Hillsboro

[MarkDaMan]

OHSU sells OGI campus in Hillsboro for $44.4 million
Portland Business Journal - 1:40 PM PST Monday

Oregon Health & Science University has sold its 40-acre Hillsboro science and engineering campus to Wakefield Capital LLC for $44.4 million.

The deal, announced this morning, covers the OGI School of Science and Engineering campus at 20000 N.W. Walker Road. The complex includes 15 buildings with 286,000 square feet of office and lab space. OHSU will lease the property for seven years, with two three-year options that extend its occupancy for up to 13 years.


It is the first Northwest acquisition for Wakefield Capital, a private equity fund in Chevy Chase, Md. The fund invests in strong, single-tenant properties in the health care industry.

"(This) now allows the university to invest more than $24 million into its endowment fund for the future," said Gary Griff, senior director for the capital markets group at Cushman & Wakefield Inc., one of the brokers on the team.

OHSU President Joseph Robertson Jr. said the sale represents a step toward the school's consolidated future.

"This brings us another step closer to fully realizing the potential of merging a school of science and engineering with an academic health center," he said.

OHSU recently committed nearly $40 million for construction of the $57 million Portland Aerial Tram to link the OHSU health campus with the new South Waterfront District at the base of the hill.
http://www.bizjournals.com/portland/...=et75&hbx=e_du

[Dougall5505]

good now get back to building at sowa...and hurry up!

[pdxman]

Originally Posted by Dougall5505

good now get back to building at sowa...and hurry up!

yes, hurry up! I don't want to see anymore surface lots in sowa

[EastPDX]

... also start the process for more high density planning and development in the Hillsboro area of Tannasboro that has been mentioned in another thread.

EP

[MarkDaMan]

OGI sells its Hillsboro campus
OHSU - The sale prepares the science and engineering school for a move to Portland's South Waterfront area
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
DYLAN RIVERA
The Oregonian

A Maryland-based private equity firm has bought the OGI School of Science and Engineering's Hillsboro campus from Oregon Health & Science University for $44.4 million, the university said Monday.

But it remains unclear exactly when the school will move into a planned new campus in Portland's emerging South Waterfront area.

A unit of Wakefield Capital, LLC, a Chevy Chase, Md.-based private equity firm that invests in health care-related real estate, bought the 44-acre, 15-building campus. It will lease the buildings back to OGI, which is part of OHSU, for seven years, with two three-year extension options.

While OGI's lease technically enables it to stay put for as long as 13 years, the school has long had surplus space and has begun to market about 100,000 square feet of space for sublease to high-tech and biotech companies in the Sunset Corridor. The school has vacated the Bronson Creek Building, opening up 85,000 square feet of Class A office space. The other 15,000 square feet is mainly lab space.

Ed Thompson, dean of the OGI School of Science & Engineering, said the sale achieves the school's goal of setting itself up for a move to the South Waterfront area in Portland, and generates cash for an endowment and ongoing operations.

"Those were the two key goals we had," Thompson said.

OGI plans to invest $24 million of the proceeds in its endowment, Thompson said. The balance of the money will help pay for leasing the campus and helping fund new professors, he said. While the school does not plan to grow its faculty as vacancies are filled, he said new professors often need startup money for research.

OGI will lease the entire 286,652 square feet of space from the new owner for $3.5 million a year, with annual rent increases, OHSU spokesman Jonathan Modie said.

The school is now faced with the obligation to sublease its surplus space to help satisfy the new lease payments. But agreeing to the lease helped fetch a high price for the campus in a frothy environment for commercial real estate.

Having the university, with its investment-grade credit rating, lease the entire campus helped attract interest from about 10 serious potential buyers, said Gary Griff, a broker with Cushman & Wakefield, which represented both the buyer and the seller.

"You're looking at both the creditworthiness of the tenant and the underlying real estate, as opposed to just the underlying real estate," Griff said.

The OGI property includes about 12 acres of developable land among the 40-acre campus, Griff said.

"The capital markets and many institutional buyers are looking for this type of opportunity," Griff said. "You have a credit tenant and some upside in the future for new development."

Wakefield Capital, a joint venture of NorthStar Realty Finance Corp. and Chain Bridge Capital, is not related to Cushman & Wakefield.

OGI's Thompson said the school already is in talks with a pharmaceutical company and an OHSU spinoff as potential tenants.

Northwest Technology Ventures, a venture capital firm specializing in early stage startups, recently became OGI's first tenant in the Bronson Creek Building. Managing Director Gordon Hoffman said the firm was looking to escape from Portland and Multnomah County business taxes and locate close to high-tech firms.

"I'm glad OGI's opening up the campus," Hoffman said. "There are a lot of facilities there, and it's a very collegial environment. A good place for startups."

OGI has located its school of biomedical engineering in the Center for Health & Healing, OHSU's first building in the South Waterfront. The bulk of OGI is expected to relocate with the pharmacy, nursing and other schools in 19 acres known as the Schnitzer Campus, between the Ross Island Bridge and the Marquam Bridge.

OGI hopes to move to the Schnitzer campus in five to seven years, Thompson said.

OHSU is still trying to figure out what it wants to build on the campus, which could have at least 2 million square feet of development under current zoning, said Mark Williams, OHSU's South Waterfront project director.

"We expect to see a student-centered campus that will represent a truly collaborative learning process that is interdisciplinary and integrated with the environment and the community," Williams said.

Dylan Rivera: 503-221-8532, dylanrivera@news.oregonian.com

http://www.oregonlive.com/business/o...420.xml&coll=7

[Sekkle]

What’s up everybody? I just moved to the Portland area from Phoenix and love everything about it so far. My wife is going to Pacific U in Forest Grove and I transferred to my company’s Lake Oswego office, so we found a place to live that’s semi-in-between.

We bought a rowhouse in the Orenco neighborhood of Hillsboro. The area, as most of you probably know, is a prime example of suburban TOD or “new urbanism” – an effort to design suburbs that aren’t based around driving a car. (Here’s a link to the Wikipedia article about Orenco Station) There is plenty of typical suburban sprawl-type housing in the area, but there is also a lot of development that is unlike any other suburb I’ve ever been in – narrow streets, small lots, rowhouses, mixed-use buildings, etc. It still has a suburban feel to it – a feeling that probably won’t change much for quite a while, even with the growth Washington County is expected to undertake in the coming years – but it’s a giant step up for a suburb.

Portland is such an awesome city. When I first visited in May, I was blown away by the Pearl District, Northwest and Downtown. It was so nice to see so many people walking around, using public transportation, biking, etc. (completely different from Phoenix). I would have loved to live in the city itself, but it wasn’t practical based on where my wife and I needed to go every day. That said, Orenco is far better than anything I hoped for when I learned I would be moving to the western suburbs of Portland.

Some pics from my new neighborhood (I just have a shitty Canon S400, but you get the idea)…

Orenco Station







The “Q” condos at Orenco Station (SE Corner of Cornell & Orenco Station Pkwy)



New apartments at SW corner of Cornell & Orenco Station Pkwy. These are still under construction (obviously). They extend 3 or 4 blocks south of Cornell to within a block of the MAX. It looks like there is space for retail on the ground floor, but only on the block closest to Cornell.




Orenco Farmer’s Market





Across the light rail tracks to my new hood (along the south side of the MAX line)





My “backyard” (I don’t have a backyard – just an alley, a wall and the MAX)


Anyway, that’s my new hood. I’d be happy to give updates from time-to-time on any Hillsboro/Beaverton area developments that people are interested in if I have time to go out and take photos. It’s still the suburbs, and it’s not near as exciting as what’s going on in Portland, but they’re not half bad as far as suburbs go, and they’re a huge step up from almost anything being built in the Phoenix area.

[Okstate]

Great photos!

[vjoe]

Can you find out what they are building at the corner of 231st and the MAX track? It is right across 231st from the Orenco MAX station.
Welcome to the neighborhood.
We just moved downtown from Orenco.

[Sekkle]

Originally Posted by vjoe

Can you find out what they are building at the corner of 231st and the MAX track? It is right across 231st from the Orenco MAX station.
Welcome to the neighborhood.
We just moved downtown from Orenco.

That lot will be the "Cherry Park" townhomes. Here's a rendering...

Doesn't look too exciting, but who knows how it will turn out. I found this website last night that has some info on the project (at the bottom of the page).

[Sekkle]

^ Yeah, I pass that lot every day. They're still just grading the site now. I'll check and see if I can tell what they're building.

[pdxtraveler]

I really love what the feel of Orenco, for a suburb. I took MAX out there about two months ago and walked around. I am glad they are finally filling in the area between Cornell and the MAX line.

[rsbear]

Congratulations on your new home! You made an excellent choice in 'hoods. My company opened a new office not far from there a while back and I almost took a position there. Orenco was by far my first non-downtown choice should I have moved.

[GreenCity]

Welcome to the city! Orenco is a pretty fascinating development. It'll be interesting to see how it develops over the next 20 years or so, when those trees have all grown up into full shade and more locally owned buisinesses give the neighborhood its own unique personality. The thing I've wondered about Orenco is, do the standard interior of the units have the same character as the exteriors do? Or did they go with more of a blank canvas sort of approach?

[Sekkle]

^ The rowhouse we bought was built in 2003 and is probably pretty typical of houses built at that time - high ceilings, modern-ish fixtures, etc. Most of the houses we looked at were the same. There are a couple different floorplans for the rowhouses in my neighborhood, as far as I can tell - we went with the smallest (~1600sf) because it was what we could afford. All the ones we looked at had the exact same square footage and floorplan. I don't know about the mixed-use places and brownstone-type houses at Orenco Station - they were mostly way out of our price range, so we didn't even look. The Q Condos were pretty nice. Most of the floor plans had multiple levels with large rooms and big, high ceilings. They had a few interior packages you could choose from when we looked (May). I'm not sure if I'm answering your question or not... The insides of the places we saw were pretty standard, with some variations from house to house (tile vs. carpet vs. laminate flooring, different style countertops, etc).

[pdxleclerc]

Hey I just moved away from Orenco and my rowhouse. Probably the best development I'd lived in. You could see my place in one of your pics. Mine was a corner unit so the sq. footage was over 1800. They are all nice residences. I hope you enjoy it.

Originally Posted by ForAteOh

^ The rowhouse we bought was built in 2003 and is probably pretty typical of houses built at that time - high ceilings, modern-ish fixtures, etc. Most of the houses we looked at were the same. There are a couple different floorplans for the rowhouses in my neighborhood, as far as I can tell - we went with the smallest (~1600sf) because it was what we could afford. All the ones we looked at had the exact same square footage and floorplan. I don't know about the mixed-use places and brownstone-type houses at Orenco Station - they were mostly way out of our price range, so we didn't even look. The Q Condos were pretty nice. Most of the floor plans had multiple levels with large rooms and big, high ceilings. They had a few interior packages you could choose from when we looked (May). I'm not sure if I'm answering your question or not... The insides of the places we saw were pretty standard, with some variations from house to house (tile vs. carpet vs. laminate flooring, different style countertops, etc).

[Sekkle]

^ Wow, well depending on which corner house you had, we could have been next door neighbors! I know the corner unit next to mine sold recently. Then again, I have noticed a lot of for-sale signs in the area.

[pdxleclerc]

You would know my place. It has the biggest front yard in the entire division. Do you know what is supposed to go in that vacant parcel of land adjacent to Orenco Station? They have all those bins and construction cranes that last time I looked. Originally it was rumored that a high end furniture/grocery store would be built to compliment New Seasons, but I think that failed in the end.

Originally Posted by ForAteOh

^ Wow, well depending on which corner house you had, we could have been next door neighbors! I know the corner unit next to mine sold recently. Then again, I have noticed a lot of for-sale signs in the area.

[Sekkle]

Originally Posted by pdxleclerc

You would know my place. It has the biggest front yard in the entire division. Do you know what is supposed to go in that vacant parcel of land adjacent to Orenco Station? They have all those bins and construction cranes that last time I looked. Originally it was rumored that a high end furniture/grocery store would be built to compliment New Seasons, but I think that failed in the end.

Oh yeah, I know which house you're talking about with the big front yard. I'm about a block from there.

As far as the vacant land near Orenco Station, I think there has been construction equipment there since I was here looking at houses in May. It may just be a staging area for the construction at those apartments on the SW corner of Cornell & Orenco Station Pkwy... I'm not really sure. When we were looking at the Q condos, the sales rep told us they were going to build a Powell's Bookstore there, but I searched online and couldn't find any mention of that on the Powell's website or anywhere else.

[Drew-Ski]

Congrats on the move! I bet you are not missing the heat wave in PHX right now.

[zilfondel]

I wish they would've built a couple stories taller... and the detailing and design of the original Orenco mixed-use buildings were much better than the newer ones... oh well.