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Address: 418 SW Washington St.
Year built: 1898
Square footage: 22,920
Market value: $3.3 million
Owner: ENT Ventures VIII LLC
Property tax owed: $74,248
How long it’s been delinquent: Since 2021
What those taxes could buy: 2,651 monthly TriMet bus passes for Portland kids
Why it’s delinquent: Because the LLC didn’t pay
In the 2000s, a giant inflated purple octopus attached to the exterior of this building signaled a party. Greek Cusina was a popular and wild restaurant and club, known for its loud music, strong drinks and, if you ask former City Commissioner Randy Leonard, a retired firefighter, its combustibility and lack of structural integrity.
In 2010, after two years of bitter back-and-forth between Leonard and nightclub owner Ted Papas over fire hazards and code violations, Greek Cusina shut down. It’s been empty since.
In 2014, a company called Ron Bur OPB purchased the five story brick building at the corner of 4th and Washington. Within the year, Parker McNulty was listed as the manager of that LLC in business filings. In 2019, it sold the property to ENT Ventures VIII LLC, another company whose sole listed manager is McNulty, for $6.1 million. McNulty has big plans for it: office spaces on the top floors, retail on the bottom, and a speakeasy venue underneath.
A California transplant, McNulty has made a name for himself in the Portland development community. He runs the Carbon Group, a development company that’s built posh apartments in the nicest parts of town.
Property records show the LLC paid property taxes for the Greek Cusina building between 2014 and 2020—then fell behind.
There’s reason to believe McNulty has the money to pay the $75,000 tax bill. He and his family live in a $2.8 million home in Southwest Portland. Perhaps he could swap his lime-green Porsche for a more modest car—maybe a gently used Subaru, for instance—and use the leftover cash to pay the outstanding tax.
When first reached by WW via phone, McNulty said he could provide WW with information about the property but only if his name didn’t appear in the paper. When WW explained that his ownership was public record, he argued over the definition of public record and asked that WW respect his privacy.
McNulty called back later that day and explained that the LLC had filed an appeal with the Oregon Board of Property Tax Appeals because the county had adjusted the tax assuming building improvements had been completed when, in fact, they had just begun.
“They thought it was more completed than it was,” McNulty said. “But they’d never sent anyone through to verify because we’d boarded up the windows so they couldn’t see it.”
WW checked with the county tax assessor’s office. Ron Bur OPB LLC filed an appeal in 2017. “No appeals have been filed subsequently,” county tax assessor Mike Vaughn says in an email. “Taxes are delinquent.” (The property’s value is still assessed at just a quarter of what McNulty paid for it.)
McNulty says in a text to WW, “If anything is owed outside of the appeal, we plan to play ASAP.”