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For 73 years horse-racing spectators would flock to Portland Meadows, a racetrack in the north of the city. In its heyday of the 1970s, the track attracted thousands of visitors. It was also a venue for music concerts. Bands like Metallica, Pearl Jam and the Beach Boys played there.

But in a sign of the times, the racetrack closed in March 2019 after several years of dwindling attendance. The building was torn down. In its place...

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For several years, B-line Urban Delivery has delivered food products by electric-assist cargo bikes to Portland’s supermarkets and restaurants. Working out of the Redd on Salmon food hub in the city’s Central Eastside, the company serves local food vendors that do not have the scale to use large distributors.

The cargo bikes are an effective means of transporting goods within a few miles’ radius of the company’s base in the Redd building. The bikes can make deliveries faster than...

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A State of Oregon project to study the needs and gaps of electric vehicle charging infrastructure has a gap of its own: No one on the 18-member advisory committee represents electric bicycles...

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Four years ago, Christina and Zach Menchini started Campfire Farms, 30 miles south of Portland, Oregon. They decided to raise pigs on pasture to support animal welfare and replenish the soil after decades of pesticide-heavy Christmas tree farming.

They slowly ramped up production—from 20 to 40 to 60 pigs—over their first few seasons, selling the pork exclusively at three different farmers’ markets. While Christina loves the customer connections that retail markets provide, and the Menchinis were able to charge a premium for the meat they sold, they soon realized they needed to...

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Here at B-line Urban Delivery, we tackle last-mile delivery challenges for local and regional food producers every day. After all, delicious wild salmon, grains, grass-fed beef, produce, and dry goods don’t magically appear in our pantries. Keeping the regional food economy thriving is at the core of the Redd on Salmon Street, which is why we could not be more excited to make it our new home.

Since January, B-line has been headquartered at the Redd’s Marble building, where we operate our central-city freight delivery business from a warehouse formerly inhabited by slabs of marble. Now, pallets of hot sauce, granola, and pasta rub elbows with freezers full of grass-fed beef and wild salmon.

Moving fresh produce in our warehouse in the Redd on Salmon campus.

The hum of refrigerators putting a chill on local sauerkraut, cranberry juice, and lamb mingles with conversation between suppliers and our sturdy crew of delivery riders dressed head to toe in waterproof gear. And, of course, our fleet of cargo delivery tricycles, each capable of carrying 700 pounds of goods are central to this hub of activity.

From our new home, we continue to do the work we’ve been accomplishing since 2009 — providing an efficient, nimble last-mile delivery solution into downtown and inner eastside, reducing the truck and van traffic congesting central Portland.

Beyond our daily deliveries, our new space enables us to function as an urban consolidation center for regional food. With more room for dry storage plus a 3,000-square-foot cooler/freezer in the works, we will have the ability to hold hundreds of pallets of local goods. We have a loading dock for large trucks and trailers and can receive everything from multiple pallets down to a few cases, store it, and then combine those goods for delivery by trike or coordinate with distributors to transport to restaurants, groceries, and offices throughout Portland.

For years, Ecotrust and B-line have been hearing that product storage in the heart of Portland can make a huge difference to small and mid-sized food businesses. For rural producers, maintaining a consistent supply of product for an urban clientele is a considerable challenge. Having a place to store large quantities of seasonally harvested product like grass-fed beef in the central city can make a world of difference when responding to weekly demand from chefs.

Likewise, small-batch or specialty products from entrepreneurs hoping to make it onto the shelf at New Seasons will have a place at the Marble. Our solution is to provide these small businesses a place to safely store product, along with access to a pick-and-pack table for efficient order processing.

Sounds pretty basic, but we’ve gotten an enthusiastic response from small business owners about how great it will be to have one central, easy-to-access place to get down to business.

We are excited to be a part of the growing community of food entrepreneurs at the Redd on Salmon Street, sharing resources, collaborating and keeping the maker spirit and “Produce Row” history of inner industrial Southeast Portland alive. It is the perfect spot for B-line to grow our capacity to meet the needs of the enterprising people who keep us fed and keep Portland on the culinary map.

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Our new digs, 4 blocks down the street at 1140 SE 7th (between Salmon and Taylor), include more than 2.5x more warehouse space, with much more room for dry storage, and, later this spring a shiny new cooler/freezer with 200 pallet slots. It will be easier for trucks to pull in and trikes to roll out of our new facility, plus we’ll have co-working space, offices upstairs for B-line and other tenants, and best of all, a community where local and regional food producers can come together.

3 different views of the Marble - our new home! (photos: Instagram via @ReddonSalmon and @blinedelivers)

This new warehouse is an investment in B-line’s growth and a partnership with Ecotrust, who owns the building (called “The Marble” after its former occupant, Intrepid Marble) along with the building next door, “The Foundry.” Together, they comprise The Redd campus, “a place where young food businesses can spawn, grow, and connect to the region’s abundant resources.” (Ecotrust).

Read more about The Redd on Salmon Street here. We’re so excited to be at the center of a hub designed to keep local and regional food in the heart of our city. The Redd will keep the maker spirit and “produce row” history of inner industrial SE Portland alive with spaces to produce, store, and distribute food. We’ll be growing our capacity as an urban consolidation center for food products and more, offering one convenient spot to store, repack, and send out goods into the city, many of them by trike.

The Foundry building, our next door neighbor, by summer and winter (Photos: Instagram via @Reddonsalmon)

We’re looking forward to growing and serving you in our new HQ for years to come. Thanks for rolling with us as we reconfigure our operations and begin accepting deliveries at this new location. By spring, we hope to have the warehouse fully built out along with revamped office spaces and work areas. In the meantime, we’re making do with shipping containers for cold storage and enjoying working at the marble-topped desks left by the former occupants.

If you’re interested in learning more about renting storage, workspace or office space at the Marble, please reach out to Dorothy Mitchell (dorothy.mitchell@b-linepdx.com). We’d be happy to send you more information and show you our new home.

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