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.

The post Two downtown tenants choose to stick around appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

Another project featuring cross-laminated timber will soon go before the Portland Bureau of Development Services for evaluation.

A pre-application conference for an eight-story, 144,000-square-foot mixed-use building in the East Portland Grand Avenue Historic District is scheduled for Jan. 9. Applicants from TVA Architects will outline plans for the project, which is being developed in an opportunity zone by Sturgeon Development Partners.

The property, at 236 S.E. Grand Ave., is half of a block bordered by Southeast Grand and Sixth avenues and Southeast Ash and Pine streets.

“It’s a really well-located site and a neighborhood that’s transitional,” said TMT Development CEO Vanessa Sturgeon, whose firm purchased the parcel in September for $3.55 million. “The property is currently underutilized, so we’re looking forward to being part of the neighborhood transformation.”

“It’s going to be an office building with retail on the ground floor,” Sturgeon said. “The retail is necessary to serve the office tenants. The tenants really like to have places to eat and services that are walkable, so this is contributing to all that.”

TVA Architects principal Robert Thompson is the project’s design architect.

“We’re going to be going after the creative workforce market,” he said. “So, the building is going to be a combination of exposed concrete structural framework vertically in terms of the core and perimeter columns, and all interior floors will be glulam beams and cross-laminated-timber floor panels; it will be beautiful.”

The project’s location will require review by the Historic Landmarks Commission.

“The building will honor and respect the character and the massing – the overall look and feel – of the historic buildings that make up the Grand Avenue Historic District,” Thompson said. “But at the same time we’re putting forward a more contemporary, modern interpretation of that look.”

Two exterior cladding options are being considered: brick masonry and an architectural precast concrete skin. Thompson said the design team like the idea of using fiber-cement panels as an accent.

“We’re evaluating the options,” he said. “But we’re leaning heavily toward the precast option, which is in concert with a lot of buildings not only in the Grand Avenue district but also the inner southeast industrial district.”

Generous amounts of glazing will further serve two purposes.

“We’re looking at a lot of large windows to express the retail to the public and the timber structure of the building, so it will be perceived as a very warm, progressive workplace,” Thompson said. “Our plan is to get under construction within this calendar year – in the fall of 2020 – and be under way with the project.”

Sturgeon said the use of cross-laminated timber is more than just a passing fad.

“Part of it is the sustainability,” she said. “And frankly, we just really like the look of the product – it’s beautiful. In Oregon we’re on the cutting edge of sustainability, so we’re looking to push the envelope and go eight stories instead of six through some new developments in the technology.”

Building industry fears about shortages of cross-laminated timber panels are not influencing this project, Thompson said.

“It’s not an ongoing concern,” he said. “But it’s what’s current, it’s what people like right now, and it creates a unique, warm, inviting environment to work in. Timber is one of our great resources, and Portland is leading this industry at a national level.”

The post Offices, retail space and cross-laminated timber appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

A new mixed-use building on Southeast Hawthorne Boulevard marks the first mid-rise infill venture for TMT Development – a firm most known for building downtown towers including Park Avenue West, Fox Tower and 1000 Broadway.

The Marilyn is a four-story building with nearly 5,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space and 59 apartments, 12 of which are affordable to households earning 60 percent or less of the area median family income due to the developer utilizing Portland’s Multiple-Unit Limited Tax Exemption (MULTE) program. Residential amenities include a top-floor community room and outdoor patio, bike storage, a pet area, and an at-grade parking garage with 22 spaces.

The building is named after the late Marilyn Moyer; she was the wife of TMT Development founder Tom Moyer and grandmother of current President Vanessa Sturgeon. TMT has owned the property since the gasoline shortage of the 1970s, when Tom Moyer purchased what was then a filling station to ensure that supplies could reach his chain of movie theaters throughout the western United States. Most recently, the site was used by Kruger’s Farm as an open-air market and produce distribution point.

LRS Architects designed the building, which includes lower, set-back corners in order to fit with the scale of the neighborhood. The project team spent a lot of time with neighbors discussing the design, and Sturgeon says there’s potential for TMT to tackle more developments like this one.

“This project has gone much better than we would have expected,” she said. “You have to be very careful in a residential neighborhood like this, and we don’t want to disrupt people’s lives. But this project has gone very well in that way, so I think we might be ready to try it again.”

Bremik Construction served as general contractor for the project, which has a slab-on-grade foundation, second-floor post-tensioned concrete deck, and wood framing on the upper floors. AAI Engineering was the structural engineer, Humber Design Group was the civil engineer, and Shapiro Didway served as the landscape architect. Commercial Realty Advisors NW is representing the commercial space, and Guardian Real Estate Services is managing the residential portion.

The post Tower developer scales down on Hawthorne appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

A planning application has landed for a skyscraping tower on a downtown Portland block that is home to dozens of food carts.

The 33-story tower would comprise 750,000 square feet above ground, and four and a half stories of underground parking. The full-block tower would have a mix of uses, including office, hotel and residential functions.

The application is for the full block bounded by Southwest Ninth and 10th avenues, and Washington and Alder streets.

According to an early assistance application filed with the Bureau of Development Services, the project may include condominiums. If so, the project would be a major test of the city’s inclusionary housing regulations that pertain to condos. The city promulgated condo regulations before pulling them back after developers responded that the rules would make condo projects unworkable.

City officials are writing revised draft rules for inclusionary housing condo units, and they will be released in coming months, said Kyle Chisek, director of bureau relations and policy for Mayor Ted Wheeler’s office.

The building would rise to 410 feet – the maximum allowed height following the impending passage of the Central City 2035 plan. Under current rules, the height limit is 325 feet.

The building’s largest portion would be taken up by the hotel, according to the early assistance application. Plans call for 294,000 square feet of hotel space, 260,000 square feet of condos, 186,000 square feet of offices and 10,000 square feet of retail space.

GBD Architects is listed as the applicant (a GBD representative did not promptly return a message seeking comment). Public documents do not list a developer.

The block is owned by the Goodman family’s Downtown Development Group through limited liability companies. Downtown Development Group co-President Greg Goodman declined to comment. He referred questions to a public relations representative, Pat Walsh, who would not answer questions.
“Due to confidentiality agreements, we cannot comment about whether or not a project is under consideration,” Walsh stated in an email message. “We discuss a project when all involved are ready to do so.”

The project represents a big bet that Portland’s run of economic expansion will continue into 2019 and beyond.

To Vanessa Sturgeon, whose TMT Development built the 30-story Park Avenue West and the 27-story Fox Tower in downtown Portland, the market remains ripe for big projects.

“At this point with construction costs, projects need to be very big to pencil out,” she said. “It makes a lot of sense. Knowing what the Goodmans do, it will be of very high quality, so I’m very excited about another addition to the skyline.”

Architecturally, the building’s lower levels would have a “terraced massing” that appears to erode, according to the early assistance application. The upper floors would have a crystalline quality designed to catch light as it tapers upward.

The Goodmans previously partnered with developers on projects including Twelve West – a mixed-use tower in the West End. Downtown Development Group and its affiliates have an ownership interest in more than 1.5 million square feet of developed space and 28 parcels in central Portland.

The Goodmans are seeking financing for Eleven West – a planned mixed-used tower in the West End. The family has developed some projects itself, but often partners with developers such as Gerding Edlen.

At Southwest Ninth Avenue and Washington Street, the full-block parcel – also known as Block 216 – hosts the largest collection of food carts in the Portland area. Carts come and go, but some stay for years. On Monday, the block had 52 carts, including a few that were closed.

Altengartz, a bratwurst vendor, was the first cart on the block in 2000. The block took off as a food destination around the time of the 2008-09 recession, when many restaurants downsized to carts, said George Wittkopp, Altengartz’s manager.

Wittkopp was philosophical about the potential loss of the food-cart block. The company has a second location in Beaverton; a replacement will be sought for the downtown location, he said.

“We’ll stay alive and we’ll just have to look for another spot,” he said.

The cart block has evolved into a tourist destination, with visitors coming from as far as Manila, Philippines, after seeing the block featured on TV programs, Wittkopp said.

“I suppose some change is inevitable,” he said.

The early assistance application makes no mention of incorporating food carts into the proposed development.

Block 216 is near O’Bryant Square – a city park now closed because of structural issues related to an underground parking garage. Some online commenters raised the possibility of moving carts to O’Bryant Square. Even if that were feasible, the square is only half the size of Block 216.

The post Updated: 33-story tower proposed for downtown appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

The week of Aug. 8 was a rarity for Portland City Council, but some are concerned it may be a harbinger of things to come.

Two appeals of decisions by the city’s Design Commission landed on the City Council’s docket that week. While a quirk of scheduling was responsible for the timing of two cases in one week, the situation highlights what appears to be a growing tendency for architects and developers to appeal design decisions when they aren’t satisfied with the outcome.

In the past eight months, for example, the City Council has seen four appeals of Design Commission decisions and one appeal of a decision by the Historic Landmarks Commission.

It’s a trend that hasn’t gone unnoticed members of those commissions

“We have gone years and not had an appeal,” said Portland Design Commissioner David Wark. “There are definitely more appeals.”

Because the Design Commission is the body that oversees many of the design decisions that happen in some of the fastest-growing areas of the city, it also has the largest number of cases that get appealed. Appeals can be filed by the applicant, owner or those who have testified at a hearing either in person or in writing.

The appeals run the gamut from appealing an entire decision to appealing conditions put on an approval.  Decisions can also be appealed by neighborhood groups looking to stop or at least slow down a project.

There are many reasons cited for the increased numbers of appeals. The number of cases the commissions see has increased as Portland’s construction boom has picked up speed.

“I don’t think we are seeing a flood gate in terms of appeals,” said City Commissioner Dan Saltzman. “We are seeing more appeals because we have more projects.”

From the perspective of developers, several issues are driving the surge in appeals. Some developers feel that the commissions are taking too long to approve projects, changing guidelines from hearing to hearing and making arbitrary decisions that reduce height and density on projects. The longer it takes to receive approval, the more it costs developers. So rather than adjust a project, they decide to take decisions they don’t like directly to the City Council via an appeal.

Landon Crowell, a developer who appealed a Design Commission denial of his Ankeny Apartments project, said he believed continually changing criteria hurt his project.

“Ankeny Apartments was more about stopping the development,” he said. “(They were) spinning the design team around in circles to exhaust financial resources by changing the requirements each hearing.”

The project went through five design hearings before being denied by the Design Commission in a unanimous vote. Crowell then appealed the decision to City Council, which held four hearings of its own in an attempt to reach an agreement between neighbors who opposed the project, Bureau of Development Services staff, and Crowell and his development team.

In the end, City Council overturned the Design Commission’s denial and allowed the project to move forward. Several City Commissioners voiced concerns about the way the process worked.

“In future applications that go to the Design Commission,” said Commissioner Amanda Fritz, “I hope that things will get resolved there before five times because this is not the best use of the council’s time.”

City Council has to balance letting the commissions do their jobs and providing a fair process for developers that disagree with a decision, according to Saltzman.

“For the most part, most developers work with the Design Commission,” he said. “There are disagreements and it is fair and appropriate to bring those to council.”

It isn’t just denials that are being appealed. TMT Development appealed a Design Commission approval for the renovation of the Studio Building and Guild Theater because the development company didn’t like conditions related to the replacement of windows in the project. The required changes would have pushed up the project cost by $105,000, according to TMT Development President Vanessa Sturgeon

Upon appeal, the City Council struck down the conditions by a 4-1 vote. In his prevailing argument, Mayor Ted Wheeler said a needed renovation of an old building shouldn’t be endangered by what a majority of the commissioners considered a minor improvement.

Saltzman agreed.

“I think you have to weigh (the cost of the change) against our city code,” he said.

Members of the Design Commission, however, point out that while those types of decisions by City Council can help move a needed project forward, they also increase the incentive for developers to appeal decisions.

“The (City Council) needs to let the (Design Commission) be its voice,” Wark said. “It’s kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy; the more appeals they (uphold), the more appeals they will get.”

The Design Commission has a different set of guiding principles than other city agencies and bureaus, according to Wark. As a result, City Council has the freedom to consider issues that the Design Commission can’t turn to in its decision-making process.

“Aspects like tenant standard and pro-forma are not in the purview of the (Design Commission),” Wark said. “We just look at it through the guidelines.”

Even when all parties at a design review or historic landmarks hearing agree on a decision about a project, it can still be appealed by a neighbor or neighborhood association dissatisfied with the decision.

The Goose Hollow Neighborhood Association, for example, appealed the approval of the Press Blocks project that would replace the former Oregonian building with three new buildings. The association was concerned by the height of the project’s residential tower, but saw its concerns shot down by City Council.

Given the city’s relatively open appeals process, reducing the number of appeals that land in front of City Council may be tough to accomplish. However, some solutions are already being tried.

Julie Livingston, who recently stepped into the role of chairwoman for the Design Commission, plans to start getting applicants’ views of conditions on the record. She said she and other Design Commission members were caught by surprise by TMT Development’s appeal of the Studio Building and Guild Theatre decision because the development team did not express reservations about the condition during the design review hearing.

“When we are negotiating conditions, I am going to check in with the applicant and I want the applicant to state on the record, ‘I am OK with this,’” Livingston said. “If it goes to (City Council), I want to be able to say that the applicant was OK with that.”

Changes coming to the design guidelines as part of the Design Overlay Zone Assessment (DOZA) may also help clear ambiguity.

“Some of the (current) guidelines are pretty general and pretty vague,” Saltzman said. “I hope it will put more flesh on the bones and define how it should be applied. I am hopeful it will help.”

The Portland Bureau of Development also is adopting a new process of problem solving that may help mitigate the number of appeals.

Ultimately, though, Design Commissioners say City Council has the most control over how many appeals it sees.

“The whole process can only happen with the political support of the city,” Wark said. “(If the City Council wants fewer appeals) the City Council needs to be consistent with its support of commission decisions.”

The post The right to appeal appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

The Portland City Council on Wednesday approved an appeal by TMT Development to remove conditions attached to the Design Commission‘s approval of a building rehabilitation.

Though the firm’s plans to renovate the Studio Building and Guild Theatre, at 901-919 S.W. Taylor St. in downtown Portland, were approved by the Design Commission, it added requirements tied to window replacements. But the City Council voted 4-1 to strike down those conditions.

“This has been before (the Design Commission) twice,” Portland Commissioner Dan Saltzman said. “My best judgment is there is a lot of effort on this and it makes me support removing the conditions.”

The project team’s top concern, and a major factor in the council’s decision, was the added cost that the conditions would impose.

The Design Commission wanted developers to use a clearer glass, and add interior muntins and a spacer bar to the aluminum windows that were selected. Those changes would have increased the project cost by $105,000, according to TMT Development President Vanessa Sturgeon.

“There is virtually no discernible visual difference between what we proposed and what the commission wants us to do,” she said. “That is a budget buster.”

The glass requested by the Design Commission has approximately 4 percent less tint and is brighter than the glass planned by the project team. The replacement of 192 windows is part of an $8 million restoration effort. Other changes requested by the commission that were not appealed added more than $70,000 to the cost, according to Sturgeon.

On top of economic arguments, the project team argued that changes to the spacers and muntins would not be seen from the outside. Therefore, it stated, the Design Commission lacked authority to make that requirement.

A big concern of councilors was adding cost to what they see as a relatively minor improvement.

“The building, though grand she is, is an old dump,” Mayor Ted Wheeler said. “We have someone that is willing to (rehabilitate) it and we are quibbling over 4 percent?”

Originally, the Design Commission had urged the building’s owners to rehabilitate the building’s existing steel windows. Once it became clear that could not be accomplished and still meet energy code, the commission’s goal became to ensure that replacement windows resemble the original ones as closely as possible.

“Generally there is a lot of movement toward the clearest glass possible on historic buildings,” Design Commissioner Julie Livingston said. “We thought that the muntins and clear glass were OK with the owner. Had we known, we would have had more conversations.”

Overall plans to renovate the building include replacing the windows, performing cosmetic improvements, making changes to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act and installing new climate control systems.

Portland Commissioner Amanda Fritz, who cast the lone dissenting vote, said she felt unqualified to overturn a Design Commission decision on an issue that would largely affect the essence of the structure.

“I don’t want us to become the default design review commission,” she said. “I feel I don’t have information to vote against the Design Commission.”

One area of broad agreement was that projects like the Studio Building and Guild Theatre rehabilitation should go before the Historic Landmarks Commission instead of the Design Commission. The Studio Building and Guild Theatre are listed on Portland’s Historic Resource Inventory (HRI), but not on the National Register of Historic Places. Currently, a building listed on the HRI does not go before the Historic Landmarks Commission unless it has other historic designations.

“Buildings on the HRI should be reviewed by Landmarks – I agree with that,” Livingston said. “This building should be looked at by Landmarks. They bring a level of authority that Design Commission may not.”

The post Portland City Council nixes project’s requirements appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

The Portland Design Commission approved a plan by Peter Meijer Architect for alterations to the Studio Building and Guild Theatre at 901-919 S.W. Taylor St. with four votes in favor, one against and one abstention. The planned alterations include replacing 192 windows in the Studio Building, installing a new rooftop ventilation system and renovating the Guild Theatre so that it becomes compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The meeting took a somewhat rare turn when city staffers recommended approving alterations different than the preferred plan proposed by designers. The staff report’s top recommendation involved rehabilitating the existing steel windows in the Studio Building rather than replacing them with aluminum windows, as proposed.

“Restoration of the windows was never really on the table,” said Kristen Minor, an associate and preservation planner with Peter Meijer Architect.

The project designers said that the windows’ conditions combined with their age and issues tied to lead paint and asbestos would make any rehabilitation difficult. Also, reaching energy efficiency standards was impossible with the current windows.

“The existing steel windows are not in great condition,” said Halla Hoffer, an associate and project manager with Peter Meijer Architect. “They have lead paint and are leaking for a variety of reasons.”

Despite those concerns, some commissioners were not sold on the idea that the old windows had to go.

“The level of stewardship is in question with this window replacement,” said Commission Chairman David Wark, who cast the lone “no” vote. “It’s a significant building. We want to be careful and thoughtful with the process here.”

Wark also expressed concern that the chosen replacement windows could need to be replaced sooner than the current windows if they were rehabilitated.

“How many times will these be cycled out,” he asked. “It’s tough to support wholesale replacement.”

Wark believes that even if the existing windows couldn’t meet energy efficiency standards, then other alterations such as insulation could compensate adequately. In the end, however, most commissioners supported replacing the windows. The cost to replace them with steel windows ranged from $1.4 million to $2.7 million, so designers looked at other options and eventually chose an aluminum one.

Most commissioners said they believe that replacing the windows could be accomplished without damaging the building’s historic character.

“The building should be on the (National) Register (of Historic Places),” Commissioner Julie Livingston said. “Replacement of the windows seems reasonable.”

That led to the next sticking point: the tint of the windows. Most of the commissioners said they believe that the glass proposed would be far too dark for the building. A condition for the approval was that the glass be changed to a clearer tint.

As for the Guild Theatre, the Design Commission barely took issue with proposed renovations. They are temporary in nature, until a new tenant moves in.

Vanessa Sturgeon, president and CEO of TMT Development, the owner and manager of the building, claimed that the incoming tenant, whom she did not identify, would likely bring further alterations before the commission in the near future.

Also on Thursday:

Park Avenue West sign

A team’s bid for a new sign on the 30-story Park Avenue West tower was sent back to the drawing board. While the Design Commission couldn’t approve the proposal by Ambrosini Design, it did indicate that an altered version could pass muster.

The original plan called for a 92-foot sign for Stoel Rives to be placed on the east facade of the illuminated lantern feature. The commission preferred an alternative: installation under the lantern feature.

The design team plans to bring altered plans before the commission on April 20.

525 N.E. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.

A proposed six-story building was approved by the Design Commission. The building, designed by Hacker, will stand 85 feet tall, and include five floors of offices, ground-floor retail space and 65 underground parking stalls.

Developer PMC LLC., a joint venture between Beam Development and Urban Development + Partners, will begin the permitting process in May. The schedule calls for construction to begin in November and finish in approximately one year.

The post Changes coming to Studio Building, Guild Theatre appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

A young downtown Portland tower is hitching its retail presence to a familiar Oregon brand.

TMT Development has signed Pendleton Woolen Mills, a popular maker of blankets and other goods, as a tenant in Park Avenue West, the firm announced Monday.

Pendleton Woolen Mills is taking 3,191 square feet on the ground floor facing Director Park. The space will gain tenant improvements beginning this month, and the store is scheduled to open in mid-June.

The deal represents a major step forward for Park Avenue West, which was completed in 2016. Construction of the 30-story mixed-use tower began in 2007, but stalled in 2009 during the Great Recession; it resumed in 2013.

Portland law firm Stoel Rives earlier this year moved into the building, and now occupies 131,905 square feet of office space. The tower’s 202 residential units, totaling 173,648 square feet, are fully leased. The building also has six stories of underground parking.

Park Avenue West is located in the heart of downtown on a small block bordered by Morrison and Yamhill streets and Ninth and 10th avenues.

The store will be a flagship location for Pendleton Woolen Mills. In a news release, its president, Mort Bishop, said the company looks forward to showcasing the brand “in a new, fresh and upscale environment.”

The post Park Avenue West gains another retail tenant appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

As a new round of 21st-century towers and smaller multifamily buildings take shape throughout Portland, motor vehicle parking is changing. In many cases, developers are finding they can make do with less parking now than before the recession.

At the same time, city planners are pushing residents away from private vehicle trips. Portland’s newest bridge, Tilikum Crossing, has no room for cars. Neither will Flanders Crossing, a small bridge expected to attract heavy usage when it opens over Interstate 405 in 2018. TriMet has pushed its MAX light-rail system out to Milwaukie and could soon extend it southwest to Bridgeport Village.

Where does that leave parking? Single-occupancy vehicles, though increasingly derided as passé, still are used for the majority of commuting trips.

Most multifamily investors expect to see a healthy amount of parking included in projects.

“We don’t have enough confidence to build a significantly expensive project with no parking at all,” said Greg Goodman, co-president of Downtown Development Group, a major Portland developer. “That said, we’re building it to half a stall per apartment, so we’re not building it in abundance.”

Downtown Development Group is at work at Southwest Third Avenue and Ash Street on a multifamily building that will include one floor of underground parking. The company also is working with Gerding Edlen at Southwest 11th Avenue and Washington Street on a proposed 30-story tower that, as initially envisioned, would include four floors of underground parking. A pre-application conference for that project is scheduled for Sept. 6.

Parking remains essential for large projects, Goodman said.

“Building parking is expensive,” he said. “If we could, we’d build no parking, but the reality is we’d be afraid we wouldn’t lease out our buildings downtown.”

Park Avenue West, one of Portland’s tallest buildings, was completed earlier this year and has ample parking. The building at 760 S.W. Ninth Ave. has 249 parking spaces for its 202 residential units and 13 floors of office space. Park Avenue West tenants also have access to 1,179 additional parking spaces at Fox Tower and Director Park.

“Parking is a critical component to negotiating a (commercial) lease,” said Vanessa Sturgeon, president and CEO of TMT Development, which developed Park Avenue West.

Office tenants expect one parking stall per 1,250 square feet of office space, Sturgeon said.

“As much as we like to think people are finding different modalities to get into and out of town, the demand for parking has not changed,” she said.

At Park Avenue West, creating space for so much parking wasn’t easy. Crews dug 95 feet below ground to accommodate six floors of parking.

“Park Avenue West is the deepest hole ever dug in the city of Portland,” Sturgeon said.

The hole couldn’t be any deeper.

“We were really constrained because of the water table,” she said. “We went down as deep as we could go, and we went below sea level, actually.”

Demand for downtown parking could have supported far more spaces, Sturgeon said.

“If we had been able to do double the amount of parking, we would have been able to utilize all of it,” she said.

TMT plans to include parking in its future developments, Sturgeon added.

At present, the city of Portland requires parking for sites with more than 30 apartment units, and more spaces are required for larger projects. For a site with 31 to 40 apartments, 0.20 parking spaces per apartment are required. For a site with 41 to 50 units, 0.25 parking spaces per unit are required. For a site with 51 units or more, 0.33 parking spaces per unit are required.

Urban Asset Advisors is at work on four projects. Of those, three include parking. The one that doesn’t is an eastside project for which the developer has land under contract but has not closed. The lot’s frontage is too small to accommodate underground parking, said Tim O’Brien, president of Urban Asset Advisors.

“In general, we believe every project should have parking to the extent you can get it in,” he said.

Urban Asset Advisors is constructing Couch 9 in the Pearl District. The development will have 69 parking spaces for 136 apartment units, or 0.51 spaces per unit. After Couch 9 is completed, Urban Asset Advisors will rent the spaces.

Portland parking spaces are renting for about $165 a month to more than $200 a month, O’Brien said.

The amount of parking in a given development is determined largely by location.

“The closer the project is to transit and bicycle corridors and walkability to employment centers, the less parking you need,” O’Brien said.

Investors are not demanding as much parking as they did a few years ago, when a 1-to-1 ratio was expected – a parking space for each apartment unit. A couple of years ago, the typical threshold had fallen to 0.6 parking spaces per multifamily unit.

The Cordelia Apartments, a 135-unit building developed by Mill Creek Residential Trust in 2014, raised eyebrows when it came in below 0.5 parking spaces per unit. Other projects have since been built with even fewer spaces per unit.

“Our overall thinking about it is that parking ratios do continue to decline,” O’Brien said.

Parking is still regarded as a worthwhile amenity, and investors tend to frown on projects with too little parking.

“Investors definitely are the tail that wags the dog,” O’Brien said.

Parking also helps ensure the long-term viability of a project, he added.

“You have to have a good exit strategy,” he said. “Not only is it the right thing to do and socially responsible, but it makes the project more viable and more marketable.”

When a lot is too small for underground parking, technology can play a role. For Quimby19, a 90-unit development in Northwest Portland, Urban Asset Advisors ended up using a mechanical stacking parking system. The development features 13 surface spaces and 34 in the mechanical system.

That ended up saving money, O’Brien said. Typical parking spaces cost about $50,000 each, while mechanized spaces cost about $30,000 each.

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Editor’s note: To see more photos of Stoel Rives’ new office, click here.

Stoel Rives gets top billing at Park Avenue West.

Portland’s largest law firm occupies the top nine floors of the downtown mixed-use tower that was developed by TMT Development, designed by TVA Architects and built by Hoffman Construction.

Stoel Rives’ business development manager, Jackie McClue, earlier this week led a tour of the firm’s new space.

Originally, condominiums were planned for Park Avenue West’s top floors. But the design was flipped during development, and the condos were placed below the law offices.

The offices are smaller than Stoel Rives’ former offices at the Standard Insurance Center, at 900 S.W. Fifth Ave. Stoel Rives is using only about 121,000 square feet, down from more than 140,000 square feet at the Standard Insurance Center. (The firm is subleasing a portion of one floor, amounting to 10,000 square feet, to another user.)

“People are really more focused on the quality of the space than the size of their new offices versus their old offices,” said Wally Van Valkenburg, managing partner of Stoel Rives’ Portland office. “We wanted to make more efficient use of our space.”

Stoel Rives may be leasing less space, but it’s paying more per square foot. The firm signed a 15½-year lease at Park Avenue West.

In another change, the offices for Stoel Rives partners and associates are more comparably sized than they were in the Standard Insurance Center. Stoel Rives has 126 attorneys and 209 staff members working in Park Avenue West, at 760 S.W. Ninth Ave. The firm has offices in 10 other cities.

Park Avenue West is poised to soon receive a Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design platinum rating. The building uses 425 gallons of rainwater a day for non-potable uses such as flushing toilets.

The interior reflects Northwest motifs in its use of Oregon white oak flooring and Douglas fir paneling and doors. ZGF Architects designed Stoel Rives’ tenant improvements.

The space is clearly a law office, not a tech startup. There are no arcade games, ping-pong tables or beanbag chairs as one might see in some of Portland’s creative office spaces.

Stoel Rives does have collaborative spaces featuring high-backed couches and tables where lawyers gather to practice trial arguments. Lawyers adorn their offices with everything from hunting trophies – Eugene A. Frassetto, a partner, has a bust of a six-point elk he bagged in Malheur County – to Trail Blazers memorabilia.

Two of the firm’s floors in Park Avenue West hold conference space.

Stoel Rives downsized its library for the move. The firm unloaded 85 percent of its bound volumes, which were donated to prisons and county libraries or recycled.

“What remains is primarily resources that aren’t easily accessible online, don’t work well online or have some connection to the history of Stoel Rives,” said Shannon Marich, knowledge and research services manager.

The firm set aside wellness rooms for new mothers on the 25th and 28th floors.

Stoel Rives moved during Memorial Day weekend, and reopened May 31. The firm also used the opportunity to rebrand with a fresh logo.

The views provided by several outdoor terraces range from the St. Johns Bridge to Mount Hood and Mount St. Helens. The West Hills loom close by, while all of downtown Portland stretches out below.

Stoel Rives asked the architects to include covered outdoor spaces.

Mark Houk, Stoel Rives’ business development technology manager, said he enjoys stepping outside.

“I just get away when I need to step away from the computer,” he said. “I’ve never seen Portland from this vantage before.”

The move was only Stoel Rives’ fourth in its history. The firm was founded in 1907 in Portland.

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