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It’s no secret that Portland’s apartment market is booming.

Vacancy rates are at record lows, rents are up and property sales are increasing. But while apartments are sprouting up around the city, one Portland developer is vetting an idea for something not considered since the recession hit in 2008: condominiums.

鈥淲e’re not there today, but we’re going in that direction,鈥� said Tiffany Sweitzer, president and partner of Hoyt Street Properties. 鈥淏y the time the project is completed, hopefully we’re in a different world.鈥�

Seeing opportunity on the horizon, and developer Joe Weston are exploring the potential of a 28-to-30-story condominium tower in the Pearl District. The company has scheduled a pre-application conference for Jan. 3, and hopes to be through design review by the middle of next year.

The team isn’t committing to the project yet; rather the idea is to get in line now so that when market demand is ready in two to three years, it can pull the trigger.

鈥淲e have been mulling it over, and partly because we were hit right along with everybody else in the market the past four years,鈥� Sweitzer said. 鈥淲ith the Encore, we stuck it out, (but) we talked about, 鈥楽hould we convert the building to apartments as many others did? Should we go to auction?’ We just decided that it was important to stay true to what we built, which was condos.鈥�

During the recession, numerous Portland condo properties, like the Cyan in downtown and the Ardea in the South Waterfront District, were converted to apartments in the face of declining values and sales. Others, like the John Ross and Atwater Place, which were delivered as the market fell apart, were auctioned off in blocks.

Robert Black, vice president of multifamily investment sales for , said it was a much different climate than in 2004 and 2005, when condos were selling out before they were even delivered.

As a general rule, condominium projects are financially feasible when land prices are high. Before the recession, land in the Pearl District was selling for $200 per square foot or more, Black said. Now, it’s selling for half that price and apartments are more feasible.

In October, multifamily construction spending across the nation jumped to a three-year high of $23.8 billion 鈥� a 6.3 percent increase from September and a 53 percent increase from a year ago, according to an analysis by the Associated General Contractors.

But land prices are slowly creeping up, and condos could gain favor. Black said properties that were selling for $40 per square foot on Southeast Division Street are now at $60 per square foot, and in the past 18 months some submarkets’ property prices are up 50 percent.

At a certain point, ownership will become more appealing to renters.

鈥淪o, now, as it starts to creep up again, it starts to make apartments very hard to pencil out,鈥� Black said. 鈥淎nd so then you start looking at when the condo market is going to come back. If you buy a piece of land, how do you pay that much? You put condos on it.鈥�

Nelda Newton, senior vice president and manager of the Portland commercial real estate office for Wells Fargo, a financial partner for all of Hoyt Street Properties’ previous projects, said another factor is that the market has not gained any new condo inventory since the recession. Shadow inventory, however, could present an obstacle.

鈥淢any projects that were intended to be condos that converted to apartments could come back into the (condo) market pretty quickly if there is sufficient demand,鈥� she said. 鈥淪o that adds significant risk to new construction.鈥�

Nevertheless, Hoyt Street Properties’ interest in the design process is a positive sign for the industry, Newton said. Sweitzer said Hoyt Street Properties has not approached Wells Fargo regarding the project because it is too early in the process.

Because Hoyt Street Properties owns roughly half of the property in the Pearl District, including nine condo buildings, Black said the company has the best barometer in Portland for gauging the health of the condominium market.

Sweitzer said she has already polled many neighborhood residents and real estate professionals who have told her they would like to see the new project 鈥� presently called Block 15 鈥� progress. She added that 83 percent of the units in the Encore 鈥� Hoyt Street Properties’ newest condo building 鈥� have sold.

In terms of design, the proposed building would be approximately 349 feet 鈥� the tallest in the Pearl District by at least nine stories.

Bill Ruff, a partner at , the project’s designer, said the building would be a point tower, a first for the neighborhood and the city. Point towers 鈥� common in cities like Vancouver, B.C. 鈥� feature a skinnier design to preserve sunlight at the street level.

The tower section of Block 15 would rise from the southwest corner of a three-story podium building encompassing the entire block. The Pearl District has unlimited height restrictions, but a nine-to-one cap for floor area ratios.

鈥淔rankly, it’s less expensive to build a 10-story building for the whole block, but what that does is create these terrible canyons down the road,鈥� Ruff said.

The first three stories would include a lobby, office space and parking for residents, as well as a rooftop garden on the third story. The tower floor plates would be 7,000 square feet to 9,000 square feet; the building would have approximately 152 to 165 units. Those would range from 600 square feet to 2,400 square feet.

Ruff said the exterior facade would likely have a modern design similar to the Metropolitan.

Meanwhile, Sweitzer said she is watching the market with cautious optimism.

鈥淲e are still mulling it over,鈥� she said of the project. 鈥淲e’re leery, along with everyone else, of some positive movement, but still, let’s see how we fare with the city, and the neighbors, and then we’ll step back and see if we’re ready to build.鈥�