Residents of the Argay Terrace and Parkrose neighborhoods aren’t backing down of their combat to cease the rich proprietor of the Minnesota Vikings from constructing a 260,000-square-foot freight warehouse on a chunk of property he owns of their East Portland neighborhood.

The Parkrose Argay Alternative Coalition, a bunch of residents, mentioned they’re working with a agency known as Argos Scientific to gather air high quality information and decide if they need to file an “environmental justice grievance” with the Environmental Safety Company.

Vikings proprietor Zygmunt Wilf plans to construct the tilt-up concrete warehouse on the web site of the massive, vacant Kmart on Northeast Sandy Boulevard at 122nd Avenue, and lease it to Prologis, a San Francisco-based firm that ships merchandise for Amazon, Dwelling Depot and others.

“Argos Scientific produces highly-sensitive air high quality gear and is deploying displays in the neighborhood,” the coalition mentioned in a press launch. “They are going to be modeling impacts that diesel truck air pollution from a lot of these warehouses will deliver to part of Portland already experiencing disproportionate quantities of air pollution and site visitors.”

Wilf’s parcel of land is throughout the road from Parkrose Excessive Faculty and adjoining to a low-income housing improvement known as Hidden Oaks Flats. The freight warehouse can be the most recent of many within the space. The others, although, are north of Sandy Boulevard. This one would protrude southward right into a largely residential neighborhood.

The positioning turned infamous in August 2021 after the Proud Boys gathered for a far-right pageant that became a paintball and baseball-bat brawl with anti-fascists.

Wilf made his fortune in actual property after taking on his father’s residential-building firm, Backyard Houses. Wilf has owned the Kmart property below numerous entities for the reason that Nineteen Eighties.

“The Coalition would like to see the property proprietor, Backyard Houses, work with the neighborhood to discover a higher use for the previous Kmart ,” coalition member Angela Baker mentioned in an announcement. “Neighborhood members have expressed curiosity in a grocery retailer, extra housing, and eating places, and Parkrose Faculties are interested by utilizing the situation as a STEM heart.”

Neither Backyard Dwelling nor Prologis instantly returned emails in search of remark.

Portland’s Bureau of Improvement Providers mentioned its assertion from 2022 nonetheless stood:

“Presently, a allow utility is below evaluation by the Bureau of Improvement Providers and different Metropolis bureaus. This utility proposes a ‘new tilt-up concrete tilt-up semi-heated warehouse constructing with one workplace tenant house’ and “related web site work.”