The Study Plan - Salem River District

Purpose

Why the studies come first

Salem has done a great deal of planning work: Our Salem, the 2026-2031 Strategic Plan, the 2025 Housing Production Strategy, the Climate Action Plan strategy list and an economic opportunities analysis. What we went looking for and could not find is a current, published answer to these particular questions, for this ground, at district scale. If that work exists, we would like to be pointed at it and we will say so here.

Without answers, a developer has to build the evidence from scratch for every project, which is slow and expensive. So we are proposing that these questions be studied before anyone commits money to building. Each study would be commissioned by a public or institutional sponsor, carried out by people with no stake in the result, and published in full.

Publishing in full is part of the proposal. A study that can only confirm what its sponsor hoped for is of little use to a lender or to a city council.

The studies may show that a smaller first phase is the right one. That is a useful answer. A first phase the evidence supports is the one that can be financed.

A mass timber play structure and courtyard inside a reused industrial building, with families using it — The district would be tested on ground that is already built on. Concept render.

The Questions

Nine studies, and the questions they answer

These are the questions a lender, a public body or an investor asks before committing to a project at this scale. The first six settle whether a district here can be financed and built. The last three settle how people would live in it, move through it and visit it. They divide cleanly among several sponsors, which is usually easier than finding one organization to carry all of them.

01 · Market

Near and long term market studies. What rents and sale prices existing Salem buildings support today, which is what a first phase can be financed against, and separately what would have to change for the district to support more.

02 · District Infrastructure Planning Study

Title, environmental, civil, geotechnical, utilities, flood and stormwater, transportation and easements across the study area. It would work inside the Water and Wastewater Utility Master Plans the City is refreshing this year, the Riparian Plan, riparian buffer standards, FEMA and ESA requirements and any floodplain zoning the City takes up. Every finding sorted into no material issue, solvable at a known cost, or a possible fatal flaw.

03 · District Masterplan

A framework of streets, blocks, parks, infrastructure and development parcels, then a first phase defined precisely enough to cost. It would also set out how the rest of the ground is used while the later phases are still ahead of it.

04 · Public Private Partnership

Which public tools apply and on what terms, inside the state’s Climate Friendly and Equitable Communities rules: urban renewal and tax increment financing, infrastructure participation, system development charges, the permitting pathway and housing incentives. The City’s strategic plan carries an activity to adjust system development charges as necessary, and its climate strategy list proposes exempting walkable mixed-use development close to downtown, so the question is already on the table. Each infrastructure item assigned to a party in writing.

05 · Private Capital Survey

What investors would need to see before committing: the market findings, the priced site risks, the public commitments, the land and entitlement budget, the first phase economics, and the milestones their money would pay for.

06 · Job Creation Study

A jobs figure with its method published beside it: floor area by use, employment density for that use, published regional multipliers, construction jobs counted separately in person-years, and net jobs rather than gross.

07 · Housing Supply Strategy

What it would take to deliver homes here at the pace and price the district assumes. Regional delivery capacity, whether building components off site changes the cost of a home in Salem, and which constraints are for a company to solve and which for the state. Oregon Housing and Community Services and the Department of Land Conservation and Development are where we would start looking for a sponsor. The working notes on this.

08 · Mobility Study

How people would move to, through and across the district without needing a car for every trip. Walking and cycling first, then the bus network, then a circulator across the river, then the freight rail line on Front Street. Salem’s climate strategy list already recommends a circulator feasibility study with Cherriots as lead agency, and this would sit inside that work rather than beside it.

09 · Visitor Destination Study

Whether a landmark and a year-round program of markets and events would draw visitors from the region, what building and running one would cost, and what it would do for nearby retail, food and lodging. Travel Salem and the City’s Tourism Promotion Area are where we would start looking for a sponsor. The comparison we would test it against is Camp Adventure in Denmark, a 45 m timber tower with a ramp to the top, opened in 2019 and described as one of the most visited attractions in the country. We went looking for published visitor and payback figures and could not find them from a primary source.

People sitting around a table with papers and notes, working through a question together — The studies would be carried out by people with no stake in the answer. Concept render.

How The Answers Would Be Presented

A ladder of three cases

A single predicted number hides what a sponsor needs to see: what separates a modest result from an ambitious one, and who controls each step in between.

Floor case

What existing Salem buildings support today, with no district effect assumed. This is the case a first phase would be financed against, and it is deliberately conservative.

Base case

The floor plus the premium that comparable districts elsewhere have actually achieved, measured against those places rather than against Salem's current buildings.

Conditional cases

Two or three futures, each with a stated trigger condition and a date. An employer arriving. A transportation decision. A housing program reaching scale. Each case names who controls the condition and when it would have to happen.

Four methods would produce this, and each one is standard practice.

Threshold analysis. Run the model backwards to find the rent, absorption rate or job growth the project needs to clear its hurdle, then judge how likely that is.
Backcasting. Start at the intended district and work back to the decisions required to reach it, with dates and responsible parties attached.
What would have to be true. List the conditions that would make the district the right choice, then test the least likely one first.
Employer-anchored demand. Count the people who work in the area and live somewhere else, and estimate how many would move here if the housing existed.

One point about method. Where the studies ask about housing types that are new to the Salem market, they should use stated-preference research, which measures demand for a product buyers have not yet seen. Sales and rental records can only measure what already exists here, so relying on them alone would set the ceiling at what Salem already has.

The bottom case is what a first phase can be financed against. The upper cases state what would have to change to support more.

Measurements

Three numbers that would test the claim

The claim behind this proposal is that Salem could add people while daily life and the local environment improve. These three measurements would test it.

Vehicle trips per household

Measured against the Salem average. If households in a compact riverfront district drive as much as households at the edge of the city, the premise fails and the studies would say so.

Land used per home

Acres per dwelling, compared with the same number of homes built at the edge of the city. This is what decides how much farmland and habitat get consumed, and how much new infrastructure the city has to build and then maintain.

Carbon in reuse against replacement

The difference between reusing a building that already stands and replacing it, counted properly, including the energy performance a reused building gives up.

If the measurements support the claim, Salem has the basis for a district and a large amount of housing. If they contradict it, the city learns why at low cost, and so does every other mid-size city working on the same problem. Both results are worth the price of the studies.

A courtyard planted as a stormwater garden between apartment blocks, with families walking through — Stormwater cleaned on the block before it reaches the river. Concept render.

Limits

Two limits this proposal accepts

Salem's adopted comprehensive plan already contains most of what we are describing, so the proposal works inside it. Two limits follow from that.

High-value industrial land stays industrial

Salem's comprehensive plan directs the city to preserve large, flat, serviced industrial sites with highway access. The employment land east of the city is exactly that, and it should keep doing the job it was set aside for. This proposal asks for none of it.

The industrial land surplus is stated plainly

Salem's 2015 economic opportunities analysis found a commercial deficit alongside an industrial surplus. The studies would start from that finding. It is one of the reasons the case here rests on housing, mixed use and the riverfront.

A third thing we do not yet know is which urban renewal area this ground sits in by the time any of it is decided. The City’s 2026-2031 Strategic Plan carries a first-year activity to complete updates and adopt the North Waterfront Urban Renewal Area plan, and what that area covers bears on anything proposed for the east bank. We went looking for a published boundary and could not find one. Settling it early would save everyone time.

There is an open question inside the second limit. That analysis was adopted in 2015 for a twenty year period and is now eleven years old, and industrial land has been used since. Whether the surplus is still the size the document reports is worth checking, and a study could settle it in a few weeks.

A street of reused buildings with shops and workshops at ground level and homes above — Housing and mixed use on ground that is already inside the city. Concept render.

Sequence

The order the studies would run in

The questions depend on one another, so the order matters. Running them out of order is how study money gets spent twice.

Market and infrastructure, together

These two are independent of each other and everything else depends on both. The market study sets what can be financed. The infrastructure study says whether there is anything to finance it on. Running them at the same time saves several months.

The public conversation, starting at the same time

What the city, the region and the state would do takes the longest to settle, because it is a series of meetings rather than a report. Starting it alongside the technical work means the answers arrive together.

The district framework and the first phase

Once the market and infrastructure studies are finished, the masterplan and a costed first phase can be drawn against real constraints.

Housing supply and mobility, alongside the framework

Both shape what the framework can assume. The housing supply strategy sets what can be delivered and at what price. The mobility study sets how many trips the streets have to carry, and Salem’s climate strategy list already puts a circulator feasibility study with Cherriots, so this one has a sponsor before it has a budget.

The visitor destination study, once there is a framework to place it in

A landmark and a year-round program only make sense against a drawn district, so this follows the framework rather than leading it.

Job creation, last

The jobs figure depends on what the framework says would be built and at what pace, so producing it earlier produces a number with no method behind it. The private capital survey is assembled at the same time, because it is a summary of everything the other eight studies found rather than a study of its own.

One practical point for any sponsor. Most public funding programs will pay only for costs incurred after an award is made. Work that starts early, however sensible, usually cannot count toward a grant or its match. Check that rule before signing any engagement.

A shared ground floor where people work at benches, with a market and a street beyond — Work in sequence, on ground that is already inside the city. Concept render.

Division of Labor

Who does what

Most of what is described here belongs to other parties. This is our understanding of how it would divide.

Who	What only they can do
The City	Land use, the entitlement pathway, urban renewal financing, the public realm, and the decision about the future of the riverfront.
Region and State	Site readiness, transportation, workforce programs, and funding routes that a private applicant cannot access.
Employers	Stating what they need in order to hire and retain people here, and whether workforce housing nearby would affect their decisions.
Universities and colleges	Research capacity, the training pipeline, and shared instrumentation that no single company would buy alone.
The community	A seat in governance from the start, and the standing to say when it is going wrong.
Philanthropy	Funding the studies before there is a commercial answer to sell.
Now City	Assembling the questions, carrying development risk, and building a first phase.

A long shared table in a market hall with neighbors of several generations eating together — Most of what is described here belongs to somebody else. Concept render.

The Ask

What we are asking for

Public and institutional sponsors to commission and publish the studies.

Now City is an eligible applicant for almost none of the funding available for studies of this kind, and that is appropriate. Public money should not pay a private developer to study its own site. What is needed are sponsors who can commission the studies independently and publish them: cities, counties, economic development organizations, universities and foundations. The questions divide cleanly, so no single organization has to carry all of them.

The first step is a meeting rather than a grant. The city, the region, the state, employers and local institutions in one room, agreeing which questions matter and who takes each one.

The results would be a public asset. Published answers about jobs, travel and housing in this region, available to every developer, employer and public body that comes after us, whatever those answers say about our project. They would also let private investors price Salem, which is why we want them done.

A planted courtyard street between apartment blocks with people walking and sitting out — What published answers would make possible. Concept render.