The city of Portland has two “islands” it needs to activate, and neither is going to be easy.

The city, and a still unknown development partner, will rescue the Memorial Coliseum, after deciding last year not to tear down the structure to make room for the Portland Beavers baseball team. The coliseum, located in the Rose Quarter, is on an island of property bounded by a freeway and heavily trafficked arterials.

An equally challenging feat will be activating the Burnside Bridgehead – an island of four blocks at the east end of the Burnside Bridge that the city owns and now needs to develop.

The bridgehead project was conceived as a catalyst for growth in the vast central eastside. In reality, the bridgehead is a relatively small area compared to the nearly 700 acres it is intended to activate. The bridgehead will be surrounded by commuters in a hurry to get somewhere – whether it’s drivers on Interstate 5, or drivers looking for the onramp to the Banfield Freeway.

The challenge will be making the bridgehead an area where developers will want to build work-live buildings, office space and retail.

But, since it’s in the central eastside, it can’t be a carbon copy of anything in the Pearl District or downtown.

“We’re looking to create another context for what the central eastside is: affordable, gritty and community-based,” said Brad Malsin of Beam Development, which is the strategic advisor to the city on the project.

At a Feb. 4 Design Commission meeting, Malsin and architect Will Bruder shared their update of a framework plan being designed for the bridgehead.

The Design Commission was receptive to the early progress on the plan.

“We’re supportive of it and it seems like you’re on the right track,” said Jeff Stuhr, an architect and chair of the Design Commission.

Bruder’s task is to devise a framework for how the four-block bridgehead area can be built out.

The question on many peoples’ minds at the Design Commission meeting was how it can be built out and when?

Incremental growth is the most likely scenario, given the state of the economy, according to Geraldene Moyle, senior project manager of the Portland Development Commission.

“We will create a space that looks inward and extends outward to the community, as well,” Bruder told the commission.

Bruder has devised four scenarios for the roll-out of growth at the bridgehead. The scenarios range from allowing up to 650,000 square feet of new development, to as much as 880,000 square feet. All of the scenarios would allow only about 700 parking stalls.

“We want the site to be productive and create an incubator for employment,” said Moyle. “We want it to provide a variety of spaces and be innovative, attainable and sustainable.”

As much as the bridgehead project will be a catalyst for growth, it must also capture the essence of what makes the central eastside unique. While Malsin called the area “gritty,” a design commission member described the central eastside as “sleepy industrial.”

The type of office worker on the central eastside would not need Class A office space, but also would not be working in a garage, one commission member noted. Commission members admitted they don’t have a definition for that type of commercial space. But, to be sure, it would need to be affordable work space.

The lots in parts of the bridgehead would be 35-feet wide, allowing several developers to squeeze onto one block.

Long, monolithic blocks that don’t feel penetrable would not be allowed in the bridgehead area. Instead, smaller lots would allow different architectural styles and uses and not force developers to provide underground parking.

Brad said that critical to the success of the project would be finding a “critical density of people” willing to work and possibly also live in the area. “We want to attract workers who aspire to be part of the community,” he said.

To help prevent the area from being an uninviting island, Moyle said there will be a streetcar stop on M.L.K. Jr. Boulevard, and the Couch Street Couplet will divert Couch traffic through the southeast corner of the bridgehead area.

While Design Commission members generally liked the early phase of the framework plan, they said they would like to see more detail about open spaces in the bridgehead area and more discussion of sustainable components. They suggested that rooftops could have vegetation.

Bruder reiterated that the right developments could capitalize on excellent views of downtown and Mount Hood, or the “alpine vista” that is the Cascades, he said.

Malsin sounded confident that if the right developments go in, the workers and visitors will come. “Portland is primed for this kind of stuff,” he said.