Urban Renaissance Group and Security Properties announced the $20 million acquisition of a Portland site for a mixed-use project to be called the Press Blocks.
Formerly occupied by The Oregonian's printing plant, the one and one-half block site at 817 S.W. 17th Ave. is located in the Goose Hollow neighborhood in southwest Portland, next to the Providence Park soccer stadium.
The Oregonian's parent company sold the property. Demolition is expected to begin late this year.
Three structures are planned. Portland's GBD Architects will design an eight-story office building with 150,000 square feet and 100 underground parking spaces.
Mithun will design a 23-story apartment tower with 337 units and 245 underground parking spaces; and a three-story mixed-use pavilion building with 41,000 square feet. The two garages will be connected by a tunnel. The site also has a streetcar station nearby.
The Press Blocks are slated for completion in 2020. The total project cost wasn't announced. URG will develop the office building. Security Properties will develop the apartment tower and small pavilion building.
In 2014, URG and Clarion Partners paid $14.5 million for The Oregonian's headquarters building, then converted it into office space. URG now owns or manages 1.5 million square feet in Portland.
In a statement, URG founder Patrick Callahan said, “This investment expands our Portland presence significantly, and is our largest development project to date in the city.”
Security Properties' John Marasco said, “Our development strategy has been to be very urban and in particular, proximate to multimodal transit nodes. We have been looking for development opportunities in Goose Hollow for the last several years, and when the opportunity came up to partner with URG and become a part of this significant transformative development, we jumped on it!”
