Powell Boulevard McDonald’s

Name: Powell Boulevard McDonald’s
Address: 9100 SE Powell Boulevard
City: Portland
Year of Construction: 1963
Architect: Stanley Clark Meston and Richard McDonald
Original Use: Retail
Status: Demolished
National Register of Historic Places: Not Listed
Description: The information below was provided by Tim Wood who researched this building as an academic exercise for the University of Oregon.

“This McDonalds is a rare example of the McDonalds constructed between 1953 and 1968, and is historically significant on the local and national level. The McDonalds company constructed approximately 500 buildings with the two parabolic arches and red and white tile on the walls from 1953 to 1968, but by 1985 fewer than 20 survived intact (Langdon 1986). By March 1963, there were six McDonalds in the greater Portland area. Today, only the one located at 9100 SE Powell Boulevard survives (Historic Preservation Northwest 2011). In 1989, the city added the building to its historic resource inventory and nominated it as a historic local landmark. It was never designated as a landmark due to the disapproval of the owners (City of Portland 1989). It is the only McDonalds restaurant listed on the Oregon State Historic Preservation Office’s historic sites database and one of few remaining in the country.”

Further Information

“The first franchised McDonalds opened in 1953 in Phoenix, Arizona, featuring an exterior design of candy-striped red and white ceramic tile and big windows wrapping around the front of the building and sloping outwards. The roof projected up and out from the glass windows, flaring up in the front and establishing a generous overhang. Two parabolic golden arches rose out of the ground and above the roof line with one on each side of the building. The standardization of this design became an advertising sign for the passing motorist and eventually was easily recognized across the country. The second franchise opened in Downey, California later that year and other franchises continued to spread throughout California in Sacramento, Pomona, Alhambra, and Azusa (Langdon 1986). By 1959 one hundred McDonalds restaurants were opening per year with a standardized building design, signage, and menu. Repetition and reliability with the restaurants design and select menu were essential to the model’s success.

By the late 1960s there was a national movement to tidy up the nation’s roadsides. Public pressure mounted for more restraint in building architecture (Jackle 1999). In 1963, McDonalds began to curtail building décor by putting brown brick on sidewalls that had previously been clad with red and white tile and covering the sides of the roof wedge with brown shingles (Langdon 1986). As roads became bigger and traffic increased, customers also began to crave refuge and shelter. The walk-up restaurant was losing its appeal to the desire of a walk-in or sit-down restaurant. Gradually, McDonalds and other fast food restaurants had to adapt their buildings’ design in response to customer demands, providing indoor tables and seating, allowing customers to stay more than just a few minutes.

A new design for McDonalds was released in 1968, featuring an interior service counter and tables to seat 60 customers. The iconic golden arches were also missing from the building’s design except for their use in the updated roadside advertising sign. The candy striped red and white ceramic tiles were replaced by beige and brown brick. The assertive wing-like roof design was replaced with a modest double mansard roof with brown shingles. Illuminated metal ribs were attached along the roof line replacing the old arches. The building’s design focused less on advertising its presence on the roadway as the McDonalds company relied more on advertising via the radio and television airwaves (Jackle 1999). However, the iconic golden arches on the large roadside sign maintained the brand imagery. As this new building design was implemented across the country, the older building stock was updated with brown shingles and bricks to appear more like the new designs (Langdon 1986).

In 1981, the McDonalds at 9100 SE Powell Boulevard was restored and repurposed to convert it into a children’s party center (Liebs 1995). During the restoration, a new children’s play area was constructed in the original parking lot, but was removed no later than July 2007. At the same time a new McDonalds restaurant was constructed to the southwest of the older model, but on the same lot. It is unclear at what time the 1963 McDonald’s converted the interior for indoor seating, but it was complete no later than the 1981 remodel. The Portland Bureau of Developmental Services, the Oregon Historical Society, the Portland City Archives and the Oregonian newspaper were all consulted to determine the date of this change, but no relevant information was identified. It appears that when the interior was converted for indoor dining, the preparation and cooking areas were lost to accommodate indoor seating. If the kitchen and preparation areas were lost, the conversion most likely came during the restoration to allow the new building to cook and prepare food that would be served in the 1963 McDonalds. The decision by ownership to have the two buildings collaborate for customer service most likely preserved the building’s original design and materials. Many McDonalds of this era were lost to changing customer demands and new marketing strategies.”

Bibliography

  • Abbott, C. (2011). Portland in three centuries: The place and the people. Corvallis, OR: Oregon State University Press.
  • Carstensen, L. W. (1995). The burger kingdom: Growth and diffusion of McDonald’s restaurants in the United States, 1955-1978. In Carney, G. O. (Ed.), Fast food, stock cars, and rock ‘n’ roll: Place and space in American pop culture. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
  • City of Portland. (1989). Correspondence between the city of Portland Bureau of Planning and McDonalds Corporation. City of Portland Archives. Folder “HLDZ 88-89 McDonalds.”
  • Davies, C. (2004). Lessons at the roadside. Architectural research quarterly, 8(1), 27-37.
  • Griffin, A. (2013). Powell boulevard: 40 years after the Mount Hood freeway, still a dangerous unsolved riddle. Retrieved from http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2013/11/powell_boulevard_40_years_afte.html
  • Hess, A. (1986). The origins of McDonald’s golden arches. Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 45(1), 60-67.
  • Historic Preservation Northwest. (2011). Modern historic resources of East Portland. Albany, OR: Historic Preservation Northwest.
  • Jackle, J. A. (1995). Roadside restaurants and place-product packaging. In Carney, G. O. (Ed.), Fast food, stock cars, and rock ‘n’ roll: Place and space in American pop culture. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
  • Jackle, J. A., & Sculle, K. A. (1999). Fast food: Roadside architecture in the automobile age. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University.
  • Langdon, P. (1986). Orange roofs, golden arches: The architecture of American chain restaurants. New York: Knopf.
  • Liebs, C. H. (1995). Main street to miracle mile: American roadside architecture. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University.
  • Statista. (2017). Number of McDonald’s restaurants in North America from 2012 to 2016. Retrieved from https://www.statista.com/statistics/256040/mcdonalds-restaurants-in-north-america/

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