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The Portland Art Museum has agreed to lease the former Oregon Theater building on Southeast Division Street, where the organization will exhibit films and other programming.

The museum鈥檚 Center for an Untold Tomorrow 鈥� formerly the Northwest Film Center and now known as PAM CUT 鈥� will take over the property, which until last year was Portland鈥檚 last remaining adult film theater.

Portland Art Museum officials had been looking to expand into another location to boost its efforts to diversify programming.

鈥淭he eastside Portland location will expand the museum鈥檚 reach into the community and welcome new audiences as a model where art, multimedia storytelling and cinema come together,鈥� stated Laura Bartroff, PAM鈥橲 director of communications.

An opening date, programming and name details will be forthcoming, she added.

鈥淭he museum and PAM CUT have been seeking to diversify their programming spaces for many years,鈥� she stated. 鈥淓xpanding on offerings at the Whitsell Auditorium at the museum鈥檚 downtown campus, this new space will be future-forward, inclusive and unexpected.鈥�

PAM鈥檚 lease follows an adaptive reuse project by Guerrilla Development, which purchased the property at 3530 S.E. Division St. from longtime owner Gayne Maizels in April 2020 for $1.8 million. Guerrilla Development principal Kevin Cavenaugh named the project Double Scrub.

Cavenaugh鈥檚 offer was the fourth-highest of about 30 offers, he said. But Cavenaugh vowed not to demolish the existing building, and Maizels agreed to sell it to Guerrilla.

Building systems, restrooms and other features have been improved, Cavenaugh said. Alterations that would have trigged a mandatory seismic retrofit, which Cavenaugh said would have cost more than the building is worth, were avoided. Instead, voluntary seismic upgrades were performed.

鈥淚鈥檓 spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to make the building safer,鈥� he said.

The building, which dates to 1926, has 10,482 square feet. Oregon Theater had approximately 400 fixed seats; the museum is expected to have somewhat fewer seats in a less-dense configuration. Currently, the building is a shell awaiting the museum鈥檚 tenant improvements.

鈥淚t鈥檚 a new, 100-year-old building, basically,鈥� Cavenaugh said. 鈥淭he building鈥檚 gorgeous. Now the art museum is going to bring in some 2022 鈥� and I can鈥檛 wait to see what it looks like.鈥�

For the museum, the space offers an opportunity to expand programming in new ways.

鈥淲e鈥檙e so excited to have a new home to celebrate art and storytelling that is not content to be contained,鈥� stated Amy Dotson, director of PAM CUT and the museum鈥檚 curator of film and new media. 鈥淲e鈥檒l share more details soon, and we can鈥檛 wait to invite our communities into this exciting new space championing the future of cinema and media arts in all its many, evolving forms.鈥�

The museum is continuing to raise money for a major renovation and expansion of its downtown home. The Rothko Pavilion project would knit together the existing Main and Mark buildings with a contemporary glass box-shaped structure. Hennebery Eddy Architects, Vinci Hamp Architects, Walker Macy, Andrea Cochran Landscape Architecture and KPFF Consulting Engineers are engaged on the downtown museum project.