Residents of the Argay Terrace and Parkrose neighborhoods aren’t backing down of their struggle 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.

Residents of the Parkrose Argay Alternative Coalition say they’re working with a agency referred to 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 website of the large, vacant Kmart on Northeast Sandy Boulevard at 122nd Avenue, and lease it to Prologis, a San Francisco-based firm that ships merchandise for Amazon, House Depot and others.

“Argos Scientific produces extremely delicate air high quality tools and is deploying screens locally,” the coalition stated in a press launch. “They are going to be modeling impacts that diesel truck air pollution from all these warehouses will deliver to part of Portland already experiencing disproportionate quantities of air pollution and visitors.”

Wilf’s parcel of land is throughout the road from Parkrose Excessive College and adjoining to a low-income housing improvement referred to as Hidden Oaks Residences. 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 changed into a paintball and baseball-bat brawl with anti-fascists.

Wilf made his fortune in actual property after taking on his father’s residential constructing firm, Backyard Houses. Wilf has owned the Kmart property below numerous entities because the 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 stated in a press release. “Group members have expressed curiosity in a grocery retailer, further housing, and eating places, and Parkrose Colleges are all in favour of utilizing the placement as a STEM heart.”

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

Portland’s Bureau of Improvement Companies stated its assertion from 2022 nonetheless stood:

“Right now, a allow software is below overview by the Bureau of Improvement Companies and different metropolis bureaus. This software proposes a ‘new tilt-up concrete semi-heated warehouse constructing with one workplace tenant house’ and ‘related website work.’”