page_title: Pioneer Courthouse Square
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Pioneer Courthouse Square / History
caption_attribution_description: Portland's Pioneer Courthouse Square in 1986. Note the sign for Powell's Travel Store at left (in operation 1985–2005); the purple tile that originally surfaced the waterfall fountain, replaced in 1995 with granite veneer; and "Le Pavillon" restaurant in the space now occupied by Starbuck's. This was also before the Weather Machine was installed (1988) and before Nordstrom expanded upwards (circa 1989) by adding a fourth story.
context_page_description: Pioneer Courthouse Square, also known as Portland's living room, is a public space occupying a full 40,000-square-foot city block in the center of downtown Portland, Oregon, United States. Opened in 1984, the square is bounded by Southwest Morrison Street on the north, Southwest 6th Avenue on the east, Southwest Yamhill Street on the south, and Southwest Broadway on the west.
context_section_description: The square is named after the Pioneer Courthouse, an 1875 federal building occupying the block directly east of the square.
  The block itself dates to 1856, when the city purchased land that included the site as the location for Central School. The school was moved in 1883 when plans were made for a major hotel on the site in response to the arrival of the Northern Pacific Railway. After delays due to a recession, the eight-story Portland Hotel was completed on the site in 1890.
  The hotel was the center of the city's social activity for the first half of the 20th century. In 1951, the hotel was torn down and a two-story parking lot was built.  An original archway and gatework from the hotel were made part of the square's design and are found today on the east side of the square.
  An 800-car parking garage was proposed to the Portland Planning Commission in January 1969, but the commission rejected the idea, instead calling for a public plaza. In the early 1970s, a comprehensive downtown plan proposed that the site become dedicated public space. In 1975, then mayor of Portland Neil Goldschmidt began negotiating with local department store Meier & Frank to obtain the property for the city and eventually convinced the store to sell the land to the city after its parking concerns were alleviated.  By early 1980, a design competition was announced, seeking proposals for what was to become Pioneer Courthouse Square. Out of 162 submissions, five finalists emerged, from firms based in New York City, Philadelphia, San Francisco/Los Angeles, Boston, and Portland. The Portland team, "a group of rabble-raising architects, writers, and an artist" led by chief designer Willard Martin, competed against a group composed of Frank Ivancie and Bill Roberts, who wanted to charge admission to a full-block atrium at the site. Willard Martin's group literally painted their design on the parking lot occupying the block, and their plan was accepted. Their design received an "Architectural Design Citation" from Progressive Architecture magazine in 1981.
  Funding problems surfaced after the design was completed. Portland mayor Frank Ivancie led some downtown business owners and other influential citizens in opposing the concept of an open (instead of enclosed) public square, based on concerns that an open design would attract transients to the area.  Former Governor Tom McCall, who by then was a television commentator, was indignant: "It would be a shock ... to learn that a few power brokers have decreed that the result of the nationwide design rivalry is meaningless..."
  The square's construction required $3 million for land acquisition and $4.3 million for the structures and amenities, a large enough amount that the opposition nearly doomed the project.  Martin, together with other architects and volunteers, drew attention to the delays from the opposition by painting a stylized blueprint of the proposal on the site itself.  But it took the formation of "Friends of Pioneer Square", a citizens' group led by city commissioners Charles Jordan and Mike Lindberg, and $750,000 raised by the sale of 50,000 inscribed bricks, to rescue the project.
  The square opened on April 6, 1984, with an inaugural celebration that attracted more than 10,000 people.  The square is owned by the city of Portland and is a city park.
  By October 1988, when the square's fountain was turned over to the Portland Water Bureau, it already needed repairs. The Oregonian called it "a leaker with corroding drain lines". Repair work was undertaken in 1995, during which the purple tiles that had originally surfaced the fountain were replaced with granite veneer.  The fountain received another overhaul in 2006, but without any change to its appearance.
  In 1989, a Starbucks coffeehouse opened at the northwest corner of the square, replacing a series of failed restaurants at the same location. Still in existence, this was the company's first Oregon outlet and its 40th overall.
  In 2001, the completion of Fox Tower, a skyscraper on the block immediately southwest of the square, caused controv
caption: A 1986 view, showing the fountain's original color and a banner for Powell's Travel Store
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "Pioneer Courthouse Square in March 1986. Photo by Steve Morgan.", "Image Make": "Plustek", "Image Model": "OpticFilm 7600i", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "QuickTime 7.6.6", "Image DateTime": "2015:03:06 08:49:31", "Image ExifOffset": "274", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2015:03:03 12:36:25", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1440", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "901"}