The 15-story Commonwealth Building, constructed in downtown Portland in 1948, has sold for $69 million.

The 216,099-square-foot building was purchased by KBS Capital Advisors, a Newport Beach, California-based affiliate of KBS Growth & Income Real Estate Investment Trust, according to a news release. Financing came in the form of a $47.4 million, five-year floating rate acquisition loan from an insurance company. The loan was arranged by HFF, which also marketed the property.

The seller was Unico Properties, a limited liability company. The property previously sold for $41 million in 2013 and $27.7 million in 2007.

The latest sale equates to $319 per square foot.

Pietro Belluschi, a notable Portland architect who died in 1994, designed the building at 421 S.W. Sixth Ave.

The Commonwealth Building was remodeled between 2013 and 2015 into creative office space. The building fronts the Sixth Avenue transit mall, and includes flexible office space, a fitness center and basement bicycle storage.

Tenants include Quantum Spatial, Kennedy Jenks, the Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance and Galois Inc.

The building has a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design gold rating from the U.S. Green Building Council. Originally named the Equitable Building, it is also listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The sale comes amid a backdrop of strong demand for office space in Portland. Class A office space had average asking rents of $31.33 during the second quarter, and a total vacancy rate of 7.8 percent, according to Jones Lang LaSalle.

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The Portland City Council on Wednesday agreed to accept a bid far higher than the original estimate to repair and seismically upgrade a leaky 911 call center. Officials say the current construction boom is to blame.

Skyward Construction of Ridgefield, Wash., bid $2.78 million – $693,000 more than the city estimated – to upgrade the Portland Communications Center. It was the only firm to bid.

The complicated upgrade will involve fixing the facility’s roof and envelope without impeding emergency operations. The city’s project manager, Sharon Raymor, surmised that with all the work happening around Portland, contractors that regularly work with the city could afford to sit this project out.

“Because it’s a 24-7 operation that’s going to remain fully occupied during construction, there is a lot of risk,” she said. “Essentially, it was that there were more opportunities elsewhere that weren’t as complex.”

During a hearing Wednesday to accept the bid, Commissioner Nick Fish asked Raymor why the project wasn’t put back out to bid. She replied that because the project involves methods potentially disruptive to 911 operators, much of the work will be done during the hours of lowest call volume – 2 to 6 a.m. Monday through Thursday.

“I think having to account for work during a very odd-hour swing shift is helping drive the cost up,” she said.

Raymor said that despite the high bid, the cost is still under budget. The project is being paid for with money from the Major Maintenance and Asset Replacement Fund.

“With this specific project, I don’t know that we could package it any other way, because of the nature of the facility,” she said. “It’s a critical facility.”

Skyward project manager Glenn Taggart said the firm hopes to begin construction Aug. 1 and finish in six months.

“It’s going to be a tough one,” he told the 91��Ƶ. “The hardest part is probably going to be the seismic stuff on the inside.”

The city isn’t the only entity having trouble finding qualified crews. Taggart said securing specialized subcontractors hasn’t been easy.

Fish brought up that during the Great Recession, firms bid on projects outside their comfort zones in part to keep their crews busy. This led to lower costs for public projects.

“They were undercutting the market because they had fixed costs, and so they wanted the work,” he said. “Are we at risk of the reverse now? Because there’s so much activity in our community, we’re getting fewer bids and people are bidding at a premium? Is it a double-whammy for us?”

Taggart was Skyward’s estimator for the project.

“We’ve done a lot of these kinds of projects, and I’d say we’re pretty much experts at them and what they cost,” he said. “And when we were bidding it, we thought we were fully competitive.”

Skyward intends to self-perform $2.45 million of the contract amount and dedicate 9.3 percent of the total bid – $260,000 – to minority-owned or women-owned subcontractors.

Commissioner Steve Novick said replacing the facility’s roof has been a high priority for the Bureau of Emergency Communications for several years. Employees have had to rig buckets and tubing to prevent water from leaking onto electronics when snow accumulates on the roof.

“There’s a constant fear that that system will fail, and it sends a terrible message to our hard-working call-takers and dispatchers who have to navigate around buckets when they come to work,” he said.

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