Simple, an online bank founded in Portland, plans to sublease two floors of its Central Eastside offices at Clay Creative.

The decision to put the office space, totaling 30,000 square feet, back out to market comes as the company prepares to move into a second office building, Clay Pavilion, in spring 2018.

Clay Creative was completed in 2016 at 240 S.E. Clay St. The building has approximately 60,000 square feet of office space.

The adjacent second building, Clay Pavilion, is under construction at 120 S.E. Clay St. The three-story office building will have 75,000 square feet. The office space in Clay Pavilion was designed to Simple’s specifications, Simple spokeswoman Shauna Causey said.

The move comes amid cutbacks at the company, which laid off 38 employees, or about 10 percent of its workforce, earlier this summer.

Subleasing the Clay Creative space is not related to the layoffs, Causey said.

Simple still plans to occupy Clay Pavilion during the second quarter of 2018, Causey said. “Since we are moving into the new office, we do have space available in our current office,” she said.

Both Clay Creative and Clay Pavilion come from developer Killian Pacific of Vancouver, Washington.

Simple was founded in Portland in 2009. The online banking startup was acquired in 2014 by a Spanish bank, Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria.

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Killian Pacific is adding another Central Eastside block to its portfolio, but without specific redevelopment plans yet.

The Vancouver, Wash.-based development company is under contract to purchase the lot owned and occupied by Speed’s Towing at 125 S.E. Clay St. The full block – in operation for now – is due west of the former Rexel/Taylor Electric Supply warehouse, which Killian acquired in 2012 with plans for a new five-story creative office development.

Killian Pacific Vice President Noel Johnson said the company’s strategy for the Speed’s Towing site may not be clear, but its advantages are evident.

“The green street improvements, the bike boulevard … you’ve got the bus, the light rail and the streetcar all right there with (Oregon Museum of Science and Industry) and (Portland Community College) being good, reliable, stable institutions that are really meaningful to the city,” he said. “It just seemed like a great place, and it just seemed like a logical extension of our commitment to the Central Eastside, and helping it grow.”

Killian Pacific also is redeveloping a former PGE industrial building nearby into the new offices of Viewpoint Construction Software. Johnson said the Speed’s Towing site could provide a logical avenue for future expansions by that firm or others in the area; however, he’s also talking with a food-based wholesaler interested in the site.

As the Central Eastside experiences a wave of change in the way of pedestrian-oriented development, Johnson said he wants to remain true to the neighborhood’s industrial roots.

“We’re trying to find ways to continue to be partners for those businesses and not just be a developer that’s doing breweries and mixed-use stuff,” he said. “There are plenty of people doing that out there. We want to make sure we’re staying true to the eastside’s core.”

About eight blocks east and five blocks north of the Speed’s Towing property, Killian Pacific has significant mixed-use development plans for the Goat Blocks, which the company is now referring to as the “Loca” (as in locavore) development. The project is going back before the Portland Design Commission on June 12, and Johnson said the project has garnered the support of the Buckman Neighborhood Association as well as the Central Eastside Industrial Council – groups that tend to have competing interests. Killian Pacific now controls more than seven blocks worth of the Central Eastside.

At the Rexel/Taylor Electric site, Johnson said Killian Pacific is close to securing anchor tenants and expects to have project news to report soon. Interest in that pending development, he said, has been strong.

“Once a week we’re responding to inquiries and every week we’re meeting with some group that’s interested in that site,” he said.

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