My NoCo Christmas Wish: a unique music & movie venue

Dear Santa, please let this eclectic school-turned-hotel in Portland, Oregon, serve as a model for creative revitalization in North County.

For nearly 30 years beginning in the 1970s, the historic neighborhoods of northeast Portland, Oregon, showed all the tell-tale signs of a community in decline. Housing values dropped, businesses got seedier, and the local grade school – a community landmark since 1915 – closed its doors and eventually was abandoned, causing many families to move away.

Northeast Portland became the part of town you’d avoid. There’s nothing left up there, people would say. But where most of Portland saw a fading, hopeless suburb wedged grimly between downtown and the airport, Mike and Brian McMenamin saw an opportunity. The owners of several popular brewpubs in the area (including the first one in the state of Oregon), the brothers came up with a creative plan to not only reinvigorate Northeast Portland but also to celebrate one of its finest assets: that beautiful, abandoned, circa 1915 grade school.

Whimsical paintings by local artists enliven nearly every wall at the Kennedy School in Portland.

Threatened with demolition, the elegant, Italian Renaissance-style “Kennedy School” had been saved by a coalition of local residents, former students and past PTA presidents when the McMenamins presented their plan for its revival. Following an exhaustive restoration incorporating the work of dozens of local artists and craftspeople, the brothers were determined to reinstate the school’s role as a busy, multi-use hub for the local community. They also wanted it to be a unique, memorable destination for visitors to Portland.

In their bold, way-outside-the-box vision, thirty five former classrooms would become boutique hotel suites, complete with original chalkboards and coat rooms. The old auditorium would be converted into an art house movie theater, served by the cafeteria-turned-restaurant next door. Several school rooms, including the former girls’ lavatory, would become cozy little pubs and cigar lounges serving McMenamin’s beer. Even the gymnasium would rise again, still as a classic locale for wedding receptions, but also as a lively spot for neighborhood basketball games, community meetings, blood drives, live concerts, and more.

Formerly the Kennedy School's cafeteria, the Courtyard Restaurant is now a hip Portland eatery that's jam-packed on weekends.

It was quite a diverse business model, and it worked. Because since the Kennedy School re-opened in 1997, the McMenamins have definitely exceeded their goals. Thousands of guests have stayed at their one-of-a-kind hotel, and even more have patronized its pubs, restaurants and theater. The reborn school has also provided an enormous economic and social boost for Northeast Portland, serving as a vibrant local hive where neighbors come together and where something fun is always on the calendar.

I tell you about the Kennedy School because it’s an amazing, magical place that I will never forget. Honestly, the McMenamins are two of my biggest heroes and I’m inspired by all of their fabulous brewpubs. I also tell you about the Kennedy School because I believe it’s exactly the type of brave, creative, lemons-to-lemonade project that North County desperately needs.

When you really start weighing our assets, we have no shortage of vintage buildings sitting empty or underutilized in NoCo, especially old schools. Off the top of my head, I can think of the former Masonic lodge in Ferguson, Storman-Stufflin School on Chambers, and St. Aloysius Church and School in Spanish Lake. Who knows how many more we’ll have as Catholic grade schools continue to close.

At the same time, North County also has a dire need for a decent live music venue – a hall with great character and good acoustics where maybe 200-300 people could enjoy an eclectic (and yes, even hip) mix of performers. If that same venue also housed an independent movie theater, I know I’m not the only North Countian who would be mighty pleased.

Sometimes a movie theater, sometimes a concert venue, the Kennedy School's converted auditorium is a community hot spot.

Now, I know what you’re saying…North County is no Portland! And I know that. But if the McMenamins’ successful concoction of beer, culture and community could turn around working-class Northeast Portland, who’s to say that it couldn’t work here as well, if even on a smaller scale? For once, why couldn’t North County be the place to embrace something truly special and progressive, something that would change minds and start drawing more folks northward?

We’ve got the buildings. We’ve got the artists. And we certainly have the people who love beer. Just imagine: North County as a destination.

That is my NoCo Christmas wish. Santa, I hope you’re reading…

(If you are reading, dear NOCO fan, don’t forget to vote in my new poll! It’s in the sidebar on the right.)

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