Ownership of Multnomah County‘s 95-year-old Gladys McCoy Building in downtown Portland will soon transfer to private developers.

County commissioners voted unanimously Thursday to approve the sale of the building to Urban Renaissance Group LLC for $11.1 million. The 10-story structure has approximately 100,000 square feet and will be converted into commercial office space in the future, according to county documents.

The building has served as Multnomah County’s Health Department headquarters for many years. Construction of a new headquarters building is in the final stages in Old Town.

“The plans are to renovate this historic building and offer the space as office space,” Bob Leek, interim director of the department of county assets told commissioners.

The county’s real estate team started a blind sales process in 2017, with the board of commissioners formally declaring the building as surplus earlier this year.

Commercial real estate services and investment firm CBRE Group began marketing the building on behalf of the county in May and had over 7,000 initial qualified buyers inquire about the property.

Further exploration whittled that figure down to 164 registered parties expressing interest. By July, the county had eight formal offers for the property in hand, Leek said, which necessitated four rounds of reviews by the county real estate team.

“The end result of that is why I’m here this morning,” he said.

The deal also includes a leaseback provision that will allow the county to continue to use the Gladys McCoy Building as its health department headquarters in the event delivery of the new building is delayed.

“Which isn’t going to happen,” board Chairwoman Deborah Kafoury interjected with a laugh.

Urban Renaissance Group LLC is based in Seattle, but has a Portland office. The firm offers real estate acquisition, development and management services.

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