Beaverton Urban Redevelopment Agency Meeting - August 25, 2026
Beaverton Urban Redevelopment Agency Meeting - August 25, 2026
The Beaverton Urban Redevelopment Agency (BURA) Board met on August 25, 2026, to discuss and take action on several items including the grants program, parking enforcement, contract extensions for the First Street Dining Commons, and an update on the Beaver Dam sites development solicitation. The meeting included board communications, a consent agenda, and a business item.
Consent Calendar
- The board approved the minutes from May 26, 2026, and June 16, 2026, by a vote of 8-0-3 (three absent).
Public Comments & Testimony
- No visitors spoke during the visitor comments portion.
Discussion Items
- Grants Program Work Session: Mayor Beatty requested a future work session to reconsider the Bureau's grant program, including changing from annual to quarterly cycles and focusing on business incubation and retail, not just restaurants. Board members expressed support. A motion to direct the executive director to bring a work session in Q1 2027, and to have URAC hold a similar conversation, passed 9-0-3 (with three absent).
- Downtown Activations & Small Business Concerns: Board member Hussen raised concerns from small businesses about downtown activations potentially taking away business. The board agreed to fold this into the upcoming grant program discussion and refer to URAC. No formal motion.
- Parking Enforcement: Board member Duggar reported complaints from businesses about aggressive parking enforcement tactics, including ticketing for unloading and multiple tickets in one day. Executive Director Andy confirmed no change in strategy, only that warnings have ended and enforcement has begun. He encouraged businesses to report specific issues for coaching.
- First Street Dining Commons Contract Extensions: Mayor Beatty pulled items 4.2 and 4.3 (property management and events production contract extensions) from the consent agenda for discussion. She expressed frustrations with high costs, slow vendor response, and lack of a permanent structure plan. Board member Duggar moved to extend the contracts for eight months (instead of a year) to allow time for planning and an RFP. The motion passed 8-0-3. Staff will develop a plan for a more permanent solution.
- Beaver Dam Sites Development Solicitation Update: Senior Development Project Manager Janine Lambert and Economic Development Manager Mike Williams presented an update on the 5.38-acre site. Market conditions showed strong retail (2.2% vacancy), low office vacancy (3.9% but with development challenges), and a recovering hotel market. The board discussed solicitation goals: prioritizing tax revenue, living-wage employment, density, connectivity, and gateway reinforcement. Board members supported a flexible approach, potentially using an RFEI or RFQ instead of a full RFP, and emphasized the need for innovative housing, arts district integration, and long-term developer commitment. No vote was taken; staff will refine the solicitation.
Key Outcomes
- Motion passed (9-0-3): Direct executive director to schedule a work session in Q1 2027 on grants program, and to engage URAC.
- Motion passed (8-0-3): Extend the property management and events production contracts for the First Street Dining Commons for eight months (retroactive to July 1, 2026), with a directive to develop a plan for a permanent structure.
- Consent agenda minutes approved (8-0-3).
- The board will hold future work sessions on the loop project, tax increment funding, and the dining commons.
- The Beaver Dam sites solicitation will be refined with board feedback and released by the end of the calendar year.
Note: An executive session followed the public meeting to discuss real property transactions.
Meeting Transcript
Welcome everybody. I'm going to call the August 25th, 2026 Beaverton Urban Redevelopment Agency meeting to order. Will the recorder please call the role? Board member Duggar. I'm here. Hartmeyer Prigg. Here. Here. Kimmy. Okay. Um Teeter. Here. I have that Tivnon is absent. Bailey. Okay, I see by the screen that she's on line. Yeah, uh Mayor, your audio is just a little quiet there. Can you hear me? Yep. Uh Jennifer Nye. Here. Um I have Corrine Hanning and Sarah Walton down as absent. Eric Lair. Okay. Okay, is that everybody? I'm going to assume so. Okay. Uh let's begin with board communications. Do any board members have any information they would like to share with the rest of the board or the executive director? If you do, please put your name in the chat. We're calling, I see the mayor's hand going up, so I'm going to go ahead and call on her. Anybody else has anything, please put your name in the chat. I'm guessing this is serving as like new business. But uh I would like us to take a second and uh consider having a future work session on our grants program for Bureau. So I don't know, I think two years ago we changed the timeline of the grants that we're only accepting them annually. We did that with a lot of information about the grant program being spent out in Q1 and other businesses couldn't apply. But I've recently, probably over the last six months, received a lot of feedback from people trying to apply to the grant that like once a year is not really jiving with the real estate market and lease signings. And so I don't exactly, I mean, I would think we could do quarterly, but I think it's worth a conversation with the Bureau board about that. And then in conjunction with that, really thinking about what we're trying to accomplish. We have a really great restaurant strategy, but I I would like us to focus on retail versus just restaurants and some other ideas that we have a lot of other businesses incubating businesses like Lionheart, for example, hosted over the summer an ice cream shop in their store that created more of a 12 to 15 hour use. Um the same with the brewery, binary, and downtown, their kitchen is actually a separate, it's a teriyaki place run by another family, and it just has me thinking that like while we're not gonna be able to necessarily build a lot of new space for retail in Beaverton. Should we be incentivizing this kind of business incubation within pre-existing businesses? So I would just like my request is a work session in the next couple months to have an open conversation. And with that, I would love for it to go to URAC. URAC is has a lot more business owners on it and how they use the district, and so their feedback to me would be really important, particularly as we're heading into the budget season. We underlevied Bureau last year, and instead of under-levying, I'd rather us take the approach of business incubation, which is what uh really Bureau was designed to do. Thank you, Mayor. I see board member Hussen's name in the chat too, so we'll go to you. And if anybody else have has comments on the mayor's comments, please put your name in the chat. This is different. So do you want me to talk about the different thing or address the mayor's comments?
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