Just about every day we tell you about the troubles in downtown Portland, right? And today’s no different. Only today we’re focusing on the city owned and operated smart park garages. They become a hotspot for crime. And now the city is doing something about it. Let’s bring in Mike Benner,
Who’s in downtown for us. So, Mike, what have you learned about this? Yeah, Brittany. The Portland Bureau of Transportation will be shelling out hundreds of thousands of dollars to add security guards who will patrol these smart park garages. And that is a good thing, because,
As one guy who already does the job told me, it’s not a matter of if your car gets broken into. It’s when the Smart Park garage at SW 4th and Yam Hill was busy Tuesday. Among the drivers pulling in was Sam Clausen, and she did so with some anxiety due
To what happened only a month ago. I parked my car about the 5th floor. I came back to my car and the back window had been smashed out. Anything stolen? Yeah, I would say about like 300, four, $100 worth of things. Yeah, How frustrating. Very frustrating. Others might not have had a
Bad experience at the city owned and operated garage, but that’s not to say they’re not worried about parking here. In fact, Carrie Pello told us she’s nervous. That’s a good What’s going to happen when I come back to my car? Is it going to be? I see the signs in there saying
Smash and grab, grab your, you know, make sure you lock your car, make sure nothing is visible. I’m like, Oh my gosh, doesn’t feel very safe. And that’s not an understatement. We’re told drug use is rampant in the smart park garages. They become a place to sleep for the houseless.
And as Kerry alluded to, there are a lot of smash and grabs. All right, A guy who patrols these smart park garages, it tells me one of the latest things he’s seen the bad guys do is brake lights. Just like this, then it’s dark and people start breaking into the cars and they’re
Using skateboards and things like the drainage grate right here. None of it is sitting well with the city. A spokesperson for the Portland Bureau of Transportation says PBOT is spending between 2.5 and $2.7 million to beef up security in the smart park garages. The money will go towards hiring 10 new security guards.
They, along with four others already on contract, will patrol the five smart park garages downtown, and that includes one that is temporarily closed. We have an obligation to Portlanders and to customers who are visiting downtown. We see the people using those garages as customers. And like any other business downtown,
We’re trying to spend some money to create a sense of security and make sure that people feel safe. The gesture is very much appreciated by those who use the garages. That would be great. I would like that. That sounds great. Yeah. I would love to have more security for breaking downtown.
The last thing Sam Clawson wants is for what happened to her to happen to somebody else, right? As we mentioned in that story, one of the garages is temporarily closed. It’s at SW 3rd and Alder. But I’m told that PBOT officials are starting to sit down and talk
About ways to reopen that garage. They might turn it into a place for vendors or maybe make it a spot to roller skate, similar to what we see at Lloyd Center. So be sure to keep an eye out for more on that in the coming weeks, Brittany.
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