Flies may still dance in front of its smelly, decaying entrance, but Portland's once notorious

is on track to be reborn.

At Tuesday night's Old Town/Chinatown Neighborhood Association meeting, a team of developers will unveil plans to purchase and transform the Grove, located at 421 West Burnside, into an Asian- and art-themed development featuring six retail spaces, a restaurant and an international youth hostel.

The powers behind it include

,

, and developers David Gold and Howard Davis.

But for the

, which is selling the empty building and helping finance the deal, the bigger goal is to spur development in this area once resistant to gentrification but now frequented by college students from Asia and hipsters immersed in food, computers and skateboard culture.

"It's expected to be transformative," said Anne Mangan, a PDC spokeswoman. "But it's a long ways away. When it's finished, it would offer vibrancy that would bring in a different clientele to the area and infuse it with a different mix of people."

Negotiations haven't been finalized and the PDC won't approve a deal for a few more months, but developers hope to open the building on January 23, 2012, the Chinese New Year.

Because negotiations are still ongoing, neither party would disclose financial details other than the proposed sale and renovation involves equity from the developers, Grove Hostel Property, LLC, and loans from the PDC and a bank. The PDC has designated $2.7 million in development funds for the Grove for fiscal year 2011-12 and previously paid $3.71 million for the purchase and renovation of the building in a deal first struck in 2007.

Built in 1907, the Grove was owned for nearly six decades by Morris Hasson. Occupants often included people with mental health and substance abuse issues. But so profoundly abundant were its rodents, filth and garbage that city inspectors found more than 480 code violations there.

In 2007, Commissioner Randy Leonard, whose portfolio includes public safety and revitalization projects, and former City Commissioner Erik Sten, brokered a deal for

, to purchase and rehabilitate the building from Hasson. The deal called for PDC to provide the funding and take over the building after renovation. In March of 2010, the PDC received ownership of the Grove.

For the PDC, the 21,400 square-foot commercial space, which is otherwise notable because it's located next to the gated entrance into Chinatown, serves a larger plan.

"No one wanted the Grove as a long-term asset," said Home Forward's executive director, Steve Rudman. "It was for the renaissance of Old Town. We just brought the building up to code."

Though stalled, the development of an Asian grocery store,

, with 140 mixed-income apartments on its upper floors and located on the block north of the Grove, was one anticipated element of that renaissance. Gold said funding issues for the Uwajimaya project may yet be resolved. He and Davis' other company, Goldsmith Holdings, have partnered with Doug Obletz's Sockeye Development on the project.

Discussions began early last year between the PDC and the Grove's diverse group of developers -- Gold's wife, Katie Gold, Davis' wife, Linda Davis, and Jay's wife, Janet Jay, are the remaining partners.

Besides participation in the Uwajimaya project, Gold and Davis' Goldsmith Holdings own the

, four buildings on the same block as the Grove Hotel comprised mostly of artist studios. Gold and a separate group of partners own a few buildings blocks away from the Grove that are leased out to some of the areas best known businesses, including the

,

and

.

Jay and his wife are part-owners of an Asian restaurant,

on Northwest Fourth Avenue.

These varied interests attracted the PDC, said those involved.

"It's affordable, accessible and ethnic," said Jay, a chief strategist at the Wieden agency. "This is how the Grove is being developed differently from things in the Pearl and Northwest 23rd Avenue."

Stephen Ying, president of the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, agrees. So far.

"They have contacted me about the project," said Ying. "I saw the blueprint and I liked it. It beautifies the Chinese Gate into Chinatown and it will be good for the area. It will bring in more tourists."

Laura Gunderson and Brad Schmidt contributed to this report.