SkyscraperPage Forum - Waterfront Pearl | 10 floors

^the Naito family split into two companies each with their own focus. One company got half the land for the Waterfront Pearl and began the development, the other company got the other half of the land for the project and was supposed to sell it to the other half, but an agreement was never reached. They still claim all four towers will be built, but this family has shown, if they don't want to, nobody is compromising for the best interests of both companies.

Pearl spills over into N. Park Blocks
Pressure from the Pearl triggers interest
Portland Business Journal - February 9, 2007
by Wendy Culverwell
Business Journal staff writer
Cathy Cheney | Portland Business Journal
Brandon O’Leary says the area is ready to grow.
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A former auto parts warehouse will be remade into an airy new office building -- the latest proof that urban renewal has taken hold at Portland's North Park Blocks. The five-block stretch of green serves as a border of sorts between the Pearl District and Old Town/Chinatown.

Conover Bond Development, a Spokane, Wash., company that specializes in renovating historic structures, expects to close on its $3.5 million purchase of the former General Automotive Building at the end of March.

The building occupies a quarter block at the intersection of Northwest Park Avenue and Northwest Flanders Street. It has a Flanders address, but fronts the park blocks on the Pearl District side.

It is Conover Bond's first Portland project.

The developer plans to spend another $6 million to unify the two halves of the building into a single three-story structure with a fourth-floor office penthouse. The street-level space will be leased to retailers.

The 25,000-square-foot structure was built as an electrical warehouse in 1923. In recent years, it housed General Automotive Supply Co. before that company built a new facility in North Portland.

Conover typically works with historic buildings, but won't seek a National Historic Registry listing in this case to avoid limiting its options for renovating the building, including expanding the existing windows.

It does intend to keep the industrial character of the building and will use bricks that get taken out for the window enlargements to complete the third-story facade. A new fourth-story penthouse will be ringed by a terrace with sweeping views in all directions.

Sera Architects is designing the remodel to meet the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design "silver" criteria.

Conover Bond spent about 18 months looking for the right project in Portland, said Ryan Romaneski, director of new market development. The company typically holds on to its investments for the long term.

The North Park Blocks held a special appeal both for the Park Blocks themselves, the architectural character of the neighborhood and its close proximity to the Pearl District, which ends less than a block away.

"I know historically the [North] Park Blocks have been a little bit of a no-man's land," Romaneski said.

Pressure from the Pearl District has already triggered redevelopment along both sides of the corridor.

Examples include the Park Kitchen Restaurant, which is expanding, and the prospective redevelopment of not one but two federal buildings: the Customs House and the old Immigration and Naturalization Services building.

But the biggest catalyst is the former Daisy Kingdom building, which is being transformed into condominiums for museums and galleries as well as offices for a local architecture firm. Daisy Kingdom, now the DeSoto project, faces the Park Blocks from the Old Town/Chinatown side.

Contemporary Crafts Museum & Gallery expects to occupy its new home there this summer.

"I'm very positive on the neighborhood," said Jim Winkler, whose Winkler Development Corp. is driving the DeSoto project. All but one space in the building is committed and some spaces already are being finished by the buyers.

"There's more energy on that block," Romaneski said. "I think it was just a matter of time before the Pearl started to push in."

Interest in the General Automotive building is running equally high, according to Dan Bozich and Kathleen Healy, the Urban Works Real Estate brokerage team responsible for signing up retail tenants.

The team is negotiating with an unidentified tenant for about half the available retail space.

"We're a bit of a pioneer here. This is the extreme end of the Pearl," Bozich said.

Brandon O'Leary of GVA Kidder Mathews is responsible for lining up office tenants for the three upper floors. He anticipates a creative firm will be drawn to the General Automotive building. O'Leary surveyed the neighborhood from the corner of Park and Flanders and was startled by the amount of activity. Creative firms understand the appeal of the neighborhood and several already operate there.

"The amount of activity that is or will be happening in the near future -- there's a lot and there's a lot to be said for it," he said.

Respond2 Communications Inc. is one of the neighborhood's leading employers, with about 85 people working at the media firm's headquarters and nearby studio.

"We really love it here," said Tim O'Leary, chief executive officer. O'Leary (no relation to Brandon O'Leary) moved the company to the North Park Blocks about six years ago and is about to begin construction on new post-production facilities at its studio.

As a property owner, he's delighted by the run-up in interest in local real estate. As a business owner, he worries somewhat that adding hundreds of jobs to the neighborhood will lead to parking and traffic problems.

"If you add a few hundred more people, I don't know what that will be like," he said.

wculverwell@bizjournals.com | 503-219-3415

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