Neighborhood Guide: Orenco Station | Portland Monthly

A century ago, the Oregon Electric Railway stopped in the namesake company town of the Oregon Nursery Company—Orenco is a portmanteau. World War I scuttled its export plans, and the company went bankrupt during the Depression. But the old rail segment became part of the Westside MAX in the 1990s, and land once covered with orchards and berry fields was suddenly a canvas for the city-planning buzzword of the day: transit-oriented development. Sociologists and urban studies types oohed and aahed over the walkable, mixed-use, high-density New Urbanist community packed with condos and townhomes, all tantalizingly close to mega-employer Intel.

Today, Orenco Station has filled in and grown up, with its well-paid-suburban-singleton vibe giving way to some serious family friendliness, from the elementary school that opened in 2008 to the Kumon tutoring hub, taekwondo studio, and local kids’ chess club. Plenty of the folks in the stacked condos along Orenco Station Parkway and the efficiently packed single-family homes around Central Park have cars (how else are they going to lug home groceries from the supersize Costco a mile away), but they’re tucked away in hard-working alleys or unobtrusive parking garages. The eponymous MAX stop sees some action with seasonal events at Jerry Willey Plaza and Mazama Brewing taphouse’s crowded Thursday trivia night. Still, the neighborhood’s center of gravity is on Cornell Road, where Korean bakery chain Tous les Jours has become an all-day gathering place for its cloud cake slices, kimchi croquettes, and sweet or savory croissants and Danishes since it opened a location here in 2020. 

Oh-so-Portland shops like New Seasons and Kitchen Kaboodle join Oregon-founded chains like Little Big Burger and Pizza Schmizza to keep things from feeling like Anytown, USA. Even Woodlawn Mexican standby Tamale Boy is a rotating food truck guest at new watering hole One Horse Taphouse. But the patches of fake turf here and there still lend a certain Truman Show aura to the streetscape.