An innovative new public restroom is headed for downtown Monterey.

Long in need of a restroom of any kind, Monterey’s Simoneau Plaza – downtown’s transit hub and central hangout – is soon to get a special kind, one with its own Facebook page and blog. It’s even been voted the best public restroom in Canada, which has three of them.

The Portland Loo, as the restroom is called, is the brainchild of former Portland City Commissioner Randy Leonard, who hatched the concept for his city in 2006. What sets it apart from other public restrooms is a sleek, user-friendly design (wheelchairs and bikes can fit inside, and solar panels on top power the facility), ease with which it can be cleaned (all surfaces are steel) and its virtual indestructibility.

“We want to get something on the street that can take all sorts of abuse,” says Evan Madden of Madden Fabrication, which manufactures the loos. “We design it so that a baseball bat can get taken to any part of it.”

Another challenge for public restrooms is making them unattractive as a place to hole up or engage in illegal activity like drug use. The Portland Loo combats this by having open bars on the top and bottom, which serve as ventilation and allow police to look underneath and see if more than one set of feet is inside.

Monterey currently has two portable restrooms open to the public after dark. Monterey Assistant City Manager Hans Uslar says those will be removed once the Portland Loo is installed in about six months.

“We can’t have Porta-Potties as a permanent solution,” Uslar says. “So we looked at a solution that was cost efficient and relatively fast to install.”