After World War II, Emery Zidell founded what would become the nation's largest ship dismantling operation on Portland's South Waterfront.

Eventually, he started using scrap metal from demolished ships to build barges, too. By the time his grandson, Matt French, was growing up in the 1980s, the South Waterfront was flourishing with heavy industry.  

French, now 32 and managing director of the Zidell family's real estate company, said he couldn't have imagined then what the riverfront area south of downtown Portland would look like these days.  Or what it's going to look like in the next 20 years.

An agreement the Zidell family has reached with the City of Portland will fill in the last remaining undeveloped part of the area, and bring in 20 to 25 more buildings.

"It's kind of amazing how quickly things can happen," said French, looking toward the Willamette River from the balcony of the family's first residential project, the Emery Apartments.

In the dark days of the recession that began in 2008, lenders wrested control of South Waterfront high-rise condo towers from developers, condos were converted to apartments amid a sluggish sales environment and construction in the whole area ground to a halt. But that feels like a distant memory now, with the economy back in full swing.

In addition to the Zidell deal, a new wave of construction is also being driven by an expansion at Oregon Health & Science University and the completion of the Tilikum Crossing bridge. There will be nine new buildings under construction next year alone, said South Waterfront-based real estate broker Sean Z. Becker.

But as the neighborhood bustles with new residents and retailers, a few things are different from the last wave of South Waterfront development, from 2004 to 2008. This time, new residential development has been limited to apartments, and high-rise towers have given way at least temporarily to more conservative mid-rise buildings.

The Zidells' 33 acres make the family the largest owner of undeveloped land in South Waterfront. The deal with the city includes at least $23.8 million in public money, which will be used for infrastructure like roads and parks. The "greenway" along the Willamette River, now accessible from the condo towers, will be extended north toward the Marquam Bridge.

"You couldn't build this anywhere else in the city," French said. "So when you talk about a blank canvas, our imagination can stretch a lot further."

The seven-story Emery Apartments opened in 2013. There's a new food cart pod called the Gantry nearby. And the next project, a five-floor office building dubbed "Block 6" for the time being, is pre-leasing. The target client is a tech or healthcare firm, French said.

While the zoning allows for buildings far higher than five or seven stories, the market currently favors mid-rises, French said. The family also wanted intriguing and site-specific design over maximum height, he added.

"We're fans of density," French said. "We like mixed-use. But there's a balance."

Portland developer Homer Williams - who helped get South Waterfront off the ground in the early 2000s and was one of those hit hard by the recession - said banks aren't as keen on financing large towers these days. He'd like to see more of them, he added, because it's a more efficient use of the available land, but he predicted it would be years before they begin to return.

Williams also said it's nearly impossible to finance condominiums at the moment, though he guessed that might eventually change, too. The first Portland condo project in years was recently announced in the North Pearl.

"Eventually, somebody's going to start building some smaller [condo] projects - 50 units, 75 units," Williams said. "Real estate has the herd effect like everything else."

French said the Zidells, though, aren't going to do condos "anytime soon."

"But is there a place for ownership in the district?" he asked. "Definitely."

Last month, Becker said, only four of the 762 condos in the neighborhood were for sale.

"I think a critical mass in this neighborhood - more retail, more people, more mass - will lead to a more vibrant, complete neighborhood," Becker said.

Becker recently sold a condo in the Atwater Place building to Carl Polesky, 75. Polesky and his wife moved to South Waterfront from the Bay Area in California, where he retired in 2005 after a career in sales. The couple came to Portland to be nearer to their son, who has lived here more than 20 years.

Plus, Polesky said, he and his wife "wanted a diversity of life."

"We wanted to have city life for once," he said. "We had been in the suburbs all those years."

Polesky enjoys the South Waterfront. He hops on the streetcar to audit classes at Portland State. He's been over Tilikum Crossing - "it's just given me more accessibility," he said.

-- By Luke Hammill | The Oregonian/OregonLive.  "South Waterfront booming again, fueled by Zidell deal, OHSU," December 13, 2015.