Two appeals of the Portland Design Commission‘s approval of a master plan for redevelopment of Lloyd Center were initially denied by the Portland City Council on Wednesday; the final vote is scheduled for later this month.

The appeals argued for preserving the Lloyd Center indoor ice rink and the entire mall. The two appellants include the Save Lloyd Ice Coalition and Jennifer Gilmore-Robinson for the ice rink and the Save Lloyd campaign/Matthew Henderson for the mall.

The Design Commission approved the master plan in March. The land use review included a voluntary Central City Master Plan for future redevelopment of the 27.1-acre site, which includes the mall.

The city council heard testimony during two hearings in June and received written testimony. Many of the comments expressed support for preserving the ice rink and mall.

“If the ice rink cannot be preserved in Urban Renaissance Group‘s master plan, it’s important that the city of Portland commit to a permanent, year-round replacement ice skating rink that is affordable and accessible to all residents,” the Hillsdale Neighborhood Association stated in its written testimony.

“I support thoughtful redevelopment of the Lloyd Center site, but redevelopment should not come at the expense of an irreplaceable community resource,” Portland resident Stacey Moy stated in written testimony. “If developers wish to move forward with their plans, they should be required to include a binding commitment to preserve, replace, or relocate the year-round ice rink within the development area before approvals are granted.”

If the appeals were granted, there would be no Central City Master Plan criteria required for the site. That would include open space, which currently amounts to about 6 acres, according to Urban Renaissance Group. The team would also still be able to proceed with demolition because it is a separate decision process, a city staff report states. The mall is scheduled to close on Aug. 8.

“I have listened closely to the hours of public testimony and felt the deep love this community holds for the Lloyd Center, especially the iconic ice rink that has anchored generations of family memories, first dates, and community gatherings,” Councilor Loretta Smith said. “Please know that my vote to approve the Central City Master Plan is not to dismantle that rich history, nor is it a validation of losing something that we all love. It is instead a difficult but necessary step toward securing a viable future to Northeast Portland.”

Smith also said that the council cannot vote to require an ice rink be included in redevelopment of the site.

The council voted no on the appeals, with a formal final vote slated for July 29.

The city council’s decision could be appealed to the Oregon Land Use Board of Appeals. An appeal would need to be submitted to LUBA within 21 days after the city council’s decision, according to the city.

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A master plan proposal for redevelopment of the Lloyd Center mall received the Portland Design Commission‘s unanimous approval on Thursday.

The 27.1-acre site, in Northeast Portland, consists of the mall and a Regal Cinemas parking lot. The master plan divides the parcels into 14 areas with approximately 7 million gross square feet of allowed development, buildings as tall as 225 feet, and approximately 6.18 acres of public open spaces and new public rights-of-way.

ZGF Architects designed the master plan for owners Urban Renaissance Group and KKR Real Estate Finance Trust.

The vision of the master plan “transforms an aging mall that is no longer economically sustainable into a vibrant, mixed-use neighborhood with housing, retail, and open space where Portlanders can live, work, and play,” Tom Kilbane, managing director of Urban Renaissance Group’s Portland office, stated in an email.

“Lloyd Center will always hold a special place in the hearts of Portlanders,” he stated, “and now it’s poised to play a leading role in the city’s revitalization.”

Redevelopment will occur in phases. No specific plan for demolition exists yet, but it would likely be full demolition rather than a phased approach, because the mall shares centralized infrastructure for utilities. Because these utilities are fully integrated, it is not feasible to isolate or maintain services for one portion of the property while decommissioning another, according to a letter from the applicant’s attorney.

During the previous Design Commission hearing for the master plan, more than 50 people spoke, many in opposition. They lamented plans to demolish the mall and its indoor ice rink.

Commissioner Tina Bue addressed that public testimony, stating that the demolition aspects are outside of the commission’s purview. But she added that she believes the master plan has great potential in open spaces and neighborhood extensions.

“The community spoke loud and clearly about having a year-round ice rink and the importance of the mall being a third space,” she said. “I believe Portlanders will create something new.”

Commission Vice Chair Joe Swank added, “The Lloyd Center has really been de facto public space — public realm — for 65 years in the city. It really has, I think, a following and an ability to captivate people in that way.”

The small business space and the ice rink now in the Lloyd Center mall are community assets, Swank added. He encouraged stakeholders who are passionate about those spaces to follow the process of the Lloyd-Holladay TIF District with the city and track where funds are being spent.

Public art and facade expressions were not part of the master plan and should be considered as aspects of the development of the 14 individual parcels, Commission Chair Chandra Robinson said.

The master plan was approved by the commission unanimously, with conditions of approval attached. Conditions include proposed open spaces being subject to public access easements and allowing public access, designs of each proposed open space and accessway being evaluated through a type II design review process, and buildings in areas shown to have 50 percent ground floor use meeting city code. Several other conditions related to transportation, environmental service and water service were also added.

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The vision for redevelopment of Lloyd Center drew testimony from more than 50 people during a Portland Design Commission hearing on Thursday, and many expressed their opposition.

Most testifiers spoke about the value of the communities created at the mall in recent years. They asked for preservation of both the existing building as an indoor space out of the rain and the year-round indoor ice rink.

However, the project team is proposing to replace the building with interconnected mixed-use buildings and open space, including a seasonal outdoor rink.

“In light of all the testimony, most of it had to do with what happens inside of these buildings,” Commissioner Zari Santner said.

Thursday’s hearing was the Design Commission’s third look at redevelopment plans for the 27.1-acre site that consists of the mall and the Regal Cinemas lot south of Northeast Multnomah Street. Next month, the group is expected to vote on the proposal.

Both the Nordstrom building and the sky-bridge were demolished to accommodate construction of a new music venue. The mall will close later this year.

ZGF Architects designed the master plan for owners Urban Renaissance Group and KKR Real Estate Finance Trust. The project team also includes civil engineer DOWL, structural engineer KPFF, and landscape architect Field Operations of New York.

When Lloyd Center opened in 1960, it was exposed to the elements. Glass ceilings were added in the late 1980s, according to the project team’s report. The goal of redevelopment is to reverse the inward focus and build a neighborhood around open space, said Nolan Lienhart, a ZGF principal and its director of planning and urban design.

The vision for the area calls for integrating new residential, retail, entertainment, and employment space with a dynamic and connected public realm. Community gathering spaces would be accessible to all.

Approximately 20 percent of the master plan area must be dedicated open space for the public, senior city planner Ben Nielsen said. The master plan envisions high-density residential and commercial buildings framing a network of diverse but complementary connected open spaces, the applicant’s report states. It includes more than 6 acres of parks, open space, and plazas, said Tom Kilbane, managing director of Urban Renaissance Group. There would also be two pedestrian-oriented promenades. Any proposed open spaces will need to go through a design review process as part of a condition of approval for the master plan, Nielsen said.

The Design Commission’s vice chair, Joe Swank, asked where the team proposes to locate the seasonal ice rink.

“The market square seems like an obvious area, but it could be other places as well,” said Allison Rouse, a ZGF landscape architect.

The master plan area is expected to gain up to 7 million square feet of mixed-use buildings, including both affordable and market-rate housing. Utilities to support these uses would be located underground.

The project team is requesting two adjustments are requested with the master plan review. One is to remove the general required building line standards from three areas. Another is to remove required building line standards for sites with frontage on a street, except for three other areas. City staff recommend approving the two requests.

Santner asked the project team, when it returns before the commission, to give a general sense of what residential, commercial, retail and community spaces they will try to accommodate in the development.

The project team will return before the Design Commission on March 5.

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Though the Great Recession ended slightly more than a decade ago, Portland’s Goose Hollow neighborhood hasn’t since experienced much growth … until now.

Two buildings that until 2015 were used for printing The Oregonian newspaper on a daily basis are being replaced by a new mixed-use complex. The Press Blocks development will feature office, residential and retail space in three new buildings on one and a half blocks.

Lease Crutcher Lewis is constructing the first one – Canvas at Press Blocks – on a half-block directly east of Providence Park. The mixed-use building will feature ground-floor retail space, seven stories of Class A office space and ninth-floor amenity space; the designer is GBD Architects.

“This project means a lot to the neighborhood,” said Mike Sager, senior project manager for general contractor Lease Crutcher Lewis. “Goose Hollow is a forgotten part of the downtown area. And there’s a homeless situation here, and that contributed to what was previously undesirable real estate. This is the first big development to gentrify the area, and when they went through design review and pulled permits it was the first (post-recession) project in this area.”

The full-block portion of the development on a block east of Canvas will include a 23-story, 250-foot-tall residential tower and a three-story building with office and retail space. Those buildings are being designed by Seattle-based Mithun. Urban Renaissance Group, which is developing the project in partnership with Security Properties, will manage the entire complex upon completion.

Work on Canvas began in August 2018 with what Sager called the “super technical” demolition of the building at 817 S.W. 17th Ave. It stored rolls of newsprint, ink and other supplies used by The Oregonian.

“There were 60-foot-tall, clear spans inside the building,” Sager said. “60-foot-tall, freestanding concrete panels made up the walls, and they were tied to concrete, double-T roof panels that held each other up.”

To safely demolish the building, a temporary support structure was constructed to hold up the walls while the roof was removed. Then the temporary structure was dismantled and the walls dropped inside.

A below-grade tunnel used for moving materials and supplies between the two old buildings is being used during construction of Canvas. The tunnel will remain and connect parking areas.

“Across the street was the press building originally and on this side it was used for paper roll and ink storage for the printing operation,” Sager said. “They’d deliver stuff and store it in this building and drop it down onto robots on an underground tunnel on 17th (Avenue) and then over to the other building.”

Canvas is being constructed with post-tensioned concrete decks and reinforced concrete support columns. The exterior will predominantly be pre-cast concrete panels made by ARCIS Technology. The panels have deep window boxes that don’t articulate but provide a deep return leg to add texture and depth to the exterior. It’s a look intended to resemble the previous buildings.

“They wanted to honor the original building,” Sager said.

Lease Crutcher Lewis is using 3-D modeling extensively for this project. The contractor is using a robotic tool station to lay out building components as needed.

“In the last five years that’s been cutting-edge, and some people are doing more of that,” Sager said. “We’ve been doing it for a long time, and basically we take the design team’s model and take it over at a certain point. Then we re-detail the concrete and generate our own drawings, extract points from the embeds and export it all to the robotic layout equipment so our crews can efficiently lay out the building.”

Completion of Canvas is expected in late spring 2020. The construction schedule for the 23-story residential tower and the three-story office building will be determined once financing is secured.

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Seattle-based Urban Renaissance Group and private equity firm Gaw Capital USA, in a joint venture, have purchased the Gladys McCoy Building, in downtown Portland, from Multnomah County for $9.85 million.

The Gladys McCoy Building, at 426 S.W. Harvey Milk St., was built in 1923. The 10-story, approximately 100,000-square-foot building was occupied by J.K. Gill Co. for over 60 years before it was acquired by the county. It is being replaced by a new Gladys McCoy Health Department Headquarters on property near Union Station in the Pearl District.

Urban Renaissance Group and Gaw Capital USA say they intend to renovate the old building starting this fall and finishing in spring 2020.

“As URG continues to pursue both significant renovation projects and ground up development, we couldn’t be more excited about this acquisition,” URG Vice President Tom Kilbane, stated in a press release. “The McCoy Building is in an ideal location with great historic appeal, and we anticipate it will attract a wide range of tenants, from technology to engineering to creative types.”

The county will continue to lease the building through mid-2019. Then crews will renovate the lobby, construct a new café, modernize elevators, apply exterior paint, install new storefront glass, doors, canopies and mechanical systems, and build new restrooms, spa-grade showers, lockers and bike storage.

Original features – double-height ceilings on the first floor, an open mezzanine, a grand staircase and 10,000-square-foot floor plates – will be preserved, according to Kilbane.

“By investing in the existing character of this historic building, we will ensure it serves Portland for another 100-plus years,” he stated.

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Demolition of a building formerly used by The Oregonian newspaper is under way in Portland’s Goose Hollow neighborhood. In its place will rise a mixed-use building, Canvas at Press Blocks, with 8,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space, seven stories of office space and a ninth-floor tenant amenity space. The building is one of three being constructed as part of the Press Blocks redevelopment; also planned are a 23-story residential tower and a three-story office-and-retail building one block east.

Staton Companies is demolishing the 175,000-square-foot building, located at 817 S.W. 17th Ave., for general contractor Lease Crutcher Lewis. The structure formerly held large newsprint rolls, which were moved through the building by a large gantry crane and transported by tunnel to the full-block printing space on the adjacent block to the east.

The warehouse was constructed of double-T precast wall and roof panels, some of which are being supported through the demolition sequence by shoring braces installed by Omega Morgan; it’s performing welding work and crane assistance for Staton. The building’s concrete wall panels are being saw-cut at the top, after which the remaining gantry crane rail is cut and the loose panel is laid down on the ground and crushed on site. The removal of roof panels involves demolishing the concrete webs on either side of the double-T panel beams, and then cutting the beams to allow them to drop.

Demolition work is about halfway complete. The building will be taken down to grade by December, at which point shoring pile and deep foundation subcontractors will install temporary shoring so the site can be excavated for a single level of below-grade parking. The contractor estimates coming out of the ground around March 2019, then taking about 10 months to build the eight floors of post-tensioned concrete. A ninth-floor with amenity space, a terrace and mechanical penthouse will be constructed using structural steel. Substantial completion of the project is slated for mid-2020.

The site’s constraints – TriMet MAX lines to the west and the north, a bus line to the east, and occupied buildings on the block’s southern half – will require the project team to carefully orchestrate deliveries of materials.

“It’s about as just-in-time construction as it gets,” said Mike Sager, senior project manager with Lease Crutcher Lewis. “It basically comes off a truck and goes in the building. It’s all about logistics on this one.”

The Press Blocks project is being conducted in partnership between Security Properties and Urban Renaissance Group, which previously acquired and redeveloped The Oregonian’s headquarters building at 1320 S.W. Broadway. Invesco Real Estate is serving as an investment partner. GBD Architects designed the Canvas at Press Blocks building. Mithun is the architect of the two buildings on the full-block site, which does not yet have an anticipated construction start date.

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Ownership of Multnomah County‘s 95-year-old Gladys McCoy Building in downtown Portland will soon transfer to private developers.

County commissioners voted unanimously Thursday to approve the sale of the building to Urban Renaissance Group LLC for $11.1 million. The 10-story structure has approximately 100,000 square feet and will be converted into commercial office space in the future, according to county documents.

The building has served as Multnomah County’s Health Department headquarters for many years. Construction of a new headquarters building is in the final stages in Old Town.

“The plans are to renovate this historic building and offer the space as office space,” Bob Leek, interim director of the department of county assets told commissioners.

The county’s real estate team started a blind sales process in 2017, with the board of commissioners formally declaring the building as surplus earlier this year.

Commercial real estate services and investment firm CBRE Group began marketing the building on behalf of the county in May and had over 7,000 initial qualified buyers inquire about the property.

Further exploration whittled that figure down to 164 registered parties expressing interest. By July, the county had eight formal offers for the property in hand, Leek said, which necessitated four rounds of reviews by the county real estate team.

“The end result of that is why I’m here this morning,” he said.

The deal also includes a leaseback provision that will allow the county to continue to use the Gladys McCoy Building as its health department headquarters in the event delivery of the new building is delayed.

“Which isn’t going to happen,” board Chairwoman Deborah Kafoury interjected with a laugh.

Urban Renaissance Group LLC is based in Seattle, but has a Portland office. The firm offers real estate acquisition, development and management services.

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A cohort of prime office properties for sale is setting new expectations for high-end commercial real estate in Portland.

A parcel including two superblocks and an aging office building in the North Pearl District is for sale and is expected to fetch an aggressive price, industry insiders say. The Wells Fargo Center is on the market and could go for more than $200 million. And Wieden + Kennedy‘s Pearl District office building is also for sale, and is expected to earn a healthy premium on the $65 million it sold for five years ago.

Taken together with the sale of the former Oregonian building earlier this year for $95 million, the high-dollar listings will soon test how valuable Portland office property has become.

In some cases, the listings are pricing out local investors who believe the real-estate cycle has reached maturity, and prompting head-scratching among locals who see little value in matching the fast-escalating values placed on Portland properties by major out-of-state firms.

“Either I’m really, really wrong, or they’re really, really wrong, but it’s a new normal,” said Noel Johnson, a principal at Portland developer Cairn Pacific.

Institutional buyers can be more aggressive on their pricing, said Buzz Ellis, managing director at Jones Lang LaSalle.

“They will tend to see growth in our market,” he said.

Several office properties for sale are likely to fetch record or near-record prices in coming months.

The remaining portions of the Con-way master plan site represent a unique opportunity for developers. The properties, offered by Eastdil Secured, include two 200-foot-by-400-foot superblocks, two smaller surface parking lots and a retired 129,148-square foot Con-way office building. The total developable area spans 6.7 acres of highly valuable urban infill in the fast-emerging Slabtown area.

The office building is being offered separately from the vacant blocks, and is under contract. The office is viewed as a repositioning opportunity that could yield $500 per square foot when it’s eventually resold.

The blocks are along Northwest 21st and 22nd avenues, and three of the four blocks are bounded by Raleigh Street, which is envisioned as Slabtown’s commercial corridor.

The parcel, now owned by XPO Logistics, is regarded as particularly valuable because it is not subject to Portland’s inclusionary housing requirements. Developers could conceivably complete build-out of the entire 17.49-acre Con-way site without including a single affordable housing unit.

Portland’s Bureau of Development Services issued a zoning confirmation letter to an attorney representing XPO Logistics on June 6. The letter confirms the entire XPO site is subject to zoning according to rules in effect on April 24, 2012, when the site’s master plan application was filed. That’s long before the city’s inclusionary housing regulations went into effect earlier this year, and before a package of mixed-use zoning regulations that were approved last year by Portland’s City Council.

A property that is not subject to inclusionary zoning may be worth three times as much as a comparable property that is subject to the affordable housing requirements, Johnson said.

Eventual buyers of Con-way properties could opt to build office, multifamily or retail space, or spaces featuring a combination of uses.

XPO Logistics is accepting “best and final” offers on the site, and is seeing strong interest.

“It’s just a good signal of a really bullish market right now,” Johnson said.

The area is booming with office development, including the 300,000-square-foot Field Office development from project^, and the rehabilitation of the Leland James building by Cairn Pacific and Capstone Partners.

For the office market, the sale of the Oregonian building at 1320 S.W. Broadway was a new watershed moment. The sale valued the renovated creative-office building at approximately $540 per square foot, a record for Portland office space. The buyer was Credit Suisse, through a Delaware-based limited liability company, Portland 1320 Broadway Real Estate Holding LLC.

The building had been subject to a thorough renovation by the previous owner, Urban Renaissance Group of Seattle, with a design by Allied Works Architecture.

A Credit Suisse spokeswoman declined to comment on the bank’s investment in Portland’s market.

Several factors are pushing office properties to record valuations. Average asking rents rose to $28.04 per square foot during the first quarter, with Class A office space in Portland’s Central Business District fetching $34.94 per square foot, according to Jones Lang LaSalle. Office vacancies were unchanged at 9.4 percent.

Office properties for sale are likely to fetch eyebrow-raising prices. These include Wieden + Kennedy’s Pearl District corporate headquarters at 224 N.W. 13th Ave. The owner, J.P. Morgan Asset Management, has placed the property on the market, and is being represented by San Francisco-based brokers of Eastdil Securities.

The 190,151-square-foot building last sold for $65 million, or $342 per square foot, in 2012. It’s likely to fetch even more this time around.

The 109-year-old building was renovated in 2012 in another Allied Works-designed project.

“It’s really a quite remarkable building,” Johnson said.

Wieden + Kennedy will continue as the main tenant in the building, a spokeswoman for the advertising agency said. (The building is also home of the Bluehour restaurant).

The listing of the Wells Fargo Center looms over the Portland office market. Earlier this month, the bank announced it would sell the full-block, 689,840-square-foot building – Portland’s tallest skyscraper. The listing includes the tower and podium.

The bank leases approximately 40 percent of the building to other tenants. Wells Fargo plans to lease space back from the building’s eventual buyer. The company will also move employees to other locations in the Portland-metro area.

While some locals see Portland office space as increasingly unaffordable, it still represents a value compared to San Francisco or Seattle.

“Those markets have seen similar strong rent growth,” said David Hill, senior managing director at Newmark Knight Frank in Portland.

One sign to watch: when companies begin forsaking Portland’s office market for cheaper properties elsewhere in the West.

“Does Portland get to the point where people are looking at Boise or Salt Lake as a more affordable option?” Hill said. “We haven’t seen any evidence of that yet.”

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Guardian Real Estate Services has tried for two years to find a financially viable plan for a mixed-use project on Block 290. The Portland Design Commission on Thursday told the developer and its new architect, LRS Architects, they still had some work to do.

“The challenge is, is there a sweet spot between the neighborhood and the development that is economically rewarding and feasible?” Design Commission Vice Chairman Tad Savinar said. “I keep racking my brain … Where is that sweet spot?”

The Design Commission decided to form a subcommittee to meet with neighbors and developers in two weeks to try to iron out some of the challenges.

Those development challenges are considerable. The site, at 1417 N.W. 20th Ave., is governed by the Con-way Master Plan as well as design guidelines. The current project would require amendments to the master plan, which envisioned a large public square. The Northwest District Association and multiple neighbors spoke against the project.

Development began in 2015, when three design advice hearings took place. It was scheduled for a formal review in May 2016, but was withdrawn a day beforehand.

The developers put the project on hold, and LRS Architects was brought in to find a viable design that former designer YBA Architects couldn’t. The development team said that the delays and multiple design iterations have cost the company more than $2 million.

“We just couldn’t find a financially viable solution before,” said Briana Murtaugh, development project manager for Guardian Real Estate Services.

LRS Architects Senior Associate Greg Mitchell presented a design that drew many of the same objections directed toward earlier versions.

As proposed, three sides of the building would wrap around an open square, with public access portals on Northwest 21st Avenue and Pettygrove Street. Also, a pedestrian walkway would offer portals to the square and large park east of the complex.

The biggest problem stems from the definition of a public square. Neighbors claim the design more closely fits the definition of a private courtyard than a public square. They claim it would be devoid of sunlight and closed off from the rest of the neighborhood.

The designers disagree, claiming the design meets the all the requirements in terms of open space. They argued that the commission should judge the design they presented.

“In terms of the sweet spot, we found it,” said Thomas Brenneke, president of Guardian Real Estate Services.

Commissioners debated a variety of changes that might add open space and sunlight to the square. The most likely solution they came up with was to reduce the height on some elevations of the structure and add height to the other elevations.

That would present its own challenges, according to the development team. The current design calls for a maximum height of 57 feet. Structures taller 77 feet must have more advanced fire suppression systems and faster elevators; structures taller than 125 feet must have even more advanced and faster ones. That would add to the project cost, requiring the addition of residential units. Adding units would mean also increasing parking garage capacity – possibly via more floors.

Developers were unsure if such a design could be financially viable.

Other smaller issues – such as how the position of power lines might affect the entire development’s location – also exist.

“It’s a Rubik’s Cube,” Mitchell said.

The Design Commission’s ultimate decision was to create a subcommittee consisting of Chairman David Wark, and commissioners Don Vallaster and Andrew Clarke. The subcommittee in two weeks will meet with the design team and neighbors to see if a revised design can meet the goals of both the developer and neighbors.

The results of that meeting will be reviewed at a hearing on June 1.

Also on Thursday:

Press Blocks

The Design Commission unanimously approved revisions for the Press Blocks project, which will sit on lots at 817 S.W. 17th Ave. and 1621 S.W. Taylor St.

The Goose Hollow project, spearheaded by Urban Renaissance Group and Security Properties, had support from many of the business and neighborhood groups in the area. Mithun, from Seattle, and GBD Architects came up with the design for the three-building complex.

Many of the issued raised by commissioners previously revolved around the proposed office building at Southwest 18th Avenue and Yamhill Street. The design did not reflect the prominence of the location, they said.

Revisions submitted on Thursday included lightening the building’s color, making the corner of the building less oppressive and including a more prominent balcony feature.

For the mid-block office building, the design team focused on creating more area for pedestrians.

Also, the residential tower’s north and south elevations were altered to blend better with the rest of the building. Colors were changed to more earth tones to make the building appear warmer and more residential in nature. The team also enlarged the entry to make it more prominent.

The changes received widespread praise from the commissioners.

“I think this is a really sophisticated addition to the Goose Hollow – all three buildings,” Commissioner Julie Livingston said. “This is a really good response to the guidelines.”

The new structure will sit east of Providence Park.

“The refinements are all positive and much appreciated,” Wark said. “It gives it that extra level of excellence that we want. Overall, it’s extremely successful.”

5615 S.W. Hood Ave.

A proposal for a cross-laminated timber, four-story office building with ground-floor retail space was approved by the Portland Design Commission via a 6-0 vote. The commission added three conditions: 1, expanding an elevator lobby; 2, adding a canopy to the lobby entry; and 3, moving the canopy up so it’s closer to the second floor’s underside.

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The historic Morgan Building in downtown Portland has been busily attracting noteworthy tenants this spring.

First, Urban Works Real Estate signed up St. Honore Boulangerie to occupy a highly visible retail space at the corner of Southwest Broadway and Washington Street.

Then, Urban Works was able to secure high-end seafood restaurant Roe, which had closed its 18-seat Division Street restaurant in February to seek a downtown location.

The building at 724 S.W. Washington St. was built in 1913 and encompasses 149,710 square feet.

Roe, formerly in the rear of Block & Tackle at 31st Avenue and Division Street, is a major catch for the historic property.

“The developers (Urban Renaissance Group) have focused on updating the retail tenants in the building as they’ve really restored the building over the last couple of years,” said Craig Sweitzer, owner of Urban Works Real Estate. “There’s more of a focus on the amenities of the building. Having a high-end restaurant and a good bakery are obviously great amenities for the property.”

Roe made several “best restaurant” lists during its tenure on Division Street. Chef Trent Pierce was nominated for a 2016 James Beard Award for the best chefs in the Northwest.

Like the space in Block & Tackle, Roe’s owners sought an under-the-radar location downtown, Sweitzer said. Roe will have no exterior entrance, which will benefit other tenants, he said.

“It’s almost like a speakeasy-type location,” he said. “There’s no street access. You actually have to come into the building to get to it, which is good for the other retailers in the building.”

The building’s existing ground-floor tenants include a tailor, a camera shop, a coffee shop, a cobbler and a florist.

Office tenants on the upper floors include Bora Architects and Foursquare, along with attorneys, engineers and financial advisers.

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