Skip to main content
Addresses: 9007 and 9029 SE Clinton St.
Years built: 1908 and 1922
Square footage: 1,038 and 961
Market values: $423,350 and $897,650
Owners: Jeibmann Greenhouses Inc. and Hanging Rock LLC
How long they’ve been empty: God knows.
Why they’re empty: An oasis went feral.
Portland Nursery is a Stumptown institution. It was founded in 1907 and has been the go-to spot for everything from azaleas to zinnias ever since.
The operation has two Southeast locations, one at 50th Avenue and Stark Street and another at 90th Avenue and Division Street. Behind the 5-acre Division location, on Clinton Street, is a line of five properties, all owned by entities controlled by Jon Denney, the longtime owner of Portland Nursery, or his family. Property records show Denney started buying them, Monopoly style, in 1992.
The parcel at the northwest corner of 92nd and Clinton has a house and shed that appear connected to Portland Nursery’s operations (the nursery didn’t return phone calls or email). Going west, there’s an empty lot. Next come two empty, decrepit houses, both surrounded by chain-link fences. Finally, in the middle of the block, stands a house that’s occupied by a renter.
The two empty houses irk a neighbor who who lives across the street. “It’s quite disheartening to see a well-known, staple Portland company not doing much to help the housing crisis,” she wrote to us in an email.
Portland Nursery was started by a nurseryman named Albert Brownell, according to the company’s website. Avery Steinmetz bought it in the early 1920s and became an Oregon horticultural legend by modernizing the trade. After six decades, he sold it to Denney.
“When he finally sold the nursery in the 1980s, Mr. Steinmetz wasn’t looking for the biggest profit,” the site says. “He was looking for the greatest vision. He wanted to make sure his nursery would remain an oasis in the city, a green space with a human touch.”
The proximity to his business on Division suggests Denney was thinking about an expansion when he started snapping up property on Clinton. If that was the case, then he’s been waiting a long time to make his move. He bought the house at 9007 SE Clinton in 1992 and the one at 9029 in 2002, property records show. Reached shortly after press deadlines, Denney declined to comment.
These days, the lots don’t really fit with Old Man Steinmetz’s vision of an “oasis.” They have a “human touch,” certainly. On a visit there this week, we found a trailer full of old tires and other junk partially blocking a road that has potholes deep enough to plant Douglas fir saplings.
Until recently, Denney and his family owned two more properties on the other side of Clinton. They sold them in 2021. In front of one is posted a development notice saying that a developer, MMDC Company, plans to build a three-story building with 36 apartments in it.
The schematic shows new trees and bushes, plenty of which are available at Portland Nursery, just past the empty houses to the north. They could use a little greenery, too.
Every week, WW examines one mysteriously vacant property in the city of Portland, explains why it’s empty, and considers what might arrive there next. Send addresses to newstips@wweek.com.