A 155-unit apartment community near Beaverton has sold for $29.85 million.

The buyer of Cedar Square Apartments was a joint venture of Glencrest Group and Sky Alps Capital; both are San Francisco-based investment firms.

The purchase values the asset in unincorporated Washington County at $192,581 per unit.

Cedar Square was built in 1980, with additions completed in 2016 and 2024. The garden-style apartment complex has large floor plans averaging 853 square feet, and each unit has a patio or balcony. Units come in one-, two- or three-bedroom configurations.

Additional amenities include a fitness center, playground, on-site laundry, parking and green space. The seller completed capital improvements, including replacements of siding, windows, decks and roofs. Also, areas were repaved.

JLL represented both the buyer and seller, the Baricevic Irrevocable Trust, a local entity.

“The overwhelming demand for housing and limited supply in the submarket reinforces the value of this asset,” JLL Capital Markets Senior Managing Director Ira Virden stated. “Cedar Square offers a compelling value-add opportunity in a premier suburban location characterized by strong employment growth, excellent schools and superior transit connectivity.”

JLL Capital Markets’ Investment Sales and Advisory team was led by Virden, Managing Director Carrie Kahn and associate Owen Wise. JLL’s Debt Advisory team was spearheaded by Charles Halladay and Jonah Aelyon.

Cedar Square is located at 10480 S.W. Eastridge St., less than a mile from the Cedar Hills shopping center and at the intersection of Oregon Route 217 and U.S. Route 26. The property also is close to the Sunset Transit Center.

“Glencrest Group was attracted to Cedar Square because of its quality construction and outstanding location,” stated Mike Bergelson, the firm’s managing partner.

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A law firm has signed a lease for a 15,610-square-foot office space in a downtown Portland tower.

Lindsay Hart LLP agreed to terms for space on the 27th floor of the Standard Insurance Center, at 900 S.W. Fifth Ave. The firm will relocate from another downtown tower, the Wells Fargo Center, in November, according to a news release from CBRE, which represented the landlord, Standard Insurance Co.

“This transaction highlights an encouraging trend of leasing activity in downtown Portland,” stated Kevin Kaufman, first vice president at CBRE. “This agreement reflects the growing momentum in Portland’s central business district and the appeal of high-quality office spaces in the area.”

Kaufman and Joe Beehler secured the Lindsay Hart deal for CBRE. Lindsay Hart was represented by JLL‘s Eric Haskins.

Built in 1968, the full-block Standard Insurance Center is among the largest buildings in Portland, with approximately 460,000 square feet in 27 stories.

Law firms and other professional service providers have been stalwart users of downtown office space, which remains mired in a steep downturn.

Davis Wright Tremaine and Fisher Phillips anchor the office space at Block 216, the new tower owned by BPM Real Estate. Miller Nash was among the first tenants at Eleven West, another relatively new building from Downtown Development Group.

Architecture firms have embraced downtown. SERA Architects moved into 42,000 square feet in the Galleria building in 2022. And Populous, a major international firm, will move its Portland group into an as-yet unidentified downtown building in the fall.

In a shift, downtown offices are now attracting more tenants than are the suburbs, according to CBRE. In the first quarter of 2025, downtown Portland office buildings secured more leasing volume for spaces 5,000 square feet and larger than suburban office buildings did.

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Eric Turner, who joined JLL in 2014, became its Portland office director at a turning point in the market, giving him a unique perspective of how the construction real estate sector has evolved – and devolved – over the last decade.

“There was a massive runup in 2015 through 2019 that really changed the way the market felt and how it operated, and that was largely because of acquisitions that were happening,” he said. “We had institutional capital coming from all over world and a significant amount of construction.”

As Turner became director of JLL’s Portland office in 2020, however, the market took a turn. “Now there is not much new construction or investment in multi-tenant office buildings,” he said. “We’re adjusting now to that and it’s starting to feel better for sure, but it’s not where it was prior to COVID and 2015.”

Throughout the market’s ups and downs, Turner has appreciated the network of clients he has built and the opportunity to impact the industry through JLL-organized events.

“The variety of projects is very interesting. The quality of people that I’ve come to call friends over the years are what makes this job most special for me,” he said.

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A major brokerage firm said Thursday that Portland’s office market is “poised for a soft landing.”

Jones Lang LaSalle said in its third-quarter report that net absorption was only slightly negative, to the tune of a “negligible” 66,000 square feet.

Rents in the urban core slipped 0.7 percent to $39.03 per square foot on average, while vacancies grew slightly to 30.7 percent.

Office tenants are still trying to find their footing, JLL said.

“Many tenants remain quite unclear on how they want to configure their space because they are still waiting for office attendance to settle into some sort of predictable pattern with hybrid work,” JLL’s report stated.

Some firms are adding space after initially downsizing. Law firm Miller Nash added 6,300 square feet only six months after relocating to Eleven West, Downtown Development Group‘s newly opened West End tower.

Meanwhile, Davis Wright Tremaine added nearly 5,000 square feet within six months of relocating to Block 216, JLL said.

“We are seeing more activity in the (Central Business District),” said Patricia Raicht, JLL’s national director for research for the Western U.S. and Latin America.

Companies are increasing their expectations for in-office attendance, Raicht said. At the same time, many are finding the idea of shared desks wanting. Employees “are wanting dedicated space, and you need more space for that,” she said.

Major employers, including Nike and Amazon, have recently announced stepped-up office attendance policies.

Some employers are taking advantage of the downturn in office prices to buy their own. Oregon Health and Science University purchased buildings in the South Waterfront, Directors Mortgage bought buildings on Kruse Way in Lake Oswego and the Native American Rehabilitation Association of the Northwest snapped up the former Portland Opera headquarters in Southeast Portland.

“We are seeing more of that,” Raicht said. “Now is a great time to buy an office building.”

Kidder Mathews‘ third-quarter report, released last week, showed similar trends. Sales volume grew 99.5 percent, compared to a year ago, to 1.8 million square feet. Rental rates fell and direct vacancy climbed to a record 13.6 percent.

U.S. Bank announced last month it would not renew its lease at the U.S. Bancorp Tower, or Big Pink. Employees will move to the bank’s office in Gresham and other locations in the Portland area, the company said.

Still others have recently taken space. Shoemaker Hoka expanded into office space in Goose Hollow early this year. In August, eBay renewed its lease on 56,645 square feet downtown.

The office market continues to be bifurcated, with attractive newer properties leasing well at the expense of older Class-B and Class-C space, analysts said.

More space is likely to come on the market as leases end and tenants downsize, brokers said.

Longtime Portland office broker Doug Bean said “shadow space” that companies are leasing but not fully using will add to vacancies.

“When those leases roll, the square footages will be reduced, and that’ll further exacerbate the vacancy rate,” Bean said. “But I’m an optimistic guy. I think the market’s getting better and people are getting back to work (in offices).”

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Portland’s office market is sending mixed signals as it recovers from the worst of the pandemic while a new reality sets in with fewer workers going into offices.

The vacancy rate continued to climb early this year, reaching 19.3 percent in the metro area, according to JLL‘s first quarter report. Asking rents fell to $33.75 per square foot.

The urban core showed signs of life, however. Among large-scale leases of 10,000 square feet or more, 78 percent of first-quarter deals occurred in Portland’s central business district.

First-quarter data comes as tenants struggle to discern their future needs for office space.

“With a lot of companies coming back to the office, they’re reassessing their space needs,” said Tim Harrison, JLL’s Pacific Northwest research director. “A lot of companies are moving to a hybrid model, and they’re reconsidering how much space they need.”

Insurance company Moda Health recently renewed its lease of more than 100,000 square feet at Moda Tower in downtown Portland, casting a vote of confidence in the area’s future. The lease length and other terms were not disclosed. Moda Tower is now 83 percent occupied, according to building owner Unico Properties.

The tower was completed in 1999, when Moda Health was known as ODS Health.

“The signal then was the same as this signal we send today,” Dave Evans, Moda Health’s chief financial officer, stated in a news release. “We are committed to downtown, to this city and to this community.” (Unico Properties and American Realty Advisors acquired Moda Tower in 2018 and leased back space to Moda Health. A $6 million remodel followed in 2021).

Office brokers and analysts are watching for moves by major office users. Legacy Health is evaluating its office space needs and crafting a strategic plan for remote work. The health care network owns its headquarters, an 86,450-square-foot building in Northwest Portland.

Legacy Health had no moves to announce, spokeswoman Elizabeth Baker said.

“Obviously, like all companies, we’re evaluating the situation and our options,” she said.

Some companies that downsized earlier in the pandemic may be looking for more space soon, Harrison said.

“I think a lot more people are going to come back to the office on a regular schedule, and I think a lot more companies are going to realize they need more space than they have, or what they’ve rightsized down to,” he said.

Employment trends are positive; the Portland area’s labor force grew by 56,000 employees compared to a year ago.

“What we’ve also seen is a lot of companies doing a lot of hiring,” Harrison said. “Companies are quickly seeing they need more space than they have for their employees.”

JLL’s report identified “growth on the horizon” for the central business district, with several large leases contributing to much-needed office space absorption. Still, downtown has a ways to go, Harrison said.

“It was really hard-hit,” he said. “Do I think that the market recovers overnight? No, I don’t. It will take multiple years – when I say multiple years, I think it takes five years, maybe more, before the market recovers to the place it was pre-pandemic. But we’ll get there.”

It will help when city and county employees return to downtown Portland, he said.

Kidder Mathews, in its own first-quarter report, likewise saw positive trends.

“We can expect movement across the metro to gradually improve in 2022 as companies hire at rapid pace and tenants begin to finalize back-to-office procedure,” the brokerage stated.

In the metro area, 419,762 square feet of office space was under construction during the first quarter, according to JLL.

Subleasing activity has jumped. Navex Global returned 45,000 square feet in the Kruse Way submarket during the first quarter. The asking rent is 11 percent below the average for the area, according to JLL, providing some needed affordable office space in the increasingly expensive Lake Oswego office market.

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In downtown Portland, signs of life are slowly returning. More restaurants and coffee shops are serving patrons, large retailers such as Powell’s Books are welcoming customers, and some professionals are returning to offices.

The pandemic devastated commercial real estate – and specifically the urban office market – while other sectors such as industrial and multifamily housing were affected less. Protests throughout 2020 that at times turned violent combined with a proliferation of homeless camps and litter to create negative impressions of downtown.

For a while this past summer, it seemed as if COVID-19 was waning and office work would soon return. Then the Delta variant scrambled plans. Ever since, the lingering question has been: When will downtown return to normal, or something like it?

According to boosters and analysts, downtown’s fate will follow the office worker.

“A return to office is critical,” said Matthew Goodman, vice president of Downtown Development Group, a major Portland real estate developer and owner. “Daily workers are the lifeblood of downtown’s ecosystem. The ancillary restaurants and services, they depend on those office users.”

Businesses that offer professional services, such as law firms, are leading the return to downtown offices.

Stoel Rives, Portland’s largest law firm, asked its 282-strong workforce to return to the Park Avenue West office twice a week beginning Nov. 1 and then three times a week beginning this month, said David Filippi, co-managing partner at Stoel Rives.

“So far, the response has been pretty positive,” he said.

Downtown is still the best place to meet clients and do business, Filippi said.

“We believe that downtown is where we want to be,” he said. “It’s where we have been for decades, and we fully plan to be downtown as long as we’re a firm practicing together.”

The atmosphere downtown seems to be improving, Filippi said.

“It’s gotten better recently,” he said. “Things have been cleaned up, and we’re starting to see things open up a little bit more.”

Another law firm, Buchalter, announced a rare new downtown lease on Nov. 3. The 50-person firm will move into Fox Tower by April 1, 2022, taking 17,000 square feet on the building’s 15th floor.

That will hardly make a dent in a downtown Portland’s bulging office supply. Office vacancies hit 19.9 percent in the Central Business District during the third quarter, according to JLL. Net absorption was underwater to the depth of 238,573 square feet, and 509,825 additional square feet of office space was in development.

Vacancies have probably not hit their high-water mark yet, said Tim Harrison, a research manager at JLL in Portland.

“The recovery will start in 2022, but it’s going to take a long time to get back to pre-pandemic vacancy levels,” he said.

A flood of new office buildings hit the market in 2020 at the worst possible time, and it will take years to absorb, Harrison said.

JLL itself has doubled down on its Pearl District space, at 1120 N.W. Couch St., by signing a long-term lease to expand.

Some companies with lease renewals two or three years away have taken advantage of the downturn by signing renewals at attractive rates and terms. Landlords have been eager to make deals to keep buildings occupied, Harrison said.

“Professional services and finance is generally where you’ve seen the majority of tenants coming back, with tech sort of being the last holdout,” he said.

Retail vacancies have enabled a new cohort of entrepreneurs to buy into downtown Portland, Goodman said. Grits N’ Gravy, for instance, opened its first brick-and-mortar location there. Downtown Development Group has welcomed other locally owned retailers – Foxy Coffee Co., Everybody Eats PDX, The Sudra and Dogtopia – to downtown.

“For a long time, downtown wasn’t the sort of place where people could afford to make inroads,” Goodman said. “I think there’s a new sort of entrepreneurial spirit in the core.”

At the same time, Portland officials have placed a renewed emphasis on cleaning up downtown, in part because of pressure from People for Portland, a newly formed advocacy group that has blanketed the city with ads.

“You’ve seen a noticeable sense of urgency placed on elected officials,” Goodman said. “It makes me very hopeful in the near term for positive change.”

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A couple of tenants in Fox Tower have agreed to lease renewals in the latest vote of confidence in downtown Portland.

Professional services firm Moss Adams is renewing its lease for a total of 38,874 square feet on three floors in the 27-story building. Regal Cinemas also recently renewed its lease, which includes a ground-floor entrance and the entire third floor.

“Moss Adams’ renewal is a sign that tenants are comfortable and confident in the long term of downtown,” said Vanessa Sturgeon, chief executive of TMT Development, which developed Fox Tower and now manages it.

Regal Cinemas has resumed showing movies at Fox Tower with COVID-19 precautions in place. Movie theaters, as venues for indoor gatherings of strangers in enclosed rooms, were hammered by the pandemic.

“It says that people know that the vaccines are working, so there’s renewed confidence from theatergoers,” Sturgeon said.

Both Moss Adams and Regal Cinemas have long occupied space in the building. Terms for the new leases are confidential, but Sturgeon described them as “standard market-rate deals.”

The Fox Tower leases add to a string of new leases and renewals downtown by tenants such as SERA Architects, Lane Powell and On, a footwear company.

“What you’re seeing now is everyone who had to put their decision-making off and on hold; they’re looking past the pandemic and they’re signing normal deals now,” said Tim Harrison, research manager for JLL in Portland.

After a quiet 2020, leasing trends have returned to normal in the urban core. Downtown leasing activity in the first quarter of 2021 was approximately 650,000 square feet – on par with first-quarter results in 2018 and 2019.

Downtown Portland has been beset by protests that at times turned violent, along with homeless camps and trash that have marred the city’s reputation. City officials and groups such as the Portland Business Alliance and Downtown Portland Clean & Safe have grappled with how to clean up downtown.

“Downtown needs some attention right now in terms of cleanliness,” Sturgeon said. “Hopefully we’re taking the summer to really focus on that right now as a city and as citizens.”

Matthew Goodman, vice president of Downtown Development Group, said appearances downtown seem to be improving thanks in part to former Mayor Sam Adams. He is serving as a close advisor to Mayor Ted Wheeler.

“I have definitely seen improvements in the last few months in the cleanliness of the urban core in Portland,” Goodman said. “We all acknowledge there’s work to be done. I think (Adams’) efforts have yielded progress so far.”

Some of Downtown Development Group’s tenants have renewed their leases.

“Fortunately for us, most of our users like their space and intend on keeping a presence downtown,” Goodman said.

Interest from prospective tenants is still strongest in the West End and the Pearl District, but touring interest in downtown properties has ticked up, he said.

Goodman said he expects downtown to turn a corner when office workers return this summer.

“I’ve heard Labor Day as being a line-in-the-sand date for some large users, and that’s going to jump-start the downtown ecosystem because there are so many ancillary businesses – think cafés and restaurants – that depend on that foot traffic downtown,” he said.

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An apartment complex in Gresham has sold for $38.5 million.

The buyer was an affiliate of Abacus Capital Group, a New York-based real estate investment firm. The seller was NBP Capital, a developer and real estate investment company based in Portland and Los Angeles.

The Groves has 201 housing units in one-, two- and three-bedroom floor plans. The sale equates to $191,542 per unit.

For Abacus, it was the second Portland-area property purchase. Abacus also owns Alden Apartment Homes in Tualatin.

JLL Capital Markets represented the seller.

“This is another example of ample investor appetite for well-located, suburban assets with a value-add component,” Senior Managing Director Ira Virden stated in a news release. “The Groves is an asset with tremendous growth potential, in large part due to the immediate market’s apartment fundamentals, which exhibited over 3 percent rent growth during COVID-19, in a submarket with very little new supply and direct access to growing employment drivers.”

In addition to Virden, Senior Director Carrie Kahn and Associate Frank Solorzano were members of the JLL Capital Markets team that represented the seller.

The Groves, at 3500 N.E. 17th St., offers amenities including a swimming pool, a fitness center and a playground.

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There was a moment, before the coronavirus pandemic hit, when some owners of empty or underperforming spaces in Portland struck upon a common solution.

Live events, particularly concerts, would cure what ailed commercial landlords. Where retail was weak, events would prove strong. Where once had been a Nordstrom – a pillar of the increasingly musty anchor-store concept – there would soon be a Live Nation concert venue.

That was the driving idea at the Lloyd Center mall. And in the South Waterfront, plans for a mixed-use district at Zidell Yards had given way to a semi-temporary events venue with capacity for 10,000 attendees.

The venues would prove a keystone to thriving, walkable entertainment districts. 91��Ƶ would draw foot traffic. While there, attendees surely would spend money at adjacent retail shops, restaurants and bars.

At the time, concert venues were hot – a JLL report in May 2019 noted a burst of facility renovations, including a $56 million auditorium upgrade in Philadelphia and a $35 million amphitheater update in Atlanta.

Remember when we used to go to concerts?

That concept collapsed sometime around March 11, when the World Health Organization declared a global pandemic, an NBA player tested positive for COVID-19, stock indexes fell precipitously and actor Tom Hanks announced on Instagram that he had contracted the virus.

Suddenly crowds, particularly indoors, seemed like a terrible idea.

That left two notable Portland developments in the lurch.

The Zidell project has not moved forward since a Design Commission hearing in October. The project appears to be on pause. Tom Henneberry, chief operating officer for ZRZ Realty, declined to comment, and referred questions to Live Nation, which did not respond to a request for comment.

Hacker was designing the venue.

“We are currently not engaged in work on this project,” Audrey Alverson, the architecture firm’s marketing director, stated in an email.

At the Lloyd Center, Cypress Equities had inked Live Nation to a long-term lease in 2018 to build a concert venue. At the time, the mall’s manager said the venue could open in 2020.

Cypress Equities’ plans for the venue centered on a 4,000-seat theater and multiple secondary venues in the former Nordstrom space on the mall’s west end.

Cypress Equities, based in Dallas, did not respond to a request for comment. Live Nation Entertainment also did not respond to a request for comment. Live Nation, based in Beverly Hills, California, is a publicly traded company that earned $11.5 billion in revenue in 2019.

At the South Waterfront, the Live Nation amphitheater would connect from the western base of Tilikum Crossing. Plans submitted to the Bureau of Development Services described a 10,000-seat amphitheater featuring a performance stage, raised seating, a large plaza, trailers and other supporting structures, and a perimeter fence. The venue was “intended to occupy the site for seven years with the possibility of an extension.”

Design commissioners told the project team that the concert venue could improve its response to the surrounding area, particularly when the venue is not being used.

“The proposal needs to do more to relate to the neighborhood on a year-round basis,” Staci Monroe, a BDS reviewer, wrote in an October 2019 summary memo.

The project is “off to a good start … but has a long way to go,” she stated.

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Modera Davis, a new 204-unit building in Portland’s Pearl District still awaiting an occupancy permit, has sold to an institutional investor.

Virtu Investments of Carlsbad, California, snapped up the 12-story, 225,000-square-foot building at 255 N.W. 10th Ave. It was developed by Mill Creek Residential Trust, a national firm based in Boca Raton, Florida, that has invested heavily in Portland’s multifamily market.

The purchase price was not immediately available, and a Portland-based Mill Creek Residential Trust executive could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

Modera Davis’ apartments average 658 square feet. The building also has 8,307 square feet of retail space and 136 parking stalls in two underground levels.

The building sits on half of a block that also holds Deschutes Brewery‘s Portland pub and Bearing Service Co. Powell’s City of Books and major employers including Vacasa and Wieden + Kennedy are nearby.

Modera Davis is the sole Portland property in Virtu Investments’ portfolio. The firm in 2015 purchased the 145-unit Courtyard at Cedar Hills in Beaverton. Then in 2017, Virtu added the 146-unit Barclay Village in Oregon City.

SERA Architects designed Modera Davis, and Mill Creek Residential Trust’s construction arm, MCRT PNW Construction, built it.

JLL Capital Markets marketed Modera Davis on behalf of the seller. The JLL team was led by Senior Managing Director Ira Virden, Senior Director Carrie Kahn and Associate Frank Solorzano.

Mill Creek Residential Trust has developed and built six Modera-branded properties in Portland. A seventh, Modera Woodstock, is in development in Southeast Portland.

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