Portland's little piece of a huge bad deal
Interesting piece in the Times the other day about the effects of the collapse of the real estate market on the assets of Sam Zell's gigantic old Equity Office Properties empire, which included some properties in the Portland area. Blackstone Group bought them all in 2007, and flipped quite a few of them quickly before times got really hard.
Now the San Francisco real estate firm Shorenstein Properties is holding some of the bag; it bought 46 Equity Office buildings in the Portland area from Blackstone. Things are apparently worse in other parts of the empire, but even on Kruse Way in Lake Oswego, vacancy rates are rising as a brand new Shorenstein building is getting set to come on line. Not the best of timing, one would think.
| Posted at 9:15 AM | Permalink |
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Comments (5)
And don't forget Shorenstein's new tower going in downtown at First and Main. Not going to help the supply glut.
In the article Shorenstein's flack claims the Portland Zell properties were a wiser purchase than ones in other markets. Maybe they know something we don't, but I'm guessing they drank too much of their own Kool-Aid.
Posted by Eric | February 10, 2009 11:28 AM
Lets not forget the City Council of Lake Oswego led by Ms Judie Hammerstad who in 2006 spent $20,000,000 on a building they still dont know what to do with. Now we are stuck with this monstrosity of debt and cannot sell it. Back in 2006 Judie said " We'll never lose money on this"
Posted by kathe w. | February 10, 2009 5:21 PM
Kathe-
Heaven forbid Lake Oswego actually have a community center...like most other cities have.
Posted by Westside Guy | February 10, 2009 10:38 PM
Shorenstein threw its money on the table for the downtown Portland properties and started to put up steel without asking around about the competition. Tom Moyer has his new tower half-full already, and the street gossip is that the Shorenstein tower, farther along in construction, doesn't have a single tenant yet.
Posted by Isaac Laquedem | February 11, 2009 9:21 AM
Hey Westside guy,
The last survey done by the LO City Council in Fall 2008 showed only 2% of LO residents want a Community Center. So put that in yer pipe and smoke it.
Posted by kathe w. | February 11, 2009 7:45 PM