JumpTown brings Yeang to Portland’s yin.

World-renowned architect Kenneth Yeang is designing a more than 200,000-square-foot mixed-use building complex in central Portland’s Lloyd District.

The Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia-based architect, who is the mastermind behind bioclimatic skyscrapers throughout the globe (see “'Granddaddy of Green' shares design ideas,” SIJ, June 2003), is teaming up with Portland-based SERA Architects Inc. to redevelop the JumpTown building, a former jazz club on the pie-shaped block that divides Northeast Broadway Avenue and Weidler Street.

A team of Portland developers is working to acquire the three-story brick building and adjacent property for $3.5 million and break ground on the project by early 2006.

The 26,800-square-foot JumpTown building, known until the early 1940s as the Dude Ranch jazz club, would be converted to include a new jazz club, restaurants and retail shops. Behind the JumpTown would rise a state-of-the-art green building that would include at least 110 condominiums and 140 parking stalls. The plan includes live-work units starting at $180,000, as well as condominiums starting at $340,000, said Maria Toth of Multiwayz LLC, which is spearheading the project. Top-floor penthouses start at $1.2 million.

The building is not your typical skyscraper. Trees and other vegetation have been plotted to line the building’s incongruous, glass exterior and roof. Current plans call for a 10-story building, but developers are asking the City of Portland to allow at least a 15-story building, Toth said.