General contractor LMC Construction recently completed a tenant improvement project for Rivermark Community Credit Union at the new Progress Ridge TownSquare development in Beaverton.  The 3,035-square-foot space was outfitted with offices, a teller row, work areas, an employee break room, bathrooms, a safe room, ATM room, and a circular waiting area in the center of the space.  Design work on the branch, which opens Wednesday, was done by Baysinger Partners Architects.

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New Seasons Market will open the doors of its 11th location on Sept. 14 as part of the grand opening of Progress Ridge TownSquare, a Gramor Development project in Beaverton. The 41,000-square-foot New Seasons will serve as one of the development’s anchor tenants.

Cinetopia, another anchor tenant, on June 23 was the first business to open in the complex. However, the amount of construction going on throughout the rest of the 200,000-square-foot development confused potential movie-goers, according to Gramor Development senior project manager Matt Grady.

“It’s a beautiful cinema, but since no other tenants were open, people thought they were closed,” he said. “They could use a flock of people going in there.”

While there is still a great deal of internal work to be done, major construction on the site is almost at the point of completion, and several other tenants are getting ready to open on or before the grand opening.

Grady predicts all of the tenants will be open for business by Thanksgiving.

“Good things take time,” he said of the project, which has been in the pipeline since 2005. “Not everyone has been able to endure pulling their projects out of a world recession, rescue it, and make it really happen.”

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Thanks to five new leases the new 20-acre, $100 million Progress Ridge TownSquare development in Beaverton is now 85 percent leased.

Tualatin-based Gramor Development announced today that it has signed five new tenants to help fill out the development anchored by the bowling alley Big Al’s, Cinetopia and New Seasons Market. New tenants include the national burger chain Fuddruckers, as well as Posh Baby, Cornell Urgent Care, Menchie’s Frozen Yogurt and the waxing shop Brow Betty.

Progress Ridge was one of the few major developments to get off the ground and get through construction in the Portland region in the last few years. In addition to Progress Ridge, Gramor also moved forward the Costco-anchored Lacamus Crossing development in Beaverton and the Fred Meyer-anchored Old Town Square in Wilsonville over the same time period.

Besides the five new tenants and the three anchor tenants, Gramor Development has 17 other tenants signed onto leases for the 325,000-square-foot shopping center. Barry Cain, president of Gramor Development, expects the project to have created 2,000 jobs by the time the shopping center is fully leased.

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The Tualatin-based has leases signed for three quarters of its $100 million Progress Ridge TownSquare development currently under construction in Beaverton.

The development firm announced today it has four new retail leases signed to occupy space within the development, which is anchored by New Seasons Market, Big Al’s Family Bowling and Cinetopia. The new tenants include Umpqua Bank, BJ Willy’s Woodfired Pizza, A Flair for Gifts and Home and Parklane Mattress.

The new leases and anchor tenants are accompanied by 11 other leases that were signed last year. Other tenants include restaurants, hair salons, credit unions and a tanning salon.

“We expect to complete leasing quite soon,” said Barry Cain, president of Gramor Development.

Retail vacancy rates within two miles of the development are currently at 1.7 percent, according to data accumulated by Gramor.

The 325,000-square-foot development is slated for a September grand opening, with business beginning to open as early as July. Construction is currently halfway done, according to Cain.

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After five years of planning, Tualatin-based Gramor Development is finally making progress on the long awaited in Beaverton.

Gramor has secured a $45 million loan from U.S. Bank to start work on the $60 million, 325,000-square-foot Progress Ridge TownSquare project that has been in the works since 2005. Gramor will be contributing $15 million toward the development, which is set to open in September 2011.

Gramor’s announcement comes a month after the company sold the Albertsons-anchored Vancouver Market Center for $11.2 million to the New York-based Retail Opportunity Investments.

Progress Ridge, located on Southwest Barrows Road near the unincorporated neighborhood of Bull Mountain, is a 20-acre development that will be anchored by a 41,000-square-foot New Seasons Market to the east and a 50,000-square-foot luxury theater called Cinetopia to the north. Ground was broken last year on a Big Al’s Family Bowling and Entertainment Center, which will anchor the south side of the property after it opens – perhaps next month. Nine other leases have been signed by people representing a credit union, restaurants and a host of nail and hair salons.

According to Barry Cain, president of Gramor Development, 408,000 people – with an average household income of $108,000 – reside within a 15-minute drive of the site.

“We think this development isn’t only going to be a boom for the area, but a boom for the entire retail community in the Portland area,” Cain said. “Getting this financing lined up shows that money is available for good retail in a good location.”

The project is a big boost for the market. At the end of the second quarter this year, CoStar, a commercial real estate database, reported only 29,099 square feet of retail space under construction.

The loan, which is the largest retail construction loan to be processed in the Portland area since the beginning of the recession, is a clear indicator that Portland is moving through the recession, Cain said.

Gramor has overcome several bumps to reach this point.

In 2005, Gramor proposed building a two-story Fred Meyer on the Progress Ridge site, but the plan fell through because the proposed size exceeded Beaverton’s grocery outlet size limit for the area.

Then, in 2007, both Cinetopia and New Seasons approached Cain about the property, but the recession stalled any deals before they could be finalized. When both tenants finally committed last year, Big Al’s happened to be looking for a location in the Portland area, Cain said.

“We think this is going to be much better than the original 2005 proposal,” he said. “Here we have three anchor tenants that haven’t only held on, but excelled during the recession.”

In the space of 15 minutes at the construction site on Thursday, two nearby residents and an employee with Stanley Security asked Cain about the development and what kind of work will be available.

Cain believes the development will attract tenants that will create 800 to 1,000 permanent retail and office jobs to the area. The project also is expected to support as many as 2,000 construction jobs over the next year.

There is still room for about 30 more tenants. Cain is looking specifically for two restaurants to occupy the development’s west side, where there will be a pond, a fountain for children and a small vineyard.

Cain added that Gramor is moving construction equipment out to the site this week and will be breaking ground officially on the road work next week.

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