Con-way has long owned the majority, but not all, of land to the west  of I-405 by the NW Vaughn exit around NW 21st.  Development plans have been in the works for years and a coming closer to fruition.  Historically the area has been known as Slabtown and abuts the Alphabet District but that may not be a sexy enough moniker for the new development.  There’s a good description of the project here.

The first thing to be built is a grocery story by a currently unnamed entity.  Building the services first takes a different tack to the South Waterfront where the residences were built first and when the economy flagged, the services were slow to come in.  Buying groceries as South Waterfront resident still leaves leaving the area for either Zupans on Macadam Avenue or Safeway on SW Jefferson (there is a small shop and a few restaurants currently serving the South Waterfront along with a growing contingent of food carts).  The Con-way development has the advantage of new apartments already going in on NW 23 and on NW Lovejoy and residences of the Alphabet District that lack a grocery store to call their own, the nearest being the soon to be remodeled Fred Myer and Zupans on Burnside and the new(er) Safeway in the Pearl.

KGW has this report: