The 21-story Yard building, going up at the base of the Burnside Bridge, is already one of the most visible developments on Portland's east side. Its distinctive design and prominent location promise it will be all but impossible to miss for downtown visitors and residents.

But it's not the building Portland thought it was getting.

The Portland Bureau of Development Services has acknowledged that between the Portland Design Commission's approval of the project in 2013 and the issuance of a building permit nearly two years later, Portland-based Skylab Architecture made changes to the plan that should have triggered either revisions to the design or a reset of the land-use review process. But the city didn't catch the changes and issued the building permit anyway.

The result is a project that will have about 10 percent less "glazing," or glass windows, than the design commission-approved version would have had on the outside of the building. Many of the windows that were lost are at the top - the renderings show the top of the building's exterior as consisting almost entirely of glass windows - which means the tower will be darker than originally planned.

Renderings of the Yard project showed that near the top of the building, the exterior would be nearly all glass windows.

This is the 21-story Yard building (left) under construction on the east side of the Burnside Bridge. Stephanie Yao Long/Staff

As the tower rose over the summer and fall, David Wark found himself wondering whether the building taking shape reflected the same proposal he'd accepted as chair of the design commission. Other commissioners took notice, too, he said.

"We said, collectively, 'Is that the building design that we approved?'" said Wark, whose day job is as a principal at Hennebery Eddy Architects in downtown Portland.

Wark said it's typical for developers and architects to make minor changes between the design approval and the application for a building permit. But larger adjustments, he said, should trigger either consultations with city staff or another round of public hearings on the design.

On the other hand, increased regulations tend to increase the cost and time required to deliver new buildings in the midst of an affordable housing crisis, developers say.

Yard's owners will receive 10 years of property tax breaks from the city in exchange for making 57 of the 284 apartments affordable to those making up to 60 percent of the area's median family income. It is scheduled to open in July and will also include the latest location of the popular restaurant Tilt.

-- Luke Hammill

lhammill@oregonian.com

503-294-4029

@lucashammill