Similar to what I’ve been telling people on social media and elsewhere about this. I looked up the figure, and the 12 West building took $140 million to build. And it didn’t break ground for at least a couple years after I first heard about it. And they had an actual plan. It takes a lot of time for such a big money deal to be worked out, then for the company to do their due diligence with the city, to get plans done and approved, to organize the labor involved, etc, etc.

Further, we don’t know when the next downturn in the economy will occur. But it’s likely it will be in the next couple years as these projects might just be taking hold. It’s been 6 years since we came out of our last recession and the average is about 7 years between recessions. Another recession would slow the development.

There are lots of viable plans for keeping food cart culture alive in Portland going forward. A blend of allowing trucks to use parking spots, creating incentives to build a few Asian-style hawker centers with clear mission statements, or the use of parks for small-scale concessions could all work.

But yeah, food carts aren’t going anywhere soon.