PROJECT: Patricia Reser Center for the Arts

LOCATION: Beaverton

SIZE:��43,000 square feet

COST:��$55 million

START DATE: late 2019

ANTICIPATED END DATE: February 2022 (opening March 8)

OWNER: city of Beaverton

OWNER’S REPRESENTATIVE: Gerding Edlen

ARCHITECT: Opsis Architecture

ENGINEERS: KPFF Consulting Engineers (structural), Otak (civil), PAE (mechanical and plumbing), Reyes Engineering (electrical, tele/data low voltage)

CONSTRUCTION MANAGER/GENERAL CONTRACTOR:��Skanska USA Building

OTHER CONSULTANTS/PARTICIPANTS: Anderson Krygier (environmental graphic design), Angelo Planning Group (land use), DCW Cost Management (estimating), JLC Consulting (specifications), Morrison Hershfield (envelope), Pacific Habitat Services (environmental consultant), PLACE (landscape architecture), Stantec (acoustics), The Shalleck Collaborative (theater planning and audio/visual)

SIGNIFICANCE OF PROJECT: Located near The Round between Southwest Cedar Hills Boulevard and Southwest Hall Boulevard, the Reser Center features a 550-seat theater; an art gallery; rehearsal, workshop and meeting space; a lobby; an outdoor plaza and an adjacent parking structure. The site is near a light rail station, City Hall, Beaverton Creek, shops, restaurants and lodging. This is the first facility of its kind to be built from the ground up in the Portland area in more than three decades.

Opsis Architecture sought to blend urban and natural settings in the design. The plan included not only the main structure, but parking, a pedestrian-friendly promenade with a street festival ambience, and public art. Inspired by the metaphor of a beaver dam, wood panels and long, thin wood slats or “sticks” and incision points are integrated to enable light to pour into the atrium, while blending with state-of-the-art acoustic and theatrical systems in the Mainstage Theater. With blue seats, the theater is evocative of a body of water adjacent to a creek housing a beaver dam. The facility includes 21,000 square feet of Douglas fir. The second floor has space for a variety of educational workshops, classes, rehearsals, meetings and events. The performing and presentation spaces are designed to maximize the connection between artists and audiences.

The concept of creating a center for the arts in Beaverton started in the late 1990s. Later, a study led by Opsis and Theater Consulting Group, in conjunction with University of Oregon students, showed what a world-class arts center could look like. In July 2018, the Beaverton Arts Foundation announced a pledge of $13 million from Pat Reser to launch the project. In three years, more than 950 donors – individuals, families, foundations and businesses – provided more than $12 million to exceed the initial goal by $1 million. Gifts ranged from $2 to $1.5 million. Also, the Beaverton City Council approved a hotel lodging tax to help pay for construction and provide ongoing financial support of operations.

“Building Blocks” spotlights noteworthy projects either under construction or approaching the start of construction. To submit a project for consideration, please visit: djcoregon.com/building-blocks.

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What was once Gerding Edlen is moving into the future with a new name and a reorganized corporate structure.

One of Portland’s most prominent development firms has shed co-founder Bob Gerding’s name to become Edlen & Co.

At the same time, the investment management part of the firm, which became independent last year, has rebranded as The Green Cities Co.

“It’s kind of a natural transition,” said Mark Edlen, who co-founded Gerding Edlen and now Edlen & Co.

Here’s how the corporate reorganization breaks down:

The Green Cities Co.

What is now The Green Cities Co. traces its history to 2009, when Gerding Edlen founded Gerding Edlen Investment Management. The investment company owns and manages real estate and invests of behalf of institutional partners.

It quickly grew, establishing significant footprints in Boston, Chicago and the San Francisco Bay Area, in addition to Portland. (Holdings in Los Angeles and Seattle have been sold).

Green Cities has $2.7 billion in assets under management, said Molly Bordonaro, one of four managing partners.

In April 2020, Bordonaro and three other managing partners – Kelly Saito, Brent Gaulke and Patrick Wilde – bought out Mark Edlen and Roger Krage. The move made the investment management company independent of Gerding Edlen, and kept the investment company in local hands instead of an outside third party’s.

“It’s the best thing to create alignment with our investors and create greater value moving forward,” Bordonaro said.

Commercial real estate has absorbed a major blow from the COVID-19 pandemic, with rents and occupancy rates falling as office users reevaluate their needs and wait out the disruptions.

“We feel very strongly about multifamily and the markets we’re in,” Bordonaro said. “As far as office, we do believe it will take a little bit longer. But people are going to return to the office.”

Locally, Green Cities is looking to fill the office space at 5 MLK – the recently completed 17-story building that it owns through a fund. The mixed-use building has 120,400 square feet of office space, all of which is vacant. 5 MLK also has 220 apartments and 15,000 square feet of commercial space. The project is part of a boom in development at the east Burnside bridgehead that includes Yard, Sideyard and the Fair-Haired Dumbbell.

“We’re very bullish on the opportunity in that neighborhood,” Bordonaro said.

The multifamily sector has also shown resilience through the pandemic, she said.

“We’re very confident in multifamily,” she said. “And to be honest – even urban multifamily, we’ve not seen real degradation in value.”

The company will continue to focus on investments with environmental sustainability and social value, Bordonaro said. Green Cities is both a minority- and woman-owned enterprise.

Green Cities has also formed its own development and property management companies. While most employees are working remotely for now, Green Cities inherited Gerding Edlen’s former offices in the Pearl District.

“We are very confident that we’ll be able to continue to grow the firm as we have over the last 10 years,” Bordonaro said.

Edlen & Co.

Edlen & Co. is the direct descendant of Gerding Edlen, a Portland powerhouse that developed 5 MLK, Oregon Health & Science University’s Center for Health and Healing, The Ardea, Eleven West (with Downtown Development Group) and many other buildings locally and throughout the United States.

Bob Gerding, who founded the firm with Mark Edlen, died in 2009. The firm had kept the original name until announcing the change Jan. 8. The partners are Edlen, Roger Krage, Jill Sherman and Matt Edlen.

Sherman, who joined Gerding Edlen in 2003, said the company’s record of innovation remains part of its DNA.

“We’ll never forget the origins of the company, and Bob and Mark and what they founded is special and unique,” she said. “That legacy – regardless of the name – will always be our foundation.”

Gerding Edlen had long pushed projects with an affordable housing, equity and environmental sustainability ethos. Edlen & Co. is doubling down on those commitments, Mark Edlen said.

“Where I’m at in my career, I want to focus on projects that are much more community-based,” he said.

Edlen & Co. has under construction in Gateway an affordable housing project that will be completed this spring. The developer is also working on a De Paul addiction treatment center in East Portland.

A multifamily project in partnership with Albertina Kerr will have 150 units, including some for people in need of social services and others for low-income renters.

Edlen & Co. also has properties in Spokane, Washington, and Salt Lake City, Utah, and Bend that are planned as future sites for workforce or affordable housing.

The firm has “observed the divergence of haves and have-nots” grow wider in recent years, Edlen said.

“The biggest challenges cities are going to face in the next 20 years are social equity,” he said. Affordable housing “has always been a subset of the business. As I step back from day-to-day management, basically we’re trying to see if we can scale it up and serve more people.”

Edlen has long had a fascination with cutting-edge sustainable development. He serves on the board of the Bullitt Foundation, which oversees the Bullitt Center, a net-zero office building in Seattle. Edlen & Co. is now developing the PAE Living Building, which is intended to be the largest Living Building Challenge-certified structure in the world with net-zero energy, water and sewage.

Edlen & Co. plans to occupy an office in the PAE Living Building upon its completion, likely in August or September.

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A Seattle real estate firm has acquired two major Portland-area multifamily properties, the company announced Monday.

Security Properties has purchased The Ardea, a 323-unit South Waterfront tower; and The Windward, a 200-unit mixed-use property in Lake Oswego. Also included in the deal was a 415-unit development in Denver called The Metro.

The off-market transaction was made alongside an affiliate of Rockwood Capital.

The Ardea and The Metro were owned by Multi-Employer Property Trust, a real-estate equity fund of BentallGreenOak, an international investment company based in New York City. The Windward was a joint venture of MEPT and Portland’s PHK Development.

Davis Vaughn, senior director for Security Properties, stated in a news release that the deals were among the most exciting acquisitions in the company’s 50-year history. Vaughn stated that The Windward was the premier suburban asset in the entire Portland metropolitan statistical area, and The Ardea was acquired for significantly below replacement cost.

The purchase price for the three building, 938-unit portfolio was not disclosed.

The Ardea was developed by Gerding Edlen. The Portland developer sold the building after its completion in 2008 to MEPT for $145 million, or $448,916 per unit, according to Yardi Matrix. The most recent transaction was not available from the Multnomah County Assessor.

The Windward was a notable project for downtown Lake Oswego, adding about 36,500 square feet of retail space along with the apartments. The project, designed by ZGF Architects, won first place in the multifamily project category in the 91��Ƶ’s Top Projects 2019 awards event.

The purchase price for The Windward was not disclosed and was not available from the Clackamas County Assessor. MEPT joined PHK Development in 2015 to develop the $103 million property, according to a news release from Security Properties.

Security Properties has become a major player in Portland as co-developer of the Press Blocks in Goose Hollow and Pepsi Blocks along Northeast Sandy Boulevard.

The newly acquired properties will be managed by affiliate Security Properties Residential.

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Not even face coverings could hide the satisfaction of architects Don Copper and Janet Olson while crews continued to wrap up construction of the 17-story 5 MLK mixed-use building in Portland’s Central Eastside.

Copper is a managing principal and Olson is a principal with GREC Architects, a Chicago firm known for designing lakeside high-rises in the Windy City or lush, sprawling parks in far-flung places like Abu Dhabi, U.A.E. But at the east end of the Burnside Bridge, general contractor Hoffman Construction is finishing a project in a much different setting.

“This is our first project in Portland,” said Copper, who has worked with 5 MLK developer Gerding Edlen in Chicago on several occasions. “The scale of the city, the 200-foot blocks, as opposed to Chicago with its 300-by-600-foot (blocks), it’s a significant difference in how we experience a place – because with the smaller blocks, even though it’s a legitimate city, it has a really manageable scale.”

Beyond the city, Copper and Olson were inspired by the natural landscapes of the Pacific Northwest as they designed 5 MLK, which is located on the southwest corner of the intersection of East Burnside Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. There, the gleaming new building sits kitty-corner from the 21-story Yard residential tower like a massive sentinel guarding the entrance to East Portland.

“We definitely looked at things on many levels of scale,” Copper said, “but all of them in the context of Portland and the region.”

That context ranged from the region’s natural features to the bustling area.

“I’d say on the location and the site, we kind of saw what was happening here, which now has happened, and I think it’s really developed nicely,” Copper said. “(Gerding Edlen) let us run. That’s the beauty of working with them; they have … business approaches to a building and we take the creative architectural design approaches, and the two mix really well.”

5 MLK has two distinctly different faces. The northeast corner facing the Burnside/Martin Luther King Jr. intersection features the main entrance and lobby, which serves both residential and commercial tenants. The southwest corner, by contrast, is marked by a prominent sequoia tree and a rounded facade that serves to highlight the entrance to ground-floor retail spaces that front both Southeast Ankeny Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

The building’s southwest corner also has on the second through sixth stories a series of terraced outdoor patio spaces.

“We came up with this concept directive that we call urban landform,” Copper said, “to try and make the building like a natural landform that sort of cascades down and has waterfalls. And having all these landscaped terraces that once the landscaping is mature, the landscaping will hopefully become as much a part of the structure as the architecture and soften the architecture.”

On the inside, 5 MLK is different from anything the firm has done before, Olson said. The goal was to start with a tree in the main lobby and adopt as many natural elements as possible. In addition, the lobby is intended to be a much more public space than those in similar buildings. Plans call for it to eventually host live musical performances and other events after the pandemic subsides.

“It really kind of is what that area of the lobby has evolved around – engagement with the tree,” Olson said as she circled the large planter.

Other natural elements in the lobby come in the form of stone-clad walls that are intended to resemble Oregon’s ubiquitous basalt columns formed by volcanic activity, as well as generous natural wood finishes and furniture. Even the carpets and furniture have circular shapes and patterns as an ode to water droplets spreading steadily outward.

“With things like this, where it’s a big statement, and it’s viewable from outside, if you’re a passerby on Burnside you can view this and feel a part of it even though you’re not inside,” Olson said. “So that, along with bringing in natural daylight.”

To that end, there’s even a lobby skylight that is both a source of light and a connection to the rest of the building.

“You can look up and see the terraces, and eventually the plantings will grow and you will see that,” she said.

Floors two through five have a combined 120,000 square feet of office space and separate amenity decks, while floors seven through 17 hold 220 residential units that range from 510 to 1,174 square feet.

The unique sixth floor has a huge array of amenities to serve both residential and business tenants. These include a large fitness center, conference rooms, classrooms and more. Another amenity space on the 17th floor offers residential tenants additional entertainment areas, as well as a small, outdoor swimming pool.

Structurally, the building bears little resemblance to those built in the Midwest, where seismic resilience isn’t as important. 5 MLK has concrete shear walls and columns.

“Where we could, we left those exposed,” Olson said. “In a handful of units we have exposed shear walls, like some in the entry, or in the bathroom, like a kind of surprise. Also, on the sixth floor it’s an element that separates two of the conference room spaces, and we’ve exposed it on both sides of that. It keeps that raw material aspect engaged.”

The building’s seismic resilience was created in an interesting manner, Copper said.

“The two elevator cores are shear walls that almost create a box,” he said. “They’re two U-shaped structures that go all the way up the building, and the elevators are inside those.”

Structural engineers with KPFF decided to link them with very large steel beams at each end, Copper added.

“In this way the core is designed to fail at a certain level of force,” he said. “There’s a lot of reinforcing steel in this building that would not be in the same building in Chicago.”

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On the rise in Portland’s Gateway area is a mixed-use development that will certainly be exactly that. Halsey 106 will have affordable housing units, market-rate housing units, administrative space for owner/operator Human Solutions, space for community services, and ground-floor retail space.

Oh, and the building will be adjacent to Gateway Discovery Park, which opened in 2018.

LMC Construction is building Halsey 106, which was designed by Holst Architecture. Offices and commercial space will be in a two-story business wing along Northeast Halsey Street, near the intersection of 106th Avenue. A six-story residential wing with 75 apartments will rise behind. Both sides of the building will connect to a courtyard that is open on the west end for vehicle access.

The Portland Housing Bureau is providing money for the inclusion of 40 affordable units scattered throughout the residential portion. However, 12 additional units will be affordable as well. Rents for the remaining units will be market rate. All apartments will be studios, one-bedroom units or two-bedroom units.

The residential common area will include a computer room, a community trash area, a dog wash station, and a lounge with kitchen facilities. There will be 50 tuck-under parking spaces for motor vehicles and 81 covered parking spaces for bicycles.

Prosper Portland will manage the 11,000 total square feet of commercial space in the business wing, while Human Solutions will manage the residential units as well as relocate its business operations to the new building. Human Solutions and Gerding Edlen are co-developers of the project.

“The tenants will be small businesses – probably some restaurants,” LMC Construction project manager Ken Bello said. “Prosper Portland invested a lot of money in upgrading the shell space. We’re doing more than just a warm shell, so they don’t have to do a lot of improvements themselves. The building and the park were supposed to be done about the same time, but the building got delayed a couple of years ago so now we’re coming back.”

Right now, crews with Wood Mechanix are framing the fourth story of the residential wing, while MEP and carpentry crews with B&I Construction, Andersen Mechanical, Jet Industries, Polaris Electrical and other companies are roughing in the nine separate commercial spaces and the second-story office space. Both sections of the building feature wood framing atop a post-tensioned concrete podium.

“We had to do a lot of negotiation with the (Portland Parks & Recreation) people, because you can’t get the cladding on the back side without going onto the park property,” Bello said. “But it’s already looking very distinct.”

Ground was broken in September 2019 and completion is expected in spring 2021.

“The business section is all but complete in terms of framing,” Bello said. “And we’ll start roofing May 4. So we’re getting the roof prep work done, the parapets. We should start our exterior building wrap next week and right now we’re scheduled to top out by June.”

Halsey 106 is one project site where LMC Construction has been able to continue working. When the coronavirus crisis hit, the firm halted all work in occupied units.

“When this whole thing got started we started a tracking sheet where we track all our current and upcoming projects,” LMC Construction Vice President Kyle Anderson said. “So I started tracking the actual delays we’ve hit, and this was meant to track anything we’re hearing in the industry, like hey, this supplier is slow. As far as what’s actually hit our projects, the only substantive impact we’ve had is on our occupied renovations.”

The good news for LMC Construction is that the impact has not been significant, Anderson said.

“Normally we’re in occupied units all the time,” he said. “Luckily, we happen to be at a point where we have very few projects that were affected by that.”

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Real estate and development firm Gerding Edlen is spearheading a new effort to preserve affordable housing in the Portland-metro area.

The Portland Affordable Housing Preservation Partnership was established by Gerding Edlen and Meyer Memorial Trust in October 2019. The partnership’s primary aim is to purchase and upgrade multifamily properties, and then offer units to people making between 60 and 120 percent of the regional median family income. Ultimately, the group wants to improve existing affordable units without displacing current residents.

The partnership recently acquired its first property: the Golfside Apartments in Gresham. Meyer Memorial Trust supplied $20 million to purchase the 53-unit property at 1999 N.E. Division St.

“Basically it fit the strategy really well,” Gerding Edlen partner Jill Sherman said. “We don’t have the ability to spend a ton per unit on renovations, so we do need a property that’s been pretty well kept. We do address issues that need to be fixed, but in general what we’re trying to do is buy a property that is in reasonably good shape, address deferred maintenance and improve water and energy efficiency, and then maintain the property over a very long period of time.”

The partnership’s fundraising goal is $100 million. Potential investors would likely be other foundations and high-net-worth individuals who have an active interest in the group’s goals, Sherman said.

“We’re trying to encourage investors to think of it as a different type of investment,” she said. “It’s counter cyclical – demand for lower-rent units is going to be high even in a downturn. So, these are full today, and you should be able to keep them full. There aren’t a lot of the risks traditional real estate development does have. We’re suggesting it has a return that is more like a fixed-income vehicle.”

That may mean returns as modest as 2 percent, Sherman added. But the risk should correspond with the returns.

“It’s definitely a new way of thinking about an investment in what is still fundamentally real estate,” she said. “It’s not a slam dunk that you explain and every institutional investor says, ‘Oh we want to do that.’ It will take proving.”

Potential properties are being scouted by the partnership. It is targeting communities previously considered more affordable but now are experiencing rapid increases in property values relative to the metro area. Gresham and much of East Portland fits that bill, Sherman said.

“There may be other areas that might be similar, like Gateway, where there’s not a lot of new construction and a lot of older units that aren’t subsidized but are affordable,” she said.

The partnership’s acquisition of the Golfside Apartments did not go unnoticed.

“Gresham’s housing policy recognizes the importance of having a full range of quality housing for its current and future residents,” said Elizabeth Coffey, the city’s communications manager. “Through that policy, the city also supports the rehabilitation and revitalization of our housing supply, so projects like these where there are investments being made have the potential to increase the quality of housing for residents.”

Now, at least two other potential acquisitions are in the works.

“We’ve just started over the past few months where we’ve been able to start getting serious about properties to acquire,” Sherman said. “That was our first closing, but we have another imminent and another tied up in due diligence.”

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Human Solutions, a nonprofit based in east Multnomah County, and Gerding Edlen are bringing a mixed-use development – including affordable housing – to Portland’s Gateway area.

Halsey 106 is being built by general contractor LMC Construction based on a design from Holst Architecture. The new building will be roughly U-shaped, with one “arm” holding two stories of offices and the other holding six stories of housing.

The Portland Housing Bureau, Prosper Portland and Metro are among the entities helping pay for the project. Human Solutions will manage the property upon completion and also is planning to transfer its main base of operations there from two other east Multnomah County locations.

Plans call for 52 of the apartments to serve households making between 30 and 60 percent of the area median income. The remainder will be market-rate units.

The project team broke ground in September with a public ceremony attended by Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler and other city representatives. Construction has since proceeded rapidly, thanks in part to drier-than-average weather this fall. That has allowed concrete crews to make better-than-expected progress on the building’s shear walls and foundation slab.

Currently, carpenters with subcontractor Whitaker/Ellis are building formwork for the concrete columns that will support a post-tensioned podium deck. The top five stories will then be constructed with standard wood framing.

Other subcontractors working on site include Polaris Electrical, Bar M Steel Commercial (rebar), Lauzon Contracting (excavation), Andersen Mechanical (plumbing) and D&R Masonry Restoration (foundation waterproofing). Once the slab-on-grade foundation is poured and cured, wood framing will begin, with Wood Mechanix carrying out the work.

Meanwhile, Holst Architecture has designed the building to achieve Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Multifamily Midrise gold certification. The building will feature a high-efficiency mechanical system, an airtight building envelope, an extensive green roof, low-VOC finishes and LED lighting.

Project completion is expected by spring 2021.

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Skilled craftspeople continue to swarm the 5 MLK project site in Portland even as the anticipated spring 2020 completion date approaches. Approximately 60 carpenters, all employed by framing subcontractor Performance Contracting Inc., are building interior metal framing on virtually all 17 stories and the rooftop mechanical penthouse.

The mixed-use building is coming together at 5 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., near the east end of the Burnside Bridge. Hoffman Construction is serving as the general contractor for the project, which was designed by GREC Architects of Chicago for Gerding Edlen Development.

Plans call for 220 residential units, 120,000 square feet of office space and 15,000 square feet of commercial space – some that will be occupied by a high-end restaurant.

Approximately five to six months of work remain, Hoffman Construction project manager Brian Reeves said.

“It will be more toward the end of April, and some work will probably spill into May,” he said.

Work is ongoing at all levels. There are Corona Steel ironworkers, Van Lom Concrete cement masons and Coffman Excavation crews working on the ground-floor restaurant space and pedestrian walkways. Meanwhile, PCI carpenters, JH Kelly plumbers, Cherry City Electric electricians and General Sheet Metal HVAC specialists are installing mechanical systems on residential floors seven through 17.

“We topped out the concrete in September,” Reeves said. “So now the facade is up with the exception of the lower level and the slab-edge covers and parapet covers.”

Floors two through five will be delivered as office shell space and are essentially complete at this stage. The sixth floor will have more office space as well as amenities for office tenants placed on a series of cascading outdoor decks that continue down through the second floor.

On the roof a large mechanical penthouse is being constructed and prepped to receive HVAC, electrical and other mechanical equipment and prefab skids to hold it all.

“We are progressing up the tower in finishes right now,” Reeves said. “So there are various levels of finishes complete. Level eight is the most complete level, and there are a few apartments that are fully completed up there.”

One unique element on the 17th floor will be an amenity deck containing depressed seating and even a swimming pool. The latter required significant structural accommodation for the 16th floor, including extra-thick concrete support beams, resulting in 16th-floor ceilings roughly five feet taller than standard. The extra height in the residential units provides a unique feel, especially because the floor-to-ceiling glazing is retained.

The building skin consists of an elaborate window wall system that provides each floor with floor-to-ceiling glazing. It uses what GREC designers call a pattern of vision glass, spandrel glass, porcelain panels in two colors, and projecting mullions. Other exterior materials include metal soffits and ground-level stone masonry planters.

With a 300-foot-tall tower crane still in place on the site, the project team has a lot to do.

“There’s still quite a bit yet, definitely,” Reeves said.

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Construction of a 25-story tower in Portland’s West End is due to begin in early 2020 after the development team received a substantial investment from a Chicago-based group.

Cresset Partners and the Goodman family will be equal partners in a large-scale opportunity zone fund to kick off Eleven West. The mixed-use building planned at Southwest 11th Avenue and Washington Street will hold 222 multifamily units, 116,000 square feet of office space and 7,900 square feet of retail space.

The building will be a sister structure to Twelve | West, which was completed in 2009 and fetched $206 million when it was sold to Greystar Real Estate Partners in July 2018. Both projects were designed by ZGF Architects, with Gerding Edlen serving as developer.

Eleven West was approved by the Portland Design Commission in October 2017, but construction was delayed while the Goodmans sought financing.

The Goodmans hired Newmark Knight Frank in San Francisco to attract an opportunity zone partner. The firm found Cresset.

Critics say opportunity zones haven’t met their intended purpose of sparking investment in impoverished areas. Instead, across the nation, opportunity zone funds have presented investment opportunities in areas much like Portland’s West End – one of the hottest and most expensive real estate submarkets in Oregon.

Greg Goodman, president of Downtown Development Group, said if not for opportunity zones, Eleven West would have been the receiving end of a 1031 exchange – a tax treatment that allows investors to defer paying capital gains on real estate sales. Instead, state, county and city governments will receive taxes from the Eleven West project, he said.

“The state will get a big tax check they wouldn’t have otherwise gotten,” Goodman said.

Opportunity zone rules also encourage investors to hold onto properties for longer terms to fully realize tax advantages.

“It allows investors to take a longer-term approach and not be worried about building into an overbuilt market,” Goodman said.

Another opportunity zone fund is being used to attract investors to the 35-story Block 216 project in downtown Portland. That fund is managed by Baker Tilly Capital of Philadelphia.

Also, Sturgeon Development Partners��is using an opportunity zone fund for a hotel project in Salem and possible future development projects.

Construction of Eleven West is slated to begin in late January, with Turner Construction serving as general contractor, Goodman said.

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The Portland Design Commission on Thursday provided another set of opinions on the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry‘s , and mostly approved of – though while citing some concerns with massing and access throughout the property. The project received its first , when commissioners took issue with some of the same aspects.

The 18.5-acre site is being tackled by a team including ZGF Architects, landscape architect Mayer/Reed and on behalf of OMSI. Seven podium-style buildings are planned, with total heights of 250 feet, and podium heights of 50 feet.

The buildings would be shaped and arranged in unique ways to allow movement throughout the space. Two of the buildings would have above-grade parking, while two others would have below-grade parking. Detailed renderings of the buildings have not been released yet, but rather only diagrams depicting the general massing structure.

Several public plazas will serve as event venues, and officials plan to integrate the Innovation Quadrant, where institutions like the museum and local universities can meet with startups and established businesses to drive innovation within the city.

Commissioner Zari Santner found the plazas to be geared too much toward children and events, and not enough for local residents, especially those living and working in the Innovation Quadrant.

“There is going to be a community here,” she said. “What are their needs?”

Other commissioners said the proposed podium height would be too high. Commissioner Jessica Molinar suggested the site be broken up to let more light in, as she said it currently looks more like a wall blocking the east side. Molinar and Commissioner Chandra Robinson similarly critiqued the public spaces, saying they wouldn’t be good for rainy-day activity.

But Molinar did say is headed in a good direction. Since the project is still in the design advice phase, architects can make changes before pursuing a review hearing.

The OMSI master plan team members said Thursday they will discuss whether to pursue another design advice hearing or one for land use review.

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