A 51-Unit Building in East Portland Will Be First Housing Bond Purchase of a Newly Constructed Building

For the first time since the $258 million Portland housing bond was passed in November 2016, the city is purchasing a newly constructed building with the money.

The East Portland building on Southeast 105th Avenue and Burnside Street will include 51 units (with seven studio, 20 one-bedroom and 24 two-bedroom apartments) when it opens in July. The city is paying $14.3 million for the complex.

"Sixteen of the two-bedroom units will be restricted at 0-30% AMI [area median income] and nine of those will be [permanent supportive housing] for families exiting homelessness," says Portland Housing Bureau spokeswoman Martha Calhoon.

It is the first bond project announced in months.

The city agreed to buy the Ellington in December 2017. That was an existing 263-unit existing apartment complex that the city sought to keep the rents affordable. A total of $37 million in bond money was used toward buying and renovating 219 of the units (the remainder of the units were already affordable housing).

In July of 2017, the city announced plans to purchase a former strip club on Southeast Powell Boulevard and committed in December to using housing bond dollars to develop the site. No cost estimates have been provided for that project.

That means the city is more than a third of the way toward its goal of 1,300 units. It's not clear how much of the money has been committed.

The developer of 10506 Burnside submitted the project for consideration as part the Housing Bureau's request for information in December, Calhoon says. The city executed a legal agreement to buy the property in March when it was 80 percent complete.