Seven years ago, downtown Portland's West End didn't look like much. Butcher paper covered many storefront windows. Trees and streetlights were few and far between. The nearby Galleria mall sat without a major tenant, and sidewalks in the area didn't see much foot-traffic.

"It was barren," said Gina Morris.

"It was kind of literally a dark spot, because nothing was open," said Celestial Sipes.

Sipes and Morris own Radish Underground boutique, which opened in 2008, one of the early arrivals that helped spark revitalization in the neighborhood.

These days,

the West End

is home to some of the city's most popular home-grown shops and restaurants. Wildfang, Pepe Le Moko, Frances May, Clyde Common, Solestruck, Stumptown and Poler all help form the nexus of the now-trendy slice of Portland, situated between the Pearl District and Pioneer Courthouse Square.

Other parts of downtown are looking to follow suit. The same trends that have elevated the West End - an influx of new residents, dropping vacancy rates, relatively affordable rents (now on the rise) - make it increasingly likely that other retail deserts surrounding downtown will also fill in, brokers and developers say.

Starting with Old Town Chinatown.

"There's no space left in the West End, so now they're turning to Old Town Chinatown," said Lisa Frisch, retail program director for the Portland Business Alliance.

Craig Sweitzer, of Urban Works Real Estate, agrees.

"Old Town is, like, it," he said. "It's the new West End. The East side (of the Willamette River) has become the new Pearl proper. But Old Town is going to completely evolve into a new species. It's just a natural cycle."

Howard Weiner opened his Cal Skate Skateboards shop near NW Sixth and Davis in 1984, was a founding member of the Old Town Chinatown Community Association and chaired it for six years.

"I would say over the last 30 years, retail in Old Town Chinatown has languished," he said.

It's not hard to understand why, said Weiner: "A lack of residents with disposable income."

But with the Portland Development Commission's five-year Old Town Chinatown plan, which was approved in 2014 and includes $57 million from urban renewal funds for area redevelopment, that could change soon.

Current development, driven by the booming economy, low interest rates and appealing prices in Old Town Chinatown, is attracting permanent residents and visitors alike.

A mixed-use project next to the Oregon College of Oriental Medicine is adding about 65 residential units, and the commission's five-year plan calls for 500 new middle-income housing units in the area.

Hotels, with visitors ready to shop and eat nearby, will also boost retail demand. The Society Hotel recently opened in a historic building at NW Third and Davis, offering 36 private rooms and 24 beds in a shared room. Last month, the Historic Landmarks Commission approved the renovation and expansion of the Grove Hotel, near the Chinatown gate.

With added foot traffic, Old Town Chinatown could eventually become a bustling retail destination, much like the West End today.

An expanding core

The bottom line is that Portland's retail core will continue to expand, say Frisch and others. The drivers of this expansion, in addition to the lack of available retail space elsewhere because of the strong economy, are improved streetcar lines and the increasing number of people who live and work in the area.

"I think there's just more and more demand," said Greg Goodman, co-president of Downtown Development Group, which owns several properties downtown and is a longtime player in Portland's commercial real estate market. "There are fewer people driving, and more people working and living downtown."

Sweitzer said the influx of people who want to live downtown is a key part of the equation.

"Downtown has all the infrastructure in place," he said. "Roads, streetcar - the one thing the central city's always had the biggest problem with is we don't have enough residents living there.

"As the city keeps building that residential growth, I think it will become healthier and more like what we think of as a big city today," he said. "More like a 24-hour cycle. The joke used to be after 5 (p.m.) they roll up the sidewalks in Portland, because you don't really need them. The farther east or west you walked from Broadway, the darker it got, the worse it got for retail."

But as more residents move in to the central city, the demand for bars, restaurants and other late-night spots will grow. And these amenities are what transform a city street into a neighborhood capable of supporting retailers, Sweitzer said. (A city requirement that new buildings downtown activate their ground floors - usually with a store, restaurant or coffee shop - should help.)

"When people take ownership, there's a demand for more retail," he said.

Walking the streets of the West End now, the transformation is evident. Even on a rainy Thursday afternoon, shoppers weighed down with umbrellas and bags from Nordstrom, Target and Powell's filled the streets of the West End, peering into storefronts strung with Christmas lights and garlands.

"It's nice," said Sipes, of Radish Underground. "It feels like a safer downtown than it did when we opened. It feels more collaborative, it feels more homeish; whereas it felt very gritty.

"It feels like more of a neighborhood."

-- Anna Marum

amarum@oregonian.com

503-294-5911

@annamarum