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Construction workers aren’t the only people returning to Park Avenue West.

Stoel Rives LLP, one of the largest law firms in Oregon, is committed to a 15-year lease for the top nine floors (approximately 131,000 square feet total) of TMT Development‘s planned 30-story mixed-use tower. Stoel Rives in 2008 was slated to occupy 157,000 square feet in the building, but the recession squashed those plans.

“We kept open communication, but we did not have a deal on the table until we came back to Stoel Rives with a plan, and with a loan that was contingent upon their lease,” said Vanessa Sturgeon, president of TMT Development.

On Friday, more than four years after the project stalled, TMT announced that it had secured a construction loan from Pacific Coast Capital Partners LLC so that it could resume the $175 million project. The current design calls for 13 floors of Class A office space atop 15 floors of apartments and two floors of retail space. Six levels of underground parking are planned.

Sturgeon said the new construction loan was contingent upon TMT’s ability to pre-lease a substantial portion of the office space. Stoel Rives, which has occupied approximately 140,000 square feet in the Standard Insurance Center for 43 years, considered the opportunity.

“… When we got the news in 2009 that construction was halting, that was a disappointment,” said Wally Van Valkenburg, a managing partner of Stoel Rives’ Portland office. “We continued to try to work with TMT as they made efforts over the next nine to 12 months to see if they could get construction started again, but we finally got to the point where we needed to renew our lease here.”

That lease expires in 2016; Stoel Rives’ tentative move-in date at Park Avenue West is April 2016. Though the firm’s future space will be smaller than its existing one, Van Valkenburg said the company has more room now than it needs, and should even have room to grow at Park Avenue West. Stoel Rives has 375 Portland employees, including 138 attorneys.

The deal is one of the largest office space leases ever in downtown Portland. Vestas’ lease of approximately 133,000 square feet in the former Meier & Frank warehouse is only slightly larger.

Van Valkenburg said Standard Insurance has been a great landlord, but the new building will offer design opportunities not possible in Stoel Rives’ present location. ZGF Architects is designing the firm’s new home, and Van Valkenburg said it will feature natural light, operable windows and open space, including an outdoor terrace on the 29th floor.

“There was a tremendous amount of excitement five years ago when we made the announcement, and then quite a sense of disappointment when it didn’t happen,” Van Valkenburg said. “So we’re back on the excitement side.”

TMT Development on Nov. 1, at 11 a.m., will host at the Park Avenue West site an event celebrating the restart of construction.