People tour an art installation at one of the sites purchased by 1803 Fund on North Mississippi Avenue and North Interstate Avenue on July 20, 2026, in Portland, Ore. 1803 Fund is investing in several properties in the Albina neighborhood as part of its redevelopment effort.
Saskia Hatvany / OPB
Sneaker Week PDX co-founder Herbert Beauclere jokes he was waiting “patiently” for the next community partner to join his nearly decade-old festival.
The perfect one would have a similar vision of investing in Portland’s artistic and educational future. Bonus points if the group was also able to create lively, sustainable spaces in the city’s historically Black neighborhoods.
Beauclere’s patience paid off when leaders with 1803 Fund asked if he wanted to move his festival, which starts on Friday, to their most recent acquisition: a former industrial campus in the shadow of the Fremont Bridge.
“This is the perfect time for us to be able to come in and do what we do – which is activate these spaces,” Beauclere said. “And then for them to come in and do what they do in regards to investing in these businesses and within the community.”
An industrial campus may not seem like the obvious choice for a footwear festival, but in The Low End it’s part of an effort to build community support for its plans.
First image: Kyra Buckley / OPB. Second image: Saskia Hatvany / OPB.
The festival and progress on The Low End developments come as Portland leaders struggle with ways to rebuild once thriving neighborhoods. It also comes as Portlanders feel conflicted about other major projects east of the Willamette River: potential renovations for the Moda Center and a future development at the old Lloyd Center.
But while some members of the public feel confused or conflicted about the backers of the arena and mall plans, 1803 Fund is including Portlanders early and often. A prime example is how 1803 Fund and its partners are including community members, especially Black Portlanders, in its planned transformation of The Low End.
1803 Fund describes its mission as investing in and for Black Portland to advance generational wealth and well-being through purchasing property and creating partnerships. The main area of focus is restoring North Portland’s Albina neighborhood.
“It is important that we create space, before we build anything, just to be in the space,” Tory Campbell, a vice president at 1803 Fund, recently told a crowd of three dozen people on a tour of the neighborhood. “You can have structures and it be soulless, and we know that true identity is actually wrapped up in the people being in community.”
People gather in The Little Room, a community event space in The Low End neighborhood of North Portland. The space is one of many investments planned by 1803 Fund, which has acquired several blocks of property in the Albina neighborhood.
Saskia Hatvany / OPB
1803 Fund is making efforts to bring community members into The Low End to contribute, celebrate, and experience the space. It’s a contrast to how other parts of the city have developed, leaving some members of the public feeling unheard or excluded.
“Too often we’ve heard from our own community, we don’t have a central place when we think about the Black community,” Campbell said, “Where we can have a point of resonance that, from that place, it cascades out. And we believe that this can be that district – that arts and culture can be a very powerful ripple effect.”
In 2023, Nike co-founder Phil Knight and spouse Penny Knight helped launch 1803 Fund with a $400 million donation to the initiative. The name references the year York, an enslaved man, joined the Lewis and Clark expedition.
In recent months, the organization has acquired properties in two neighboring areas. One is a set of grain silos along the Willamette River it calls Albina Riverside. The other includes a former manufacturing campus belonging to Streimer Sheet Metal Works, Inc., plus 1.5 acres from Widmer Brothers, which are part of plans to transform a seven-block area into “The Low End” district.
While touring the district, Campbell told community members 1803 Fund wants to create the “identity of joy and community and family” before anything new is built. Since December, 1803 Fund along with other Portland-based nonprofits, have hosted happy hours, networking events and live musical performances in The Low End.
More are planned for the end of summer and into fall. Sneaker Week PDX starts on Friday. In August, groups will host educational events around physical activity and building financial health. A farmer’s market will take over the space in October.
Campbell calls these events “the buzz before the build.” He says the goal is both to engage the community and attract investment in a way that benefits those already living and working in the area, particularly Black Portlanders.
A person walks past a temporary art installment on one of the parcels of land purchased by 1803 Fund.
Saskia Hatvany / OPB
“In the end,” Campbell said, “What’s created here should benefit them in the greatest of ways.”
In the 1940s and 50s, the majority of Portland’s Black residents lived in the Albina neighborhood after racist housing policies pushed them out of other parts of the city. The neighborhood became a prosperous Black business district.
But racist urban renewal policies soon pushed families and business out of Albina to make way for building Interstate 5 and the Veterans Memorial Coliseum. Other projects that forced residents and business owners from the area, like a major hospital expansion, never materialized.
Another priority for 1803 Fund’s vision involves turning The Low End into an educational site.
A person attends a July 20, 2026, tour of The Low End neighborhood and the various parcels and buildings in Portland, Ore. purchased by 1803 Fund. The construction of the interstate highway is one of several projects that displaced Black Portlanders starting in the 1950s.
Saskia Hatvany / OPB
“How might we involve children and their caregivers at every site of development?” Camille Idedevbo, vice president of insights, design & communications at 1803 Fund, asked during the recent neighborhood tour.
She envisioned a neighborhood in progress where children have thriving schools, libraries, green spaces and places to learn about the development happening around them.
“When you put those together, what we are able to do is accelerate outcomes for children in a way that I’m not sure that we’ve been able to do just yet,” Idedevbo said.
Beauclere of Sneaker Week PDX said his festival is striking a similar theme: bringing together community members in a space that’s in transition.
The Low End is close to another space in transition: the Moda Center. The home to Portland’s WNBA and NBA teams has been in the spotlight recently, as the Trail Blazers’ billionaire owner Tom Dundon has pushed state, city and county leaders to contribute public money for renovations.
All images: Saskia Hatvany / OPB.
Dundon’s unspoken threat is that he could try to move the team to a new city if Portland doesn’t spend taxpayer on arena upgrades. That’s left some Oregonians concerned about the future of the neighborhoods near Moda if the Trail Blazers leave.
1803 Fund’s investments are not connected to the Moda Center renovations. But the intentional involvement of Portlanders in the development of The Low End offers a contrast to the uncertainty around the Moda Center.
Beauclere said The Low End is distinct from other development processes he’s seen during his nearly 15 years in Portland.
“The difference that you see here is folks being on the same page, everybody buying into a specific mission, understanding that there is a plan,” he said.
Starting this Friday, that plan includes celebrating the creativity embedded throughout the sneaker industry. Beauclere said one of his top goals during Sneaker Week PDX is educating kids on all the different careers connected to footwear.
When Beauclere was a kid, he knew he loved art, design, and sneakers – in high school his friends asked him to paint their sneakers to match certain outfits – but it wasn’t until Beauclere was 17 and met some Adidas designers that he learned about all the career opportunities in the footwear industry.
All images: Saskia Hatvany / OPB.
That’s also when Beauclere, who grew up in Los Angeles, learned about Portland’s reputation as a hub for footwear brands.
“A week later, I applied to the industrial design program at the Art Institute of Portland,” he recalls, “And the next summer I moved up here and I think the rest is history.”
Now, Beauclere is raising his two daughters here. In addition to designing and marketing sneakers, part of Beauclere’s career has been about expanding kids’ knowledge of the footwear industry.
That’s why he co-launched Sneaker Week PDX in 2017. Since then, it’s grown into a festival that welcomes thousands of people each summer. Beauclere said he loves that he gets to use that platform to publicize the work 1803 Fund is doing while bringing people to their newest acquisition.
“I expect people to be inspired when they come to Sneaker Week,” Beauclere said. “To be able to see the people and the legacy that they’re building through creativity.”