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Under the leadership of Executive Director Patrick Quinton, the Portland Development Commission tightened its budget and focus.

(The Oregonian)

Patrick Quinton, the director of Portland's urban renewal agency, announced Monday that he's calling it quits so he can pursue other opportunities.

Quinton, 50, plans to step down this spring after more than five years leading the Portland Development Commission, one of the city's most prominent and influential bureaus. His final day will be in May or June.

"Five years, in my head, has always seemed like the right amount of time in this job," said Quinton, who joined the city's redevelopment arm in 2008 after 16 years in the financial sector.

Quinton's looming departure comes as the development commission moves forward on one of its highest-profile projects, acquisition of the Pearl District post office campus, and at an odd time politically with the 2016 election cycle looming. Quinton said he realized there would never be an ideal moment to step down but decided he was ready, and wanted to announce his decision before looking for a new job.

"He's leaving at the top of his game, with an agency that's been reformed on his watch, that's doing great things," said Mayor Charlie Hales, who oversees the development commission.

Although Hales leaves office at year's end, Hales said he plans to conduct a search and hire Quinton's replacement rather than wait for a mayoral successor to be crowned. "My inclination would be to proceed," Hales said.

Quinton took control of the agency in February 2011 under former Mayor Sam Adams, who made economic development a top priority amid the crippling recession. When Hales became mayor in 2013, he pushed the agency back toward its "place-making" role.

The straight-talking Quinton managed to navigate City Hall politics amid those and other shifting strategies, most notably new attention to Old Town Chinatown, revisions to several urban renewal districts and fallout over gentrification and affordable housing. Quinton also directed two painful rounds of layoffs at the agency.

Under Quinton's watch, the development commission jumpstarted redevelopment of the Central Eastside's Burnside Bridgehead, including subsidies to renovate an old office building and selling land for a massive apartment tower that altered Portland's skyline.

The agency also created an economic development strategy, focused on helping startups and entrepreneurs, and launched small-scale urban renewal districts for struggling east Portland neighborhoods.

Along the way, the development commission kicked in money to help keep marquee employer Iberdrola Renewables in town and bought property in the Lents urban renewal district for what would become the popular Portland Mercado - something Quinton considers "one of the best real estate projects we did."

Quinton also carried out Hales' desire to revamp several urban renewal districts and bowed to the City Council's recent decision to steer more urban renewal money to affordable housing. By the time Quinton leaves, he expects to have finally secured Portland's long-term vision of buying the Pearl District post office for redevelopment.

"He's accomplished a lot," Hales said.

But Quinton's tenure hasn't been without hiccups.

The agency got publicly hammered in 2013 and 2014 because of plans to subsidize a Trader Joe's grocery store in gentrifying Northeast Portland. It later tried to move forward on a deal to subsidize South Waterfront redevelopment without setting requirements for affordable housing.

The commission also has spent millions of dollars on derelict Centennial Mills without crafting a workable plan to redevelop the riverfront property. And Quinton hasn't finalized plans for the agency's financial future despite deep-rooted worries that urban renewal funds will eventually dry up.

"I wish I had made more progress on that in my time here," he said.

Tom Kelly, Quinton's boss and Hales' pick as chairman of the development commission's appointed board, praised Quinton's leadership and communication style.

Kelly pointed to a flap last September when developer John Russell, a Hales ally who used to chair the development commission, publicly complained that the agency lacked managers with "the talent and the experience to make visions realities."

Quinton fired back days later with his own op-ed piece, defending his staff, calling out several female project managers by name, and saying Russell's vision of a strong development commission is "a bunch of white dudes single-handedly building this city brick by brick."

"It's those kind of things that can separate a person, and make them special," Kelly said of Quinton's response.

Quinton, Hales and Kelly all say the decision to step down was Quinton's alone. In an October evaluation, Kelly scored Quinton as being "fully successful," two rungs below the "outstanding" score that Quinton earned from the old chairman, Scott Andrews, in 2014.

Quinton earns $171,000 annually and would have received severance of six months pay if he'd been fired before June 2017.

Kelly echoed Hales' views on hiring Quinton's replacement rather than waiting for Portland's next mayor to weigh in. "It's our job to keep the agency going in the best way possible, as opposed to waiting for the next politician to come along," he said.

Married with three kids in junior and senior high, Quinton said he plans to stay in Portland and is looking forward to whatever comes next.

"I'm not concerned about being unemployed," he said, "for any period of time."

-- Brad Schmidt

bschmidt@oregonian.com

503-294-7628

@cityhallwatch