• There is an application for a proposed seven-lot land division at 720 N.E. 91st Ave. The applicant is Zac Horton of Faster Permits. The owner is Mate Skoro.

• There is an application for early assistance concerning public works requirements for a new one-story commercial building at 5931 S.E. 52nd Ave. – the former home of a service station. The applicant is Joe Karman of J. Karman Architect. The owner is Oliver Rose Investments LLC.

• There is a pending application to demolish existing buildings at 4806 S.E. 16th Ave. and build a self-storage facility. The applicant is Mike Coyle of Faster Permits. The owners are Douglas D. Lindahl and Violet Y. Lindahl.

• There is a pending application for a parking expansion, building expansion and ADA upgrades at 6543 N. Burlington Ave. The applicant is Fred MacGregor with the Bureau of Environmental Services. The owner is the city of Portland.

• There is a pending application to renovate the night club at 833 S.W. Naito Parkway, and add a partial second floor and a partial roof deck. The applicant is Steve Fosler of Fosler Portland Architecture LLC. The owner is Salek Investments LLC.

• There is a pending application concerning Type III design review for a five-story mixed-use building with ground-level retail space at 1825 N.W. 23rd Ave. The four floors above will include 61 residential units and two hotel rooms. Approximately 45 below-grade parking spaces will be provided. Stormwater will be directed to a flow-thru planter on the site’s west side. The applicant is Mark Nye of Works Partnership Architecture. The owners are ENT Ventures I LLC and Angelo Marchi.

• There is a pending application concerning Type III design review for a proposed new building at 205 N.W. 10th Ave. It would be 11 to 14 stories, and include residential units, ground-floor retail space as well as 96 below-grade parking spaces. No exterior elevations were submitted. The applicant is Kurt Schultz of SERA Design LLC. The owner is Jan D. Bruun-Petersen.

• There is a pending application for a proposed six-story building with market-rate apartments and below-grade parking at 1431 N.W. 17th Ave. The applicant is Kurt Schultz of SERA Design LLC. The owner is Nati LLC.

• There is a pending application for a five-lot subdivision at 7134 N. Richmond Ave. The applicant is Amy Cooney of Syracuse Homes. The owner is Syracuse Homes LLC.

Source: Portland Bureau of Development Services

The post Land use review intakes for Dec. 7, 2015 appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

Harsch Investment Properties has acquired a 246,621-square-foot industrial property in El Cajon, California. The Center Pointe Business Park occupies more than 13 acres in San Diego County; its tenants are a diverse group of companies based in the region, according to Harsch.

Harsch owns and operates approximately 2.5 million square feet of industrial space in the San Diego area. The business park is the seventh acquisition this year for the Portland-based real estate investment, development and management company.

“We’ve been fortunate,” Harsch President Jordan Schnitzer said. “We’re up to about $150 million in acquisitions this year.”

Center Pointe Business Park has access to Interstate 8, Interstate 125, State Route 52 and State Route 67, as well as the Gillespie Field municipal airport.

Bo Mills of Jones Lang LaSalle Capital Markets Group was the listing broker for Center Pointe Business Park.

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When Le Meitour family members purchased a former auto repair shop in Multnomah Village, they envisioned a transformation. They saw food carts parked outside the building at 3530 S.W. Multnomah Blvd. Inside, several vendors would peddle their goods, a single cash register would serve everyone and ample seats would be available for patrons to sit for hours any time of year. They called it the French Quarter.

“It would function like a street with little shops on it,” said Sara Le Meitour, the building manager for the French Quarter. “We would have a little seating area indoors for the food carts that are out in the parking lot area. It’s just sort of this community space.”

The French Quarter now has food carts, but the building can only be used as a warehouse. Redevelopment has been slow over the past two years amid building inspections and seismic reinforcement upgrades. The final permit for a mercantile license will have to come from the Portland Bureau of Transportation.

Le Meitour said that the city wants the family to give it eight linear feet of property on Multnomah Boulevard, five linear feet of property on 35th Avenue and one linear foot of property on Evans Street so that sidewalks can be constructed. She said that request is unreasonable because giving up that land would lower the property value, limit space available for food carts and eliminate a parking space. Also, to give the space requested on Evans Street, the owners would have to knock down a wall because the building sits on the property line.

PBOT spokesman Dylan Rivera said that sidewalks are being required because the French Quarter would generate more traffic than what has existed historically.

“We think this is well within code and the standard procedure for how the sidewalk network is built out in areas that don’t have sidewalks as redevelopment occurs,” he said.

The property owners are appealing PBOT’s decision to a public works panel. Also, Le Meitour has started a change.org petition that has drawn 586 supporters.

“The reason I started the petition is to send it along with the lawyer to show (that) all of these people in the neighborhood want this,” she said.

PBOT, however, believes that people there want sidewalks.

“We hear from Southwest Portland (residents) time and time again that sidewalks are really important to the community,” Rivera said. “PBOT and (the Bureau of Development Services) partnered on a sidewalk multi-use path on Multnomah Boulevard because of the strong interest we hear from the community of building out the sidewalk there.”

Le Meitour said that if the sidewalk requirements don’t change, then her family’s planned French Quarter won’t be created. Instead, the building would become an auto garage again.

“We don’t want to give the city our land because that would devalue the property value significantly,” Le Meitour said. “We really don’t want to turn it back into an auto garage because we love the French Quarter. I grew up in that neighborhood and we want to maintain that charm that Multnomah Village has.”

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• There is an application to receive design advice for two proposed residential towers at 2095 S.W. River Parkway. Plans call for 162 market-rate and 204 affordable apartment units. The ground level will include retail space and a grocery store. The residential units will share 173 below-grade parking spaces and the grocery store will be served by 65 ground-level parking spaces. The applicant is Jenny Jenkins of Ankrom Moisan Architects. The owner is the city of Portland.

• There is an application for an industrial site office development at 120 S.E. Clay St. The basement will include approximately 82 parking spaces that can be accessed via Clay Street. The applicant is Benjamin Stinson of Ankrom Moisan Architects. The owner is 120 Clay Development LLC.

• There is an application for a zoning map and comprehensive plan map amendment at 2426 N.E. Alberta St. The applicant is Steve Kay of Cascadia Planning & Development Services. The owner is Matthew W. Somphe.

• There is an application for a nine-lot subdivision at 6025 S.E. Powell Blvd. The applicant is Monty Hurley of AKS Engineering & Forestry LLC. The owner is Ram Investments LLC.

• There is an application for a four-story mixed-use development with ground-floor commercial space and three floors of apartments at 9101 S.E. Foster Road. The applicant is Garrett Martin of Hacker. The owner is the city of Portland.

• There is an application for the renovation and modernization of the existing Peter Stott Center Building at 930 S.W. Hall St. The applicant is Miles Woofter of Woofter Architecture. The owner is the Oregon State Board of Higher Education.

• There is an application for partition of property into two lots at 5349 S.E. Ogden St. The applicant is Steve Buckles of Reppeto & Associates. The owner is Crescent Custom Homes LLC.

• There is an application for a two-lot land division partition with a tract that is also a new private street at 532 N.E. 155th Ave. The applicants are Richard Georgescu, Lyubov Semenyuta and Mariha Nozdrin. The owners are Ilya Semenyuta and Lyubov Semenyuta.

• There is an application for a two lot-land division partition at 1217 N.E. Mason St. The applicant is Sarah Radelet of Strata Land Use Planning. The owner is Structure Redevelopment LLC.

Source: Portland Bureau of Development Services

The post Land use review intakes for Nov. 30, 2015 appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

As buildings age, so do their windows. Owners of historic buildings sometimes face a difficult decision: should they repair those windows, or replace them?

Here, such decisions must account for the Historic Landmarks Commission, which “provides leadership and expertise on maintaining and enhancing Portland’s historic and architectural heritage,” according to its website. The commission’s approval is not required for window restoration on historic buildings; however, replacement projects are another matter.

Brian Emerick, chairman of the Historic Landmarks Commission, said that it has very specific requirements for window replacements.

“What we’ve done in the past with the (Historic) Landmarks Commission is say that there has to be a good reason that you need to replace them – not just energy code upgrades,” he said. “Essentially, you have to do your homework and show that they’re not reparable. That’s pretty standard in the historical world.”

The commission also must approve materials used for replacements.

“If the replacement is allowed, then we’re pretty darn specific about matching profiles,” Emerick said. “If it was a wood, double-hung coming out, then it would need to be a wood, double hung going back in. Basically, it needs to not be distinguishable to most people. It’s going to look the same.”

One historic building with windows targeted for replacement is the 103-year-old Hotel deLuxe (formerly the Hotel Mallory), at 729 S.W. 15th Ave. Phil Sydnor of Integrate Architecture & Planning earlier this month applied for a pre-application conference regarding plans to replace all of the building’s windows on the second through eighth floors.

Sydnor couldn’t comment on why the building’s owner, Provenance Hotels, chose to pursue window replacements rather than restorations, but he did say that Integrate Architecture & Planning is going about the process very carefully. The firm is considering three main factors: a balance of the building’s original aesthetics, the windows’ functionality and their cost.

“We’re really into research and choosing the right component for the building,” Sydnor said. “It’s one of these ones where there’s probably going to be a lot of interest of somebody proposing a particular window for this project. We’re trying to find the most objective way to go about it. … At this time, we’re trying to do this in-house study and define what the parameters are that we’re looking for and sort of figure it out on our own.

“We have to go through the original drawings from the building and see what was there from a detail standpoint. And then look at what is in place currently, how was it put there, how can we take it out. And then there’s extensive research as far as satisfying the city’s process for the review. Then there’s time researching what product you’re going to use for the new windows.”

Meanwhile, some people in the industry believe restorations of historic buildings’ windows are far better than replacements. Vern Forrest, president of Chosen Wood Window Maintenance, is one of those advocates. His firm has repaired windows in structures including the Benson Hotel and the 511 Federal Building.

“You shouldn’t be replacing them,” he said. “These old windows are very good windows. They’ve lasted a lot of years and nothing today is going to last that long. Restoration is always the best thing to do for them and keep the old windows.”

But Emerick acknowledged that sometimes windows simply cannot be replaced. His company, Emerick Architects, recently decided to replace windows in two historic buildings: the Sovereign Hotel and the Overland Warehouse. For the Sovereign Hotel, only windows on the interior façade were replaced; the others were preserved.

“The windows at the Overland Warehouse had to be replaced because they were completely trashed,” Emerick said. “Half the windows were missing.”

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The Kalama Planning Commission last week approved the Port of Kalama’s master plan to develop 70 acres of port property for the anticipated Spencer Creek Business Park in Kalama, Wash. It is expected to encompass 70 acres, or 3 million square feet. When finished, the park will have more than 500,000 square feet of space – for a mix of light industrial, office, commercial and retail uses.

The port and the city worked together to craft a new city code to enable the flexible, multipurpose development. They will now continue working together on the permitting process for developing the site infrastructure. An economic evaluation now pending will ensure that development proceeds in a way that jobs are created and local revenue is generated in an environmentally responsible way, according to Port of Kalama marketing manager Liz Newman.

“We couldn’t begin the development without having the master plan complete,” she said. “There will be more jobs and employment opportunities. It should ultimately increase the tax revenue for the city.”

The port is envisioning a 20-year build-out that started with the creation of Haydu Park – a 24-acre recreational facility that represented the first phase of development on the east end of port property.

The post Business park’s master plan approved appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

Portland is one of the most dynamic cities in the country for tech company growth, according to JLL’s 2015 Technology Office Outlook. Also, the city’s relatively low cost of doing business and its talent pool are spurring even more startup activity, according to the report.

The report showed that tech startups and other technology-based firms added more than 2.6 percent of jobs, pushing total tech jobs to more than 60,000 in the Portland area in 2014. That has resulted in office vacancy being pushed to historic lows in the past 12 months, while rents are growing higher. Rents have increased by almost 10 percent in the past 12 months.

Nevertheless, Portland’s average overall direct asking rent of $24.08 per square foot is still well behind larger, more established tech centers. In Seattle, the equivalent rent is $33.70 per square foot, in Silicon Valley it’s $41.68 per square foot; and in San Francisco it’s $66.80 per square foot.

Based on an estimate of each employee taking up 175 square feet of office space, the annual total real estate cost per employee in Portland is $4,214. In Seattle, it is $5,898, in San Francisco it’s $11,690 and in New York it’s $12,362.

The comparatively low cost of doing business in Portland has attracted enough tenants that searches for office space often are challenging, according to the report. Currently, total vacancy is only 9.1 percent. Over the next 18 months, the city will gain approximately 1.5 million square feet of office space in addition to its existing 58 million square feet, but half of that space has already been spoken for by growing firms.

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• There is a pending application for the proposed remodel and repositioning of an existing manufacturing building of approximately 111,391 square feet at 4784 S.E. 17^th Ave. The building will remain primarily for manufacturing use. The applicant is John Olivier of ScanlanKemperBard Cos. The owners are Steven M. Michaelis and Keybank National Association.

• There is a pending application for the renovation of an existing building at 4859 N. Lagoon Ave. to include office space on two floors, a fabrication area, and truck mock up areas. A small 350 foot addition is proposed with the addition of approximately 10,000 square feet of landscaping. The applicant is Jenifer Kimura of VLMK Consulting Engineers. The owner is John R. Estey.

• There is an application proposal to create a two-parcel partition with a flag lot containing a duplex at 13834 S.E. Holgate Blvd. The existing residence will remain. The applicant is Don NG. The owner is 13834 SE Holgate Blvd LLC.

• There is a pending application for a new four-story apartment building with 65 dwelling units at 4335 S.E. Belmont St. The applicant is Peter Miller of Otak. The owner is Lawrence Property and Management LLC.

• There is an application for a proposed performance venue to accommodate 2,800 to 3,000 people at 2034 N.W. 27^th Ave. The applicant is Christie White of Radler White Parks & Alexander LLP. The owner is The Freeman Group LLC.

• There is an application for the proposal of a seven-lot land division with a public street extension in R10 Zone for single-family detached houses at 12434 S.W. Orchard Hill Road. The property is in a landslide hazard area. The applicant is Ken Sandblast of Westlake Consultants. The owners are Claude W. JR. Washburn and Laurie A. Washburn.

• There is an application for the adjustment to height of a proposed development in exchange for right-of-way dedication for the Southwest Transit Corridor and TriMet future development at 8124 S.W. Barbur Blvd. The applicant is Matthew Lawton of Sexton Lawton Architecture. The owner is Ekaterini T. Garyfallou.

• There is an application for a new six-story, 54-unit residential building with ground-floor retail and 18 parking spaces at 606 N.E. 20^th Ave. with modification for parking space width and bicycle stall width. The applicant is Sarah Radelet of Strata Land Use Planning. The owners are Robert C. Hansen and Julie A. Hansen.

• There is an application for a historic resource review with adjustment to reduce the number of loading bays from two to one and a modification to change the loading bay size from Type A to Type B at 221 S.W. Naito Blvd. The project is for the new construction of a 74-room vacation ownership property with six floors on the existing parking lot. The applicant is Jon McAuley of SERA Architects. The owners are Wyndham Resort and Development Corp.

The post Land use review intakes for Nov. 23, 2015 appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

When Harsch Investment Properties President Jordan Schnitzer in 2013 pursued an opportunity to redevelop the vacant Centennial Mills site in Northwest Portland, he considered the effort a way to give back to the city.

Last week, the Portland Development Commission withdrew that opportunity when it decided to let a nonbinding memorandum of understanding with Harsch – a precursor to a potential binding disposition and development agreement – expire.

Now the only activity taking place on the property is demolition. Harsch’s plans to add multifamily housing, office space and retail space are essentially dead.

“I’m just so profoundly disappointed in PDC and the mayor,” Schnitzer said. “I made it clear all along that I wasn’t doing Centennial Mills because I needed another project. It was really more of a civic endeavor because I think it’s such a special, magical, important place. In essence, you had a developer who was putting legacy above profit. You have an agency who put an RFP out, took lots of people’s time, and has now broken that contract.”

PDC Executive Director Patrick Quinton explained in a letter to Schnitzer last week that the project planned in 2013 is “no longer practical.” The PDC, he stated, now wants to look at other options – public development, in particular.

Centennial Mills is very complicated, PDC spokesman Shawn Uhlman noted.

“I can certainly appreciate (Schnitzer’s) passion for it,” he said. “Something we need to bear in mind is that as everyone has said, this is a very challenging site.”

Schnitzer said he believes the PDC has not worked closely enough with the public.

“The PDC would not allow us to have any public meetings,” he said. “Why didn’t they ask the public for input? Why were they afraid of asking for a public meeting? I believe they were totally afraid. They were afraid that the public might ask for things and they would be in a dilemma.

“The thing that really disappoints me is that what this has basically done is thumb their nose at the public. PDC works for two million people in the metropolitan area. That’s who they serve. My view was when we took this project on, that was then who we served. This wasn’t a site to buy that we’d just buy and put up an office building.”

Uhlman disagreed with Schnitzer’s perception of public engagement for Centennial Mills.

“(Central City Manager) Lisa Abuaf has been going to the Pearl District Neighborhood Association every month and providing updates to them,” Uhlman said. “We’ve certainly kept what we have been doing in the public eye and we’ve been very public about the work that’s been going on.”

Harsch’s preferred development plan for Centennial Mills would have cost $115.8 million, with the company paying $77 million and public subsidies covering the rest. Harsch has already invested $1.3 million, Schnitzer said. Some of that money went into design work. Meetings took place with architects from the Portland area and elsewhere in the U.S., and seven proposals were created. Schnitzer’s favorite was one that preserved the Feed Mill and Flour Mill buildings and transformed the rest of the site into a public park with docks to let people access the Willamette River.

“After a 20-minute presentation (to the PDC) in October of 2014, we were never called back, never asked to explain all of our seven different plans,” Schnitzer said.

The PDC hasn’t eliminated the possibility of a different private development for the Centennial Mills site, but Schnitzer didn’t say whether Harsch would opt to participate in a new project. He said Harsch will probably take action to recoup much of the money it invested.

Schnitzer also wants light shed on exactly what happened.

“I thought this morning about writing a letter to the mayor,” he said. “What I’m probably going to do is maybe have a meeting with the (Pearl District) Neighborhood Association (and) invite all of the press in, because it’s a fascinating story. It’s peculiar and most of all tragic.”

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Ward Insurance has operated out of Eugene since it was founded in 1955 by Jack Ward. The privately owned and operated insurance company specializes in employee benefits and risk management to the wood products industry. It also has an expertise in construction and manufacturing.

Ward Insurance since 2000 has added divisions for clients from the hospitality, medical, retail and transportation sectors. Over the past 15 years, the company has increased its staff to more than 60 people. Now, it has more than 100 individual accounts for wood products clients.

Because of that growth and a desire to have a presence in the Portland market, Ward Insurance decided to open a new branch in Southwest Portland. The branch opened on Wednesday in a 2,000-square-foot office at 6500 Macadam Ave.

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