HAYDEN ISLAND · PORTLAND

Hayden Island

North Portland Neighborhood Services

3 spots to discover in this neighborhood 3,000 residents · 4.7 sq mi

“Floating homes, big-box shopping, and Columbia River sunsets — Portland's island community.”

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NEIGHBORHOOD IDENTITY

What Hayden Island Is Known For

“Floating homes, big-box shopping, and Columbia River sunsets — Portland's island community.”

— Hayden Island, Portland

About

Hayden Island

Hayden Island is an actual island in the Columbia River straddling the Oregon-Washington border between Portland and Vancouver, WA — and one of Portland's 95 official neighborhoods. The island is named for Ira Amos Hayden, a surveyor who platted land claims here in the 1850s. Its most famous chapter as a public destination began in 1928, when Jantzen Beach Amusement Park opened on the island and drew Portlanders across the Columbia for roller coasters and swimming. The amusement park operated until 1970; in 1972 Jantzen Beach SuperCenter opened on the same site, evolving into the big-box retail destination that occupies the western end of the island today.

The island is home to approximately 3,000 full-time residents (the 2020 Census counted around 8,000 total including seasonal and part-time occupants) in a remarkably diverse range of housing. Four floating-home moorages line the island's Columbia River edges: West Hayden Island Moorage (57 homes), Jantzen Beach Moorage (176 homes), Island Cove Floating Homes (55 units), and Tomahawk Island Floating Homes (72 homes). The island also includes manufactured home communities, condominiums, and market-rate apartments. About 5,000 boats are moored at the island's six marinas during summer.

Jantzen Beach Center anchors the island's commercial life, with major tenants including Target, Home Depot, Best Buy, HomeGoods, Costco, Burlington, Boot Barn, TJ Maxx, Ulta, Petco, Panera Bread, and West Marine. The eastern portion of the island — West Hayden Island — remains largely undeveloped wetlands and is the subject of ongoing Port of Portland industrial development proposals and conservation debates.

Boundaries: An island in the Columbia River. The Hayden Island Bridge (I-5) and the Marine Drive interchange connect it to mainland Portland to the south. The Columbia River forms all outer boundaries. Tomahawk Island and West Hayden Island are included within the neighborhood boundary.

The Vibe

What Hayden Island Feels Like

Island living at the river crossing

Hayden Island is a study in contrasts: highway-side shopping and commerce on one hand, and a laid-back, water-oriented community of floating homes and marinas on the other. Surrounded entirely by the Columbia, it has a true island feel right at the city's edge.

Residents enjoy river access, boating, and views toward Washington, while the Jantzen Beach area provides everyday shopping and a steady flow of cross-river traffic.

History

How Hayden Island Came To Be

Hayden Island sits in the middle of the Columbia River at Portland's northern boundary, with Oregon to the south and Washington just across the water. The island has long been shaped by the river, used historically for fishing, agriculture, and recreation.

The arrival of the Interstate Bridge and later Interstate 5 turned the island into a major crossing point between Oregon and Washington, and the area developed a distinctive split personality: bustling retail and commerce along the freeway corridor on one side, and quiet floating-home moorages and marinas along the river on the other.

For decades Hayden Island has been known both for Jantzen Beach—once a famous amusement park, later a shopping district—and for its riverside residential communities, making it one of Portland's most geographically unusual neighborhoods.

Character