The Vera is gaining a neighbor.

BRIDGE Housing‘s 203-unit affordable housing structure opened in Portland’s South Waterfront District in June 2020. Now, general contractor Walsh Construction is building for the real estate developer a similar structure at the corner of Southwest River Parkway and Moody Avenue.

RiverPlace Phase II will have 178 apartments – a mix of studios and units with one, two or three bedrooms. The units will be available to residents with incomes up to 60 percent of the area median income.

“We’ve got 50 units of family housing, which is always desirable,” said Nicole Peterson, a BRIDGE Housing senior project manager.

Also, 20 units reserved for veterans will be rented out through Veterans Affairs via project-based vouchers.

The Phase II building will have five stories of wood framing over two levels of post-tensioned concrete. The ground floor will have a mixture of office space, retail space and residential space, while the upper stories will hold apartments and community spaces. A second-level outdoor courtyard will be enclosed on three sides and open to the south, where a Pacific Power facility exists.

“We’re targeted to be done in the fall of next year, and it’s been going pretty well,” Walsh Construction project manager Brian Johnson said. “The biggest limitation being it’s the last block to build in this space. It’s about as tight as it gets. You’ve got the streetcar on two sides, you’ve got The Vera, and then PP&L doesn’t really want us to put stuff in their yard.”

The RiverPlace Phase II building, like The Vera, was designed by Ankrom Moisan Architects. A Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design gold rating will be sought through the LEED for Homes program. Johnson said the intent is to lean on the energy component to reach that goal. Even without an active photovoltaic array, the efficient building envelope (designed by RDH Building Science) and judicious use of high-quality windows and materials, insulation and brick masonry cladding should allow that to happen.

“How many bike racks you have – OK, that’s helpful,” Johnson said. “But if you really want to talk about the intent of sustainability, figuring out a way to reduce energy usage in buildings is number one. So, you start there.”

The material usage aspect of LEED is “pretty straightforward,” he added.

“We’ve got a lot of great local supply, and wood framing helps us out there,” he said. “And then you get points for the location. Just by virtue of using this site, the transit-oriented development, the amenities, you chalk up a whole bunch of points. It’s a good place to build, and it’s challenging, which is probably the reason it’s the last block to get built here. But it’s compelling.”

Because of site constraints, the building will feature panelized wall systems built by Pacific Wall Systems of Olympia, Washington. Also, motorized scaffolding will be used on all four sides of the building for installation of cladding.

“It would be nice to have a panel company a little closer, but capacity is also an issue,” Johnson said. “There is so much work going on right now, getting a partner is everything. They’ve been taking wood material for two months and have started putting the panels together, so we should see them middle of August.”

Nobody has inventory of almost anything, Johnson added. That has become a fact of life for teams tackling projects of all sizes during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It’s funny in a way because it’s kind of followed the flow of construction,” he said. “For a while there you couldn’t get form ply, you couldn’t get a bunch of wood material, you couldn’t get engineered wood material, you couldn’t get dimensional wood material.”

These days, flooring materials are difficult to procure because the cost of international shipping has tripled in recent months, according to Johnson. Also, there is a dire shortage of paint caused by a lack of polymer compounds normally manufactured in Europe and Asia. Even overhead doors suddenly experienced a 25 percent price increase overnight.

Currently at the RiverPlace Phase II site, carpenters with Whitaker/Ellis are building formwork and preparing to pour the second concrete deck, while mechanical, electrical and plumbing subcontractors Tapani Plumbing, Affordable Electric and American Heating are starting to work on the ground floor.

“We are finding ways around it and that’s where we have to work as a team,” Johnson said. “We have to be open with communication and say here’s what’s available now. And let’s look at options and see if we can be flexible. We certainly knew we would face challenges, but we couldn’t know where.”

The project’s financial partners include: the Portland Housing Bureau, Prosper Portland, Oregon Housing and Community Services, Home Forward, Metro, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Veterans Affairs, Bank of America and Barings Multifamily Capital.

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A major affordable housing developer has requested an exemption to proposed legislation that would decouple Oregon’s tax treatment of opportunity zone projects from federal tax benefits.

Legislators are considering a bill that would eliminate state tax benefits for one year while the federally recognized opportunity zones play out in Oregon and across the nation.

While most opportunity fund investments in Portland have flowed to large and expensive market-rate projects, some affordable housing developers are using opportunity zone benefits to attract investors.

“We are using opportunity zones – mostly in affordable housing deals,” said Cynthia Parker, chief executive of BRIDGE Housing, one of the West Coast’s largest developers of affordable housing.

Parker submitted written testimony to the Oregon Legislature lobbying for an exception for affordable housing if the bill, House Bill 4010, is passed.

“Since the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was passed, BRIDGE has worked diligently with investors to educate and promote usage of the (opportunity zone) program for the benefit of affordable housing developments,” Parker wrote. “We strongly recommend that a carve-out be made that would allow (opportunity zone) investors to receive tax benefits from both the federal and state if the underlying Qualified Opportunity Zone Business were an affordable housing development.”

A carve-out would create a 10 percent to 20 percent increase in yield for investors, Parker estimated. That makes it appealing for socially minded investors.

“It’s going to be a special-impact investor who wants to make a difference,” Parker said. “It’s not a deep subsidy; it was never intended to be a deep subsidy.”

BRIDGE Housing is seeking investors for an affordable housing project in Southwest Portland’s RiverPlace area, Parker said.

The so-called “decoupling” bill would dent the tax benefits for investors in Portland’s opportunity zone, which has received national attention for its location in highly desirable areas including downtown, portions of the Pearl District and Central Eastside Industrial District.

By reducing the tax benefit investors could expect, it could also make it more difficult for affordable housing developers to raise funds.

Democrats and tax-fairness critics have blasted opportunity zones for offering capital gains tax benefits that go to wealthy investors. Critics argue that many opportunity zone projects would still get built without the subsidies.

“Who’s going to not invest because they got a haircut?” said Bennett Minton, a tax policy watchdog with Tax Fairness Oregon. “Either the projects work or they don’t.”

Bill sponsor Rep. Nancy Nathanson, D-Eugene, did not directly answer questions about Parker’s carve-out request. Nathanson serves as chairwoman of the House Revenue Committee.

“The conversation is ongoing about the opportunity zones legislation and the issue remains in flux,” she stated in an email. “I remain committed to a conversation about the value of opportunity zones.”

In Portland, opportunity zone investments have so far gone to large market-rate projects including the Block 216 mixed-use tower, the PAE Living Building and a proposed Sturgeon Development Partners office building.

Opportunity zones offer a number of tax benefits. Primarily, they encourage investors to hold onto a property for 10 years to avoid capital gains tax.

Other affordable housing developers are watching and waiting. Dan Valliere, CEO of REACH Community Development Corp., said the nonprofit is not actively pursuing opportunity zone funding. He questioned whether opportunity zones will help spur investment where it’s most needed.

“The way it’s structured now, there’s very little accountability to make sure this is creating social impacts,” Valliere said. “They’re just standard real estate investments, which is fine. But it doesn’t really make sense to give it a tax benefit.”

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A ceremonial ground-breaking event took place Thursday on a new affordable housing project in Portland’s Eliot neighborhood.

The five-story, approximately 72,455-square-foot North Williams will occupy a 1.15-acre parcel fronting North Williams Avenue between Tillamook and Thompson streets. It will feature 61 apartments, including 40 for persons earning 30 percent of the regional median income or less ($24,420 for a family of four) and 20 for persons earning 60 percent of the regional median income or less ($48,840 for a family of four). Ten of the deeply affordable units will come with support services intended for people emerging from homelessness.

“Including these homes for our most vulnerable community members in a mixed-income project is exactly what affordable housing should look like in 2019,” Multnomah County Commission Chairwoman Deborah Kafoury . “We just need to keep doing more of it.”

A consortium of parties including nonprofit BRIDGE Housing, Home Forward and the city of Portland are funding the project or providing other incentives including Section 8 housing vouchers. More than $20 million in public and private funding is being used for the project, according to the county.

Ankrom Moisan Architects designed the apartment complex, and general contractor Colas Construction will build it. Plans call for a mix of one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments, ground-floor community space, bicycle parking, an exterior courtyard and a parking lot.

The wood-framed building will have a façade covered with a combination of fiber-cement panels, fiber-cement lap siding and storefront glazing for the first floor.

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Portland’s Bureau of Environmental Services has awarded a $200,000 grant to help pay for environmental cleanup of a property that formerly housed a battery manufacturing plant.

The money came out of the city’s Brownfield Revolving Loan Fund, which in 2011 was established via $1 million awarded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The grant dollars will aid remediation at 2140 N. Williams Ave., where Wagstaff Battery Manufacturing Co. formerly operated.

BRIDGE Housing, a nonprofit, plans to redevelop the property by building a four-story, 61-unit affordable housing complex. The Portland Housing Bureau and Multnomah County will help pay for the project, which under a city policy will include 10 units with priority given to displaced former residents.

“This grant is an investment in our community, helping to create healthy neighborhoods, while providing deeply affordable housing in a historically underserved neighborhood,” Commissioner Nick Fish said. “It’s a win-win-win.”

The Portland Brownfield Program has so far helped address environmental concerns on more than 100 acres, according to the city.

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BRIDGE Housing, one of the largest providers of affordable housing in Oregon, is expanding into the RiverPlace area of Portland’s South Waterfront District. There, general contractor Hoffman Construction is on the verge of topping out a 13-story apartment tower that comprises the first phase of .

This $19 million project will provide 203 affordable apartments. Construction of the second phase – a six-story, 177-unit mixed-use building, will begin as soon as public funding from state and local sources is secured.

“We’ll be topped out late next month,” Hoffman Construction superintendent John Sullivan said earlier this week of the first building. “On the interior of the building we are working the interior framing. We’re substantially complete on second, third and fourth floors, fairly well along on those three floors. And we’re waiting to get dried in on the roof, so we’re doing a temp roof on seven.”

Recent rains are affecting scheduling, Sullivan added.

“We’re going to get that streak of bad luck and seasonal weather here,” he said. “We’ll have material on site starting tomorrow for that roof, and as soon as we get a four- or five-day window, we’ll build it.”

Ninety of the apartments in the first building will be reserved for households earning 30 percent of the regional median family income or less, including 70 with project-based Section 8 vouchers. Ten more units will be dedicated to homeless veterans in the Veteran Affairs Supportive Housing program. The other 113 apartments will serve households earning up to 60 percent of MFI.

Ankrom Moisan Architects designed the building, which will be constructed to Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design gold standards.

Tenant amenities will include a playground and landscaped courtyard, two laundry rooms, a community room with a kitchen, a residential services office with extra program space, a conference room and a community classroom.

Crews broke ground on phase one in January, and completion is expected by mid-July 2019. Early next year the BRIDGE Housing leasing team will begin reaching out to prospective tenants, said Christine Paglialunga, a BRIDGE real estate development professional.

“We’d love to have early occupancy on the lower floors, maybe by late June,” she said. “We’ll start all of our leasing processes after the start of the new year; we’ll start our marketing and get our staff together at that time.”

Financial partners include the Portland Housing Bureau, Oregon Housing and Community Services, Prosper Portland, Home Forward, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, National Equity Fund Inc., KeyBank Community Development Lending and Barings Multifamily Capital.

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In the small town of Cornelius, between Hillsboro and Forest Grove, a unique, $19 million mixed-use project is nearing completion.

The top two stories of the three-story Cornelius Place will hold affordable housing units for seniors. But unlike most mixed-use buildings, there will be no commercial or retail space; the first floor will hold the new Cornelius Public Library.

“It’s exciting,” said Karen Hill, the library’s executive director since 2006. “And the biggest deal is that we can have more books, obviously. But we’ll have this big community room that we can split into two. We’ll also have five study rooms and all of these spaces are going to be packed.”

The library will have sufficient space for 40,000 books, movies and music. Also, at least 30 computers and laptops will be available. In addition to the 100-seat community room, there will be a space dedicated to youths and a coffee bar operated by a local microenterprise.

Cornelius Place is rising on the corner of Adair Street and 14th Avenue, across from Cornelius Elementary School. The prominent building in the small downtown area will provide a central gathering point.

“We have no competition in town,” Hill said with a laugh. “We think we’re going to double everything on day one.”

The development team includes partners , and the YMCA. Scott | Edwards Architecture designed the building, and Walsh Construction is serving as the general contractor.

The building has a U-shape with a courtyard in the middle, far from either street.

Plans call for 45 housing units – 44 for tenants age 55 or older and making between 50 and 60 percent of regional median income, and one for the apartment manager. Two of the apartments will have two bedrooms, six will be studios and the rest will have one bedroom, according to BRIDGE Housing project manager Destin Ferdun.

These days, crews are installing exterior siding, drywall, fire suppression and HVAC items and other interior elements.

“We’re supposed to be complete by mid-February of next year,” Ferdun said. “With the residential, we have a community room there for the residents. There’s a residents’ services office run by Centro Cultural, a local nonprofit, and we have leasing offices and bulk storage for the residents as well.”

Subcontractors currently working on-site include: Platinum Exteriors; Anning Johnson, which is installing drywall; Sterling Floors; RDF Builders, which is performing finishing carpentry and earthwork; Hildebrand Concrete of Washougal, Washington, which is carrying out site concrete; Boring-based United Brothers Company, which is installing cabinetry; Merritt Electric; Peninsula Plumbing; Jet Heating; and Crown Fire Systems.

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Subcontractors are being sought to perform a wide range of work for a new multifamily development in North Portland.

General contractor Colas Construction is building the five-story wood-framed apartment building on North Williams Avenue for nonprofit developer BRIDGE Housing. The building will have approximately 72,455 square feet of space.

Ankrom Moisan Architects designed the building, which will have 61 apartments, ground-floor community space and an exterior courtyard. The residential units will have either one, two or three bedrooms. Also, parking will serve both motor vehicles and bicycles.

Colas Construction has scheduled a nonmandatory site walk and meeting for potential subcontractors at 2 p.m. on Nov. 8, at 2124-2156 N. Williams Ave. Subcontractors interested in possibly submitting bids are encouraged to visit the property to identify any potential site constraints.

All bids will be due by 3 p.m. on Dec. 6.

To learn more and submit a bid, contact Kevin Raborg at 503-292-4025, extension 213, or email him at kevin@colasconstruction.com.

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Kurt Creager, former director of the Portland Housing Bureau, has been hired by BRIDGE Housing to oversee the nonprofit’s affordable housing developments in Washington state.

Creager begins immediately as executive vice president.

“I am delighted to welcome Kurt to BRIDGE,” Cynthia Parker, president and CEO, stated in a news release. “His deep experience and steadfast commitment to holistic development will strengthen our ability to create much-needed housing and opportunities for communities in Washington state.”

Creager served as director of the Housing Bureau from August 2015 to December 2017. He was hired by Mayor Charlie Hales and eventually ousted by Mayor Ted Wheeler as housing officials worked to respond to the city’s declared housing emergency. Shannon Callahan succeeded Creager as Housing Bureau director.

Creager previously served as director of housing and community development for Otak, a Portland-based engineering and architecture firm. Before that, he spent 16 years as CEO of the Vancouver Housing Authority, during which time it developed 3,500 housing units.

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Politicians, economists, housing advocates and developers have come to a broad agreement that more housing is needed in Oregon. A new report from ECONorthwest attempts to measure the scope of the problem.

The state underbuilt by 155,000 housing units from 2000 to 2015, according to the report. If that number of homes were built in Oregon during the next 20 years, home prices would be 5.5 percent lower than if the homes were not built, the report found.

“Oregon is seriously behind … providing housing at all levels of affordability,” Mayor Ted Wheeler said at an event Tuesday to mark the report’s release. “This report shows we have a lot of work to do.”

Wheeler called the report “very depressing” in its depiction of the housing deficit.

The report recommends employing some of the strategies the city of Portland already is, including promotion of so-called “middle” housing such as duplexes and accessory dwelling units (ADUs).

Other recommendations include:

• changing impact fees to be based on a per-acre or per-square-foot basis, instead of per unit (this would improve the feasibility of high-density projects, the report stated);
• holding cities accountable to meeting existing permitting timelines and clear and objective development approval standards; and
• allowing high-density zoning near high-capacity transit station areas.

“We need a Marshall Plan for housing,” said Mike Kingsella, an author of the report and executive director of Oregon LOCUS, a trade group for developers.

Local governments would garner a $13 billion net benefit if the 155,000 units were built, based on projections of property taxes, system development charges and other revenue sources, said Michael Wilkerson, an economist and partner at ECONorthwest.

Joe Cortright, director of CityLab, questioned the underlying assumption that more housing of any type is needed. Too many large, suburban homes are sitting with empty bedrooms, he said.

“I don’t think we face a shortage of housing so much as a shortage of cities and great urban neighborhoods,” he said. “Big, single-family houses in the suburbs are not meeting the housing needs of people who are more interested in living in urban neighborhoods.”

The report’s release came three weeks before the Nov. 6 election, when Portland-area voters will decide the fate of Metro’s $653 million housing bond measure. Also, Measure 102, a statewide bid, would allow affordable housing projects to mix private and public funding.

Both measures would help address the dire need for affordable housing, advocates said.

“I really, truly, deeply believe that we can solve this problem together,” said Alison McIntosh, deputy director at Neighborhood Partnerships, a Portland-based nonprofit.

The report is part of Up for Growth Oregon, a pro-housing group that includes developers such as BRIDGE Housing, Cairn Pacific, Holland Partner Group and nonprofits such as 1,000 Friends of Oregon and Oregon Smart Growth.

The group demonstrates developers and housing advocates such as McIntosh can find common ground, said Noel Johnson, principal at Cairn Pacific.

“At the end of the day, her goals are my goals,” he said. “The question is how to achieve it.”

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The city of Portland, in slow and lurching fashion, is beginning to make a move toward increasing affordable housing.

A first City Council hearing of a framework plan for how to spend $258 million in bonds approved by voters is tentatively scheduled for Oct. 11. A second hearing would be held Oct. 18, with a vote possible that day.

If the plan is approved by the City Council, the Portland Housing Bureau plans to open transactions on bond deals on Oct. 20.

“We’re close,” Housing Director Kurt Creager said.

Mayor Ted Wheeler had asked the Housing Bureau to hold off on spending from the voter-approved bond until a plan was in place.

Part of the plan is a $50 million to $80 million budget for a “turnkey projects” pilot program, Creager said. Developers would use their own lines of credit and working capital to build projects and then sell them to the Housing Bureau.

Creager said the program could serve as a “backup plan” for developers who are encountering a market with more supply than it has had in recent years.

“They could get their profit and overhead covered, and a reasonable developer’s fee, without coming up with more money to please their bank in a softening market,” Creager said.

The program needs to be well funded to work, he added.

“I don’t think it should be less than $50 million, because it’s not worth people’s time and money,” he said.

As the Housing Bureau prepares for an influx of funds, private-sector nonprofit developers are finding a tougher time financing deals. Tax-credit equity markets have cooled since President Donald Trump’s election, and interest rates have ticked up.

The combination of more expensive loans and less equity has dented the ability of nonprofit developers to finance projects.

“We along with the entire industry have tried to figure out how to make up that gap,” said Cynthia Parker, president and CEO of BRIDGE Housing.

Nonprofit developers use a syndicator of tax credits – the National Affordable Housing Trust – that is owned by BRIDGE Housing and others. The tax credits are typically combined with bank financing. In July, BRIDGE purchased the Ramona, a 138-unit affordable apartment complex in the north Pearl District. Construction of The Abigail, a 155-unit mixed-income project with 128 affordable apartments, finished last year.

BRIDGE has other affordable projects under way in Hillsboro, the North Macadam neighborhood and the Eliot neighborhood.

The Housing Bureau’s bond money looms as an injection of funds into the affordable market.

Creager said the bureau has a “moral and ethical obligation” to build or preserve 1,300 affordable units with the bond dollars as promised. Portland voters approved the bond measure in November; property taxes increased as a result.

The bond funding should arrive at a good time, because the multifamily market is widely expected to slow, Creager said.

“We recognize that markets are dynamic and we have about four more years to put this money into service,” he said. “We’ll be liquid at the right time when the market recalibrates, instead of adding more froth to an already overheated market.”

While the Housing Bureau waits for the influx of bond money, it has made some opportunistic purchases.

In February, the bureau bought the Ellington Apartments in Northeast Portland for $47 million. The purchase preserved 260 units, including 44 affordable ones.

The City Council recently approved a $3.72 million purchase of a parcel at 3000 S.E. Powell Blvd. for affordable housing development. The property across the street from Cleveland High School is now the Safari Club, a strip club.

The site will be home to 100 to 300 affordable apartments, and could be used as an emergency shelter during development, Mayor Ted Wheeler said via Twitter.

The wide range of the number of units is due to different possible configurations for the site, Creager said. At maximum density, the Powell property could have up to 300 multifamily units, but the Housing Bureau is considering building townhouses along the southern edge of the property. That would help blend in with the neighboring homes, Creager said.

The Housing Bureau has been looking for a location to build affordable homes; if it goes this route, it may bifurcate the site, he said.

“It might be an appropriate place for it,” he said. “We’re not sure that maximum density is necessary. It sort of depends on the soil condition we find too.”

The townhomes could be three-level, no-lot dwellings sold to low- and moderate-income households at or below 80 percent of area median income, Creager said.

The lot was used at one time for dumping, and there’s a small landfill that must be excavated and disposed of properly, he said.

On Sept. 30, the $3.72 million purchase and sale agreement will close and the city of Portland will take possession of the property. It’s expected to serve as a women’s and children’s shelter until development of affordable housing on the site can take place.

“Until we have an entitled project for development, we’ll probably keep the building in some active use,” Creager said. “Because it’s across from the high school, it’s probably most suited for families or women. The best possible outcome would probably be utilization as a shelter for 12 to 24 months.”

Construction on the site will likely begin in 2019, Creager said.

The Housing Bureau has also acquired a site at Southeast 60th Avenue and Stark Street, north of Mount Tabor.

The property at 511 S.E. 60th Ave. is a YMCA child development center. The YMCA will be able to continue operations in a nearby church during construction at the site, Creager said.

The Housing Bureau aims to build 40 to 50 affordable units, along with a replacement YMCA facility and shared parking.

Portland paid $1.2 million for the property, known as the Mount Tabor Annex. The YMCA’s existing lease means the organization has possession of the property until Oct. 22, 2019, for use as a child-care facility.

A developer will be chosen by the housing commissioner after an open, competitive process, Creager said.

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