the Commons and the downtown core the prominence it deserves? The city is going through growing pains and it can certainly be dismaying for citizens to see so much change around them. But demographers say an additional 1 million people will be coming to the greater Portland area in the next 15 to 20 years. Since that growth is going to happen, we have to figure out now how to make that growth pay for itself and make cities such as Tualatin even more attractive places to live and visit.
Q: You’ve made the point that Oregon is one of the least retailed states in the nation. Why is that? And is there a danger that this new retail explosion could push the state past that tipping point?
A: There’s always a danger of that, and you have to be careful of overdoing a good thing. National studies show that the greater Portland area has 16.2 square feet of retail space per capita, versus the national average of 22 square feet. That makes us less retailed than any area other than Manhattan, and that’s only because all the vertical building there overshadows its retail space. But Oregon is a very special place, and we have no desire for wall-to-wall malls. The centers that do best will reflect community desires saying, we don’t need endless retail here. And, in the same way, the centers that will be built will reflect our collective desires to have the best projects possible.
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