page_title: Bill Naito
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: Bill Naito / Career
caption_attribution_description: English: The east facade of Montgomery Park, in Portland, Oregon, a former Montgomery Ward catalog warehouse, listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It was refitted in the mid-1980s for use for offices, banquets and trade shows, and was given its current name. The huge sign on its roof was altered at that time, with "W&#160;A&#160;R&#160;D" changed to "P&#160;A&#160;R&#160;K".
context_page_description: William Sumio Naito was a noted businessman, civic leader and philanthropist in Portland, Oregon, U.S. He was an enthusiastic advocate for investment in downtown Portland, both private and public, and is widely credited for helping to reverse a decline in the area in the 1970s through acquiring and renovating derelict or aging buildings and encouraging others to invest in downtown and the central city.
  In the 1980s and 1990s he was one of Portland's most esteemed business and civic leaders, honored with "dozens" of awards and holding positions on several volunteer boards, commissions, and advisory committees. He commonly went by the name Bill, as opposed to William. An arterial street in downtown Portland, Front Avenue, was renamed Naito Parkway in his honor.
context_section_description: Bill returned again to Portland in 1952 to join his brother Sam Naito in running their family-owned import business, which in 1958 was incorporated as Norcrest China Company.  In 1962, they purchased a decaying former hotel (the historic Globe Hotel) in what was then known as downtown Portland's "Skid Road" district, now Old Town, and converted it into a retail store named Import Plaza. The risky move proved a success, as the store thrived, and inspired the Naito brothers to acquire several other vacant or neglected historic buildings in downtown over the next several years and renovate them at a time when most other developers were shifting their focus to the suburbs and abandoning downtown. Bill Naito is credited with coining the name "Old Town" for Portland's Skid Road district, in order to improve the area's image, and one way he publicized the name was by having it painted in large letters on the side of a water tower atop the building Norcrest China occupied, the White Stag building. The name Old Town is now in widespread use for the district at the northeast end of downtown. 
  Headed by Bill and Sam Naito, Norcrest China Company became even more a property development company than a retailing enterprise, but remained both, with Bill focused on the former and Sam on the latter.  Ultimately, the Naito brothers acquired and renovated more than 20 historic buildings in Portland.  Among them was the Merchants' Hotel, built in the 1880s, which the Naitos' Skidmore Development Company restored and converted into mixed office and retail use in 1968.  In a 1979 article, The Oregonian newspaper wrote that the "former Merchants Hotel in Old Town went from virtually abandoned building to cornerstone of Old Town business district, thanks to vision of Bill and Sam Naito."
  One of their highest-profile such investments came in 1975, when they purchased the Olds, Wortman & King building, a six-story former Rhodes department store, occupying a full downtown block, which had closed the year before.  They restored the 1910 building and converted it into an indoor shopping arcade for dozens of small stores and restaurants—downtown Portland's first shopping mall—which they named the "Galleria" and opened in 1976. An article in The Oregonian three months after the Galleria's opening referred to this project as being possibly "the most exciting development in downtown [Portland] merchandising in several decades."
  At the same time, Bill Naito worked to convince others of his vision that downtown Portland could become a thriving, attractive place, if given attention and investment.  In addition to private property development, he believed that investment in public amenities was also a key part of that equation.  He was a strong proponent of building a light rail system in Portland when proposed in the 1970s—the MAX system which opened in 1986 and has expanded since—as well as other public transit investments in downtown, including the Portland Transit Mall, Fareless Square, Portland Vintage Trolley, and the Portland Streetcar.  He led a successful effort to plant more than 10,000 trees in the city, as founder of the Street Tree Advisory Committee, which became Portland's Urban Forestry Commission and which he chaired from 1976 until his death.  He donated space to start Portland's Saturday Market, a popular arts and crafts market that has been held in the Old Town/Chinatown district continuously since 1974.  He was co-founder and chairman of Artquake, an annual arts festival held in downtown from the 1980s until 1995.  He fought for adequate funding to keep Multnomah County's public libraries in operation.
  Although focused on downtown Portland, Naito's development efforts were not limited to it.  Norcrest launched its Made in Oregon brand with the opening of a store at the Portland International Airport in 1975.  By the 1990s it had grown to a chain of 11 stores. And, in 1985–1986 Naito Properties acquired and renovated a nine-story former Montgomery Ward catalog warehouse in Northwest Portland, refitting it for offices and trade shows/banq
caption: Montgomery Park in 2011
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