Unico Properties, fresh off its $255 million acquisition of Montgomery Park this month, is planning to renovate the centerpiece building, which opened in 1921.

The 745,000-square-foot building is approximately 95 percent leased, with tenants including Adidas, Daimler Trucks North America and Wells Fargo.

“Our plan for the existing Montgomery Park building is to reposition it, upgrade it,” said Brian Pearce, Unico’s executive vice president of real estate services.

Unico may follow the lead of some recent Montgomery Park tenants in creating more of a creative office feel, Pearce said. Any renovations would not require existing tenants to move, he said.

Unico’s purchase of the 18-acre property in Northwest Portland from the Bill Naito Co. was in partnership with Partners Group, a private-equity firm based in Switzerland. The transaction, recorded by Multnomah County on April 1, is one of the highest-dollar commercial real estate deals in Portland’s history.

Unico has been active in the Portland market. The Seattle-based investment and management company in December 2018 purchased, with partners, the historic Galleria building from the Bill Naito Co. Unico also owns, as part of a partnership, the 42-story U.S. Bancorp Tower.

“We’ve had a plan as a company to grow our assets under management,” Pearce said. “We’ve been working to align ourselves with capital and partners that are like-minded, and we’ve been pretty successful at raising capital.”

Montgomery Park gives Unico a foothold in Northwest Portland, which is growing rapidly – particularly in the Slabtown area and the north Pearl District.

“The growth of the Northwest neighborhood – it’s becoming a little more vibrant 24/7,” Pearce said. “It’s kind of transforming. To be able to be a part of that is pretty fantastic.”

Unico also plans to convert the American Can building, currently used as a parking structure, into creative-office space, Pearce said. The building was formerly a warehouse. The site has potential for further development, he said.

“There’s obviously plenty of development capacity there,” he said. “What we do there is sort of (to be determined). This is a long-term hold. It’s going to take us years to fully realize the site’s potential.”

Graham Taylor and Charles Safley of CBRE represented the Bill Naito Co. in the sale. Nick Santangelo, also with CBRE, arranged acquisition financing.

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A partnership including Unico Properties has purchased the Galleria Building, a downtown Portland landmark that dates back to 1910, and a renovation project is now planned for the upper two floors.

Unico and its partners, who were not identified, bought the property from Bill Naito Company for $64.1 million, according to a deed recorded Dec. 13.

The five-story, 194,737-square-foot Galleria occupies a full block in the West End. The building was originally an Olds, Wortman & King department store, and is now anchored by Target in an 89,000-square-foot space designed by FFA Architecture and Interiors.

Target opened in the building in 2013.

Currently, the Galleria’s top two floors are vacant.

“With 80,000 square feet of available office space on the upper two floors, we plan to make significant capital investments to convert the existing office space to creative office space, and bring a first-class tenant experience to the building with a new lobby and new common area amenities,” Brian Pearce, Unico’s senior vice president of real estate services, stated in a news release.

Urban Works Real Estate has listed for lease three ground-floor retail spaces totaling nearly 20,000 square feet at the building’s corner of Southwest Ninth Avenue and Morrison Street. A representative declined to comment Tuesday.

On Jan. 24, the new owners submitted to the Bureau of Development Services a request for design advice for a renovation including a new office penthouse and roof terraces. The owners also on Jan. 25 requested a complex zoning analysis of the property relating to a transfer of floor area ratio.

The building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Editor’s note: this story has been updated to reflect the building’s correct sale price.

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Three historic Old Town Chinatown office buildings have sold again, this time for $19 million to a local investment firm.

Portland-based NBP Capital was the buyer, acquiring the three buildings from Swift Real Estate Partners of San Francisco.

The three-building Old Town Chinatown portfolio has repeatedly changed hands for increasing prices in recent years. Swift purchased the portfolio for nearly $10.9 million in 2016. In 2014, John Beardsley purchased the three buildings from the Bill Naito Company for $8 million.

The portfolio consists of the Merchant Hotel, Captain Couch and the Norton House. The Merchant Hotel, 222 N.W. Davis St., was built in 1888 and renovated last year. The four-story building has 56,731 square feet. Captain Couch, 24-32 N.W. Second Ave., stands two stories and 17,742 square feet and was built in 1912. Norton House, 31-53 N.W. First Ave., was built in 1875 and is two stories and 13,626 square feet.

At each step, various owners have made improvements to make the buildings more attractive in Portland’s competitive creative office market.

Swift backed major upgrades at the Merchant Hotel, including a multimillion-dollar seismic retrofit and the addition of a tenant lounge, conference center and bike storage room. The Captain Couch and Norton House buildings received cosmetic upgrades to interior common areas.

The three-building acquisition represents the second phase of Swift’s sell-off of Old Town Chinatown assets. In September, the firm sold the New Market Theater and Blagen Block to NBP Capital for $32.2 million. NBP has now acquired a five-building office portfolio in Old Town Chinatown totaling 214,041 square feet for $51.25 million.

“Investors and developers have officially taken an interest in Old Town,” CBRE Vice President Charles Safley stated in a news release. “As you look at Old Town today there is a flurry of new capital investing in the future of this district. Everywhere you turn there is planned development, new construction, renovation projects and institutional investment coming in.”

Safley and Trevor Kafoury of CBRE’s Portland office represented both the seller and buyer. Nick Santangelo of CBRE’s Portland office and Brad Zampa, Michael Walker and Megan Woodring of CBRE’s San Francisco office secured $17.5 million in acquisition bridge financing.

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­A pair of historic Old Town/Chinatown buildings are undergoing a major overhaul to become a mixed-income housing development. The Erickson Building on Northwest 2^nd Avenue and the Fritz Building on Northwest 3^rd Avenue abut at the center, and are being connected to form a 62-unit apartment building.

The project’s developer, Innovative Housing Inc., purchased the buildings from the Bill Naito Co. earlier this year and hired two firms to design the remodel. LRS Architects is working on the Erickson Building, while Orangewallstudios is handling design work for the Fritz. The project’s general contractor is Silco Commercial Construction Inc., and Djoseland Construction Services is subcontracted for supervision, framing and finish work.

Work on the Fritz Building is scheduled for completion this December, and the Erickson is slated to wrap in May 2015.

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Redevelopment of Portland’s oldest neighborhood has been a piecemeal effort for years, but project by project, the face of Old Town Chinatown is continuing to morph. Now the question is whether a united vision is possible for the area.

Developers soon will have access to a new survey of several hundred buildings on 43 blocks in the neighborhood, and some say it will be a useful tool for planning future projects. But the survey has reignited conversations about the challenges of redeveloping an area with a diverse cultural past, a blighted reputation, and strict regulations because of its historic status.

“That area is definitely not finished,” said Anne Naito-Campbell of , which has invested in the development of Old Town Chinatown for more than 50 years. “The city and developers have done block-by-block improvements, but hopefully this study will help us come up with new ideas.”

Development has been bolstered by the ‘s , but money is dwindling.

“There’s probably PDC resources to do one more sort of large play (in Old Town Chinatown),” said Lew Bowers, director of PDC’s Central City team. “You need to prioritize, get around one project and say ‘yep, this is it.’ ”

Without the aid of the PDC, some stakeholders, including developer David Gold, are calling for property owners and developers to become more involved in projects that will help the community make progress.

University of Oregon graduate students are producing the in-depth development study, which will be presented March 21. The uses, condition, height, ground-floor activity, history and several other metrics will be documented for each building.

“A lot of people are watching,” said Howard Davis, a UO architecture professor. “When you’re trying to move forward with so many projects, the more information you have, the better.”

The new development study inspired Naito-Campbell, daughter of late real estate mogul Bill Naito, to spearhead a public discussion. Last week, 14 influential developers, architects, city officials and other Old Town Chinatown stakeholders laid out some of the difficulties and opportunities in the district.

The conversation, moderated by Peter Englander of the Portland Development Commission, revealed that the appropriate size and massing of new development in the district remains a divisive topic – some prioritize the district’s historic scale, while others want increased height limits.

“People continue to debate it because there’s no resolution from the city council,” said developer Art DeMuro. “My position is that (Old Town Chinatown’s) strength lies in its historic identity as Portland’s oldest commercial center, and that identity is defined by its collection of cast-iron architecture, its scale as a turn-of-the-century commercial hub, and its location on the riverfront.”

DeMuro’s company last year purchased a parking lot in a prime location between the Burnside Bridge and the Skidmore Fountain Building. Though he says his plans for Block 11 are in the earliest stages, DeMuro emphasizes that future construction will involve “compatible infill.”

“My experience in historic redevelopment is that the greatest success in revitalization occurs when unique identity can be reinforced and strengthened,” he said.

But Gold contends that height limits – 75 feet for some blocks in the neighborhood – are preventing development.

“If you can only build a three-story building, you’re not going to get a surface parking lot owner to develop it,” he said at the panel discussion. “I’ve said to people at the PDC, ‘You’ve got to help me because I cannot go to my deathbed owning a full block of surface parking in Portland – it’ll kill me.”

Gold for years tried to bring Seattle-based Asian grocer Uwajimaya to the district; however, the effort ultimately fizzled, and now he is converting the former Grove Hotel into an international youth hostel with ground-floor retail.

While Gold has a vision for development of the surface parking he owns in Old Town, he said they bring in too much money to warrant a project subject to 100-foot height limits.

“I’m all in favor of appropriate sizing for the buildings in Old Town Chinatown in the historic district, but you can’t set up policy that basically stymies all development on a small lot; the city needs to come up with other incentives,” he said at the meeting.

Several ongoing planning efforts and university collaborations may produce new ideas for the district. The UO architecture students in the fall will collaborate with Tokyo’s to analyze several Old Town Chinatown development scenarios, including the possible addition of a Japanese-style gate into the cityscape.

“They will be hypothetical projects, but looking at them could help move the conversation about height restrictions forward,” Davis said. “I don’t know if there’s a way to keep both sides happy, but I like to imagine there is.”

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After being sworn to secrecy during lease negotiations, Fletcher Farr Ayotte announced it has been released today from confidentiality agreements and can publicly confirm that Target is the tenant for space that is currently under construction in downtown Portland.

Crews from Lease Crutcher Lewis last week began soft demolition inside the historic Galleria Building in Southwest Portland and will soon begin prepping the core and shell for Target, according to Amalia Mohr, project manager for the architecture team from Fletcher Farr Ayotte.

“It’s been a great experience learning what they require,” she said.

The building’s owner, the , and in May requested design advice from the city’s Historic Landmarks Commission as they moved forward with the development. Then on Oct. 10, the Historic Landmarks Commission unanimously approved alterations to the Galleria Building, which occupies the entire city block bounded by Southwest Morrison and Alder streets and Southwest Ninth and 10th avenues.

Once final building permits are issued, crews will begin work on new elevators and escalators for the building. A seismic upgrade also is planned.

Target is working with California-based MBH Architecture for its tenant improvement work; Skanska will be the contractor handling the build-out. The store is expected to open in March 2013.

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Could this be a sign that Target is really coming to downtown Portland? Why, yes, I think it is.

The 91��Ƶ wrote in October that Target was finalizing its lease for a downtown Portland store, and now it looks like it’s really happening you guys!  Construction fencing has been erected around the Galleria Building at Southwest Tenth Avenue and Alder Street, and a large, vertical sign is welded to the corner of the building, though that sign has been there for a while. In any case, the sign looks a lot like the one in renderings originally submitted to the city when the store was in its early planning stages.

To confirm this, I put a call in to the Bill Naito Co., the owner of the building, but CEO Bill Barendrick was on the phone and couldn’t take my call immediately. The receptionist, however, let out a knowing chuckle when I said I was calling about the Galleria Building. Take that for what it’s worth. Employees with the company have for a while been under a confidentiality agreement regarding the Target store.

Anyway, do you know what this means?! It means working downtown is about to get so. much. better. I’m already thinking of all the things I’m going to be able to buy on my lunch break. Local economy? Psht. They can’t build this store fast enough!

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Target is finalizing its lease agreement to open a store in downtown Portland, according to sources close to the deal.

The Historic Landmarks Commission on Oct. 10 unanimously approved alterations to the Galleria Building, which occupies the entire city block bounded by Southwest Morrison and Alder streets and Southwest Ninth and 10th avenues. Because the building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, approval for the exterior alterations was the last major hurdle related to city requirements.

The 101-year-old building, initially home to the Olds, Wortman & King department store, needs several significant modifications in order to accommodate Target. Even though the building has been altered many times over the years, the addition of loading bays for supply trucks was a tough sell to some preservationists. But the building’s owner, the , and architecture firm in May requested design advice from the Historic Landmarks Commission as they moved forward with the development.

Renderings and documents submitted to the city confirm Target’s involvement, although neither the owner nor the architect could identify the incoming tenant on the record.

“The city is getting the preservation and maintenance of an important building in the downtown core, and also getting use out of it,” said Carrie Richter, chairwoman of the Historic Landmarks Commission.

The entrance of a national big-box retailer into the historic building required some compromises from both sides, but people involved with the project seem satisfied with the approved plans.

“I’m pleased that a resolution was reached,” said Art DeMuro, who was the chairman of the Historic Landmarks Commission when the request for design advice was submitted, but whose term ended last month. “I know there was a lot of excitement about accommodating that particular user and it’s great that there was a resolution not only to accommodate them, but to actually improve the historic integrity of this very significant building.”

DeMuro, who reviewed all alterations made to the building over the years in response to the request for design advice, suggested historic refurbishments that would make the next remodel a “net gain” for the building. Adherence to the commission’s design advice was critical, according to project architect Phil Chubb.

“We took the feedback to heart,” he said, “and the Naito Company was willing to do the things that would help clean up some of the conditions at the Galleria that the landmarks commission was interested in doing.”

One of the most significant changes to the historic facade will be the addition of loading dock doors so that Target trucks can enter and exit the building from Southwest Alder Street. But the design team came up with an innovative solution.

“Those doors will be one-of-a-kind – totally custom,” Chubb said. “We’re spending quite a bit of money to make the loading dock doors as invisible as we possibly can – and that was really important to the landmarks commission and to us, but it’s not an easy thing to do.”

A state-of-the-art seismic upgrade also is planned.

“Never mind the exterior improvements to the look of the building; the bones being reinforced are critical – that’s a huge step to the building’s historic integrity,” said Tim Heron, city planner for the Bureau of Development Services. “It won’t fall down if we get a shake, which we all know we’ll get sooner or later.”

The Nines Hotel and Portland State University’s Lincoln Hall are the only two buildings in Portland to feature the braced-frame technology planned for the Galleria. The so-called viscous dampers were adopted from a device used on military cannons to absorb recoil shock. Unlike a more conventional bracing system, the dampers don’t need to be stacked throughout the building or installed along its perimeter.

“The Galleria is full of existing tenants, each with peculiar needs, and this allows the flexibility to place lateral frames at positions that work for everyone instead of being this invasive thing,” Chubb said.

The design also includes a custom replica of the historic entry canopy on 10th Avenue.

Costs related to the marquee, seismic upgrade and custom loading dock made some of the other suggested improvements untenable. Some minor changes made in the 1970s, when the building was turned into the Galleria Mall, will remain as is, according to Chubb.

Target will lease approximately 100,000 square feet of the Galleria Building, which presently houses Brooks Brothers and other tenants. The retail space will be split between 40,000 square feet on each of the second and third floors; a ground-floor lobby and the loading dock facility will account for the remaining 20,000 square feet.

The main entrance to the Galleria will remain on 10th Avenue, but Target will have its own entry off of Morrison Street, near 10th Avenue, leading to its ground-floor lobby.

“It’s really just a nice return of that building to a full retail sort of facility, and it just happens to be a building that takes up a whole city block and can provide that kind of floor space for downtown retail use,” Chubb said. “It’s a nice marriage of modern retailing and a downtown site like that.”

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