Residents of the Argay Terrace and Parkrose neighborhoods are not backing down in their fight to quit the wealthy owner of the Minnesota Vikings from constructing a 260,000-square-foot freight warehouse on a piece of home he owns in their East Portland neighborhood.

Residents of the Parkrose Argay Chance Coalition say they are operating with a firm named Argos Scientific to gather air top quality information and ascertain if they must file an “environmental justice complaint” with the Environmental Protection Agency.

Vikings owner Zygmunt Wilf plans to create the tilt-up concrete warehouse at the web-site of the large, vacant Kmart on Northeast Sandy Boulevard at 122nd Avenue, and lease it to Prologis, a San Francisco-primarily based business that ships merchandise for Amazon, House Depot and other people.

“Argos Scientific produces hugely sensitive air top quality gear and is deploying monitors in the neighborhood,” the coalition mentioned in a press release. “They will be modeling impacts that diesel truck pollution from these varieties of warehouses will bring to a aspect of Portland currently experiencing disproportionate amounts of pollution and targeted traffic.”

Wilf’s parcel of land is across the street from Parkrose Higher College and adjacent to a low-earnings housing improvement named Hidden Oaks Apartments. The freight warehouse would be the most current of quite a few in the location. The other people, even though, are north of Sandy Boulevard. This one particular would protrude southward into a largely residential neighborhood.

The web-site became notorious in August 2021 soon after the Proud Boys gathered for a far-correct festival that turned into a paintball and baseball-bat brawl with anti-fascists.

Wilf produced his fortune in actual estate soon after taking more than his father’s residential constructing business, Garden Residences. Wilf has owned the Kmart home beneath a variety of entities due to the fact the 1980s.

“The coalition would like to see the home owner, Garden Residences, operate with the neighborhood to uncover a much better use for the former Kmart ,” coalition member Angela Baker mentioned in a statement. “Community members have expressed interest in a grocery retailer, extra housing, and restaurants, and Parkrose Schools are interested in applying the place as a STEM center.”

Neither Garden House nor Prologis right away returned emails in search of comment.

Portland’s Bureau of Improvement Solutions mentioned its statement from 2022 nevertheless stood:

“At this time, a permit application is beneath critique by the Bureau of Improvement Solutions and other city bureaus. This application proposes a ‘new tilt-up concrete semi-heated warehouse constructing with one particular workplace tenant space’ and ‘associated web-site operate.’”