King City’s Kingston Terrace Town Center construction kicks into high gear
Published 1:11 pm Friday, August 1, 2025


While motorists zooming south down Southwest Roy Rogers Road may think that earth-moving equipment at Southwest Beef Bend Road is part of Tigard’s ever-expanding River Terrace project, it’s actually the city’s neighbor to the south that is doing all that work.
After years of planning, King City’s long-anticipated Kingston Terrace Town Center is underway.
Construction of the town center — which will include extensive housing along with retail space and plans for a new city hall — has been on the drawing board for years with the New Home Co. taking the lead for constructing the new residences.
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From a residential standpoint, the project will result in a mix of 1,186 new dwelling units consisting of apartments and single-family homes, along with those so-called “missing middle” units — residences that create more density than single-family homes but are smaller than apartment complexes.
For Kingston Terrace that will include cottages and rowhomes.
Population to increase by 50%
“This is going to take five to six years for full development,” said Max Carter, the King City planner overseeing the development.
When all is said and done, the future development could increase by 50% the city’s population by adding another 2,600 people to a city now containing around 5,100 residents.
Part of the plan includes about 33,000 square feet of commercial space on the ground floor of four-story apartment buildings that will be located behind Al’s Garden Center but not on the businesses’ property.
That bottom-floor space will include shops, restaurants and plaza space, Carter said.
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While Al’s Garden Center is included in the Town Center neighborhood as part of the Kingston Terrace master plan and King City zoning maps, there have been no serious negotiations concerning the future of that property between King City or potential developers, city officials point out.
“The future of Al’s Garden Center will be determined entirely by the owner of the property,” said Carter.
Having said that, if a grocery store comes to the Town Center, it would be in that general area, Carter continued.
New city hall in the future
Meanwhile, plans south of the commercial space call for the construction of a new city hall building.
“The new city hall is also going to have a rec center, a new fire station and a new police station,” Carter said. “It will be a pretty big project.”
Funding for that larger municipal project that would move city services from the current most eastern border of the city to the most western border of the city is a long way out. So too is determining financial scenarios that would pay for it; Sending a bond measure to voters or creating an urban renewal district are both possibilities, according to Carter.
To date, total buildout of the Kingston Terrace Town Center isn’t expected until 2030.
Next, Carter said his goal is to ensure that the future residents of western King City have an identity like their eastern counterparts.
“It’s going to be really important for the city to have a presence over in (that) area,” Carter said. “I want these people to feel that they’re part of King City, and so we’re going to have to be creative on how we’re going to do that until we get King City Hall over there because … if you’re just driving around, you would probably would think this is part of Tigard, not necessarily King City.”
A tale of a road for two cities
It might surprise some to know that the north/south roadway through the future Kingston Terrace Town Center, which would lead to a future city hall, is called Southwest River Terrace Boulevard, although it has nothing to do with the River Terrace neighborhood, which is being built in the city of Tigard.
That same roadway will cross Southwest Beef Bend Road to travel north through the future River Terrace 2.0 community before hooking up to the current roundabout on Southwest Bull Mountain Road. From there, the road continues to Southwest Scholls Ferry Road.