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Chris Erickson sometimes wonders what he’s gotten himself into.

“I think a lot of these old buildings – the really wise real estate people who have done this for a long time, they don’t touch these things,” said Erickson, the owner of Parliament, an advertising and brand design company in Portland. “They wait for the stupid, naive, young idiots to come in and take it over. So I’m that idiot.”

Erickson, 35, said it sarcastically, but it’s evident how much work is taking place at his 123-year-old building at 424 S.W. Fourth Ave. Construction crews are demolishing walls, digging footings and more to reconstruct the 14,000-square-foot space from the inside out. Erickson, LSW Architects PC and R&H Construction are teaming up on the $6 million renovation of the Witherspoon Building, which is on Portland’s Historic Resource Inventory.

It’s a risky project because if it gets much more expensive, Erickson might not be able to afford to proceed. But he is enthusiastic about the challenge – reimagining what’s possible is what he does for a living.

“From a character perspective this building really fell into what we love to do, which is to take something that is old and not performing, and make something great out of it,” he said.

Parliament used to occupy space in the Olympic Mills Commerce Center, where Erickson invested in an extensive tenant improvement. But when the company outgrew the space, he couldn’t justify investing more money in a property he didn’t own.

So, in 2010, Erickson purchased the Witherspoon Building for approximately $1.68 million. It was the perfect size and in an ideal location, just blocks away from mass transit in the middle of the central business district. But then he began discovering the building’s costly downsides.

“Hands down, the biggest challenge is the structural seismic upgrades that (need) to be done,” said LSW’s Esther Cho Liu, the project’s architect. “The building is quite old, so nothing is really lining up anywhere … It was actually pretty crazy. Not one of the walls on the exterior lined up all the way … All the existing floors, especially the second floor … it’s just a mess.”

The Witherspoon originally was a brothel and saloon, and has housed a number of bars, restaurants and hotels over the years. After more than a century of makeshift improvements, it had become something of a seismic stew.

The ground floor, for instance, was warped and wobbly because of the lack of joists; the second floor was severed completely from the back wall to create a mezzanine; and a glass atrium in the back of the building (once the exterior) was covered by brick and left in place. Historic relics like old whiskey bottles abounded, and the basement held an entrance to one of Portland’s notorious Shanghai Tunnels.

Nearby, R&H is digging a series of massive footings for new structural steel beams. Crews had to dig those deeper than anticipated when they learned that the soil consistency was poor. That was a costly change.

On the third floor, designers learned that the framework of hallways and rooms had a structural component. Removal would have triggered additional upgrades.

“Just getting rid of this triggered $300,000 in changes,” Erickson said, patting a series of two-by-fours that were nailed together to serve as a joist in the middle of the room.

So LSW had to design around those beams – a task that was especially difficult when it came time to decide where to place a new elevator shaft and stairwell. In addition, Erickson said the city of Portland had its own storefront requirements, which he considered overly restrictive.

When it’s all said and done, Erickson envisions having a cooperative of creative businesses on the second floor, and perhaps some retailers on the first. He originally intended to put his offices on the ground floor; however, he settled on the third floor because he realized it would have been difficult to lease. He’s embracing the space by leaving pieces of the brick and century-old wallpaper exposed.

“It really is the bones of the building,” Erickson said. “We’re almost treating it like a compound fracture, where someone breaks their shin and the bone sticks out.”

It’s also an opportunity to tell a story. The walls will show people that the space served as a brothel in the 19th century.

“We say, ‘If walls could talk,’ but seriously,” he said, “that phrase has never been truer than in a place like this.”