I travel a lot for work, and on this blog I’ve run a series of stories on places around the country where the grass is not greener. It is my belief that most Buffalonians have no idea how good they have it, mostly because our city tends to be isolated, insulated, and a complaining echo chamber. Everyone has a cousin in North Carolina, but has never been to visit them. So whether its employment in the southwest or a lack of services in the south east, I try to report the less than good news, to prove 1) Buffalo’s problems are not unique, so get over yourself, and b) things could be a lot worse.

I can not, in good conscience, do that for Portland, Oregon. I may not be an impartial juror, having spent many happy summers there as a child, but if you love cities, Richard Florida poster-child Portland is an urban playground.

When you walk (yes, walk, everywhere) around such an obviously successful metro, the thinking Buffalonian’s first question should be how to replicate some of that mojo. I’ll skip the large and impractical contrasts (we’re not going to build three new light rail lines or five new bridges with bike lanes any time soon), and focus on two items where we should have some WIN.

1) Why does our convention center/hotel/mall/sports complex downtown FAIL, while Portland’s is booming? I am not an urban planner or architect, and don’t claim to be. But even I can tell that if a similar complex of such facilities is full of people at all hours in one city, and desolate in another, something is wrong.

Portland’s Lloyd Center complex consists of a huge mall and parking garages, the convention center, arena for the Trail Blazers, hotels and MAX, the light rail line. Lloyd Center is across the river from the central business district, but is most definitely “downtown.” And yet it is constantly full of suburbanites who happily travel the Banfield (think Kensington) in for the pleasure of shopping there. The major infrastructure elements seem to be similar, except major retail fled Main Place Mall and Lloyd Center gets bigger every time I go. And before some light rail advocate hops in here, don’t be confused. Lloyd Center is FULL of cars and parking. Surface lots. Massive ugly parking garages. It is walkable, but far from ideal. That doesn’t seem to matter. It makes one wonder how much community culture matters, as opposed to infrastructure. Of course, no politician gets re-elected telling their constituents they need to think differently. But that’s another story.

2) Why are Portland’s historic building reuses so fun and successful, and ours are cookie cutter lofts and coffee shops with massive government incentives? This is an area where we should be leading the country, with our over supply of funky, bricky, historicy buildings around every corner at fire sale prices. But Portland leaves us in the dust for creative reuse: may I present McMenamins.

The McMenamins empire is pervasive Portland lifestyle that started with two Deadhead brothers in the ’60’s. What started with one historic building turned into a fun pub has exploded in thirty three (33!!) properties of all sizes, types and personalities in Portland alone, and another 22 in surrounding Oregon and Seattle. The basic philosophy: take an old historic property and turn it into something fun. That fun is usually irreverent, whimsical, and unexpected. Some properties end up as restaurants. Some as hotels. Some as theaters, or wineries, or breweries (McMenamins has its own line of micro-brews served at all properties, and brewed locally at about 1/3). Some are all five.

Take, for example, the Kennedy School. Built in 1915, the Kennedy School sits in a quiet north west Portland neighborhood a la North Buffalo. When the school closed, McMenamins turned it into an adult fun complex. 35 classrooms became hotel rooms, and kept the chalk boards. The school auditorium became a movie theater, where dinner is served, if you’d like. The cafeteria is a banquet hall, and was hosting a wedding when I visisted last Satrday night. There are two full restaurants, five bars, and plenty of places to hang out and chat. They added a porch for relaxing in the summer, and a hot tub (full of random partiers) outside off a bar. When you grab your beer, you can wander around the school, on the original hardwood, and look at originals pictures of the students left by the school. The fact that you feel like you are doing something “wrong” by drinking in school only adds to the experience. And of course they added the bars in obvious fun places: the principles office, detention, and my favorite: the boiler room, with the original two story boiler left in place.

This unique experience is repeated throughout Portland, where multiple McMenamins sometimes are within blocks of each other. That doesn’t seem to keep them from being perpetually full, and printing money. I’m glad Buffalo has a smattering of developers (Rocco, Silvestri, Paladino, Frizlen) willing to take on rehabs. But we seem to be stuck in an apartments-only rut. Where is the creativity?