Portland developer Williams and Dame plans to renovate the former Martin Luther King housing project, transforming it into about 80 market-rate apartments and 11 low-income units, complemented by more than 7,000 square feet of new retail space.

Renovation of the building along Congress Street between North Fifth and Sixth avenues is expected to cost about $8 million, and could be finished in 12 to 14 months. There is a planned second phase, with two residential towers atop a 300-space parking garage immediately north of the MLK building.

One of the towers is planned as a $16 million, 68-unit assisted-living center to be built and run by the city. The second is to be a four- to seven-story residential building built by Williams and Dame with more than 3,000 square feet of retail.

The city is expected to finally begin construction on the Fourth Avenue underpass, stalled for more than two years.

The historic 1916 underpass — now at the east end of Downtown, connecting North Fourth Avenue and Congress Street — will be gutted for a new, wider underpass built along the alignment of the historic underpass. It will accommodate the modern streetcar and historic trolley. It will have a 10-foot-wide pedestrian sidewalk on the north section of the underpass, and a 20-foot wide pedestrian pathway on the south side.

The city's latest estimate was about $31 million, but that was for a previous underpass design.

On Congress Street between South Stone and Scott avenues, developer Don Bourn is planning a project dubbed The Post, which calls for a five-story structure with roughly 40 condos, one floor of underground parking and more than 10,000 square feet of retail space .

The design for the five-story building features brick, glass and rusted steel, and is intended to be appealing from the street and fit in with the surrounding buildings.

It will incorporate the Bank One Annex, located just west of the new building, into the project, and the Indian Trading Post building at Scott Avenue and Congress to the east will be rehabbed as well.

The 100-foot-high planned Presidio Terrace project will sit north of City Hall and the Tucson Water building, between North Main and Granada avenues.

Plans for the $30 million project include 72 lofts and nine townhouses, along with a cafe, a neighborhood store and roughly 240 parking spaces in an underground garage. As part of the project the city will pay the developer $2 million for 90 parking spots in the garage to replace the spaces lost by turning the lot into condos.

Developer Peggy Noonan said she hopes to start construction by next summer.