Only Half of a Laurelhurst Assisted Living Campus Is Being Used

Address: 3060 SE Stark St.

Year built: 1942

Square footage: 159,000

Market value: $18.2 million

Owner: OR4Laurelhurst LLC, Hong Kong

How long it’s been empty: At least 25 years

Why it’s empty: Senior care management

The pandemic brought something that residents of the Sunnyside neighborhood hadn’t seen in decades: lights and activity at the long-shuttered western half of an assisted living center that city records say is the oldest and largest in Oregon.

A Catholic-related organization called Mount St. Joseph owned the facility until 2005, when it sold the ground and turned operations of the senior care center to the first of a series of for-profit operators. (Avamere, a large Oregon company, currently runs it.) The sprawling, 6.19-acre property is bustling on its eastern half, but the older, western section is long dormant.

In 2016, the Hong Kong-based owners went through a lengthy land use process with the city to add 112 new residential beds and 22 skilled nursing beds. That would have meant knocking down the hulking old structure on the west end of the property.

It hasn’t happened yet—neither Avamere nor representatives for the owners returned calls seeking comment—although the empty space came in handy during the peak of the pandemic when it served as a place to quarantine seniors with COVID-19.

The long-term vacancy frustrates neighbors, however. “It really seems like our property tax system is structured wrong when properties can lay fallow that long,” says Jim Wood, who lives nearby and estimates the old part of the structure went dark more than a decade ago.