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WeWork, the New York-based coworking office space company, is shutting down its downtown Portland coworking office in the Power + Light Building. The move comes after WeWork filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Nov. 6.
WeWork, which went public in 2021, operated nearly 800 coworking spaces in 39 countries early this year. One of those was in the Power + Light Building at 920 SW 6th Ave. WeWork is now closing that site.
“As part of WeWork’s strategic restructuring efforts, we made the tough decision to end our operations at the Power + Light Building,” a WeWork spokesperson said in an email to WW, adding that the company offered current tenants the option to relocate to WeWork’s only remaining location in Portland, at Lloyd Center.
Tenants are being asked to leave by Jan. 12.
The closure of WeWork’s downtown space early next year will leave the company’s Portland footprint at one-fourth of what it was just three years ago. In March 2021, the Portland Business Journal reported that two of WeWork’s Portland spaces had disappeared from the company’s portfolio, including its 30,000-square-foot space in Pioneer Place mall.
In its bankruptcy filing last month, WeWork listed $18.7 billion in debt and $15.1 million in assets. The company’s trouble came after it reached stratospheric heights, including a valuation at one time of $47 billion. But as numerous news reports have described, founder Adam Neumann expanded too rapidly and paid too much for properties and leases, leaving the company badly exposed when the COVID pandemic hit.
WeWork occupies four of the 15 floors in the Power + Light Building and first opened that location in 2018.
The Green Cities Company, a real estate investment firm with an office in the Power + Light building, purchased the building, known for its Italian Renaissance architecture, for $67 million from the Goodman family in 2019. It’s unclear what the value of the building is today.