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- ADDRESS: 4611 N Minnesota Ave.
- YEAR BUILT: 1905
- SQUARE FOOTAGE: 1,036
- MARKET VALUE: $499,320
- OWNER: Max Sass
- HOW LONG IT’S BEEN EMPTY: 3 years
- WHY IT’S EMPTY: Out-of-state investment gone wrong
Las Vegas developer Max Sass makes frequent appearances in our vacant-property files.
He popped up in Northeast Portland four years ago, promising to build affordable housing at an abandoned car wash. (State funding dried up and Sass dropped out.) The next year he promised to turn a historic Alphabet District church into a luxury hotel. (The deal stalled.)
Meanwhile, he’s been snatching up properties in North Portland with plans to turn them into condos. Surprise, surprise: There have been a few hiccups.
In 2020, Sass purchased a pair of homes in the Overlook neighborhood. One is vacant and the subject of neighbors’ complaints. The other, the subject of this week’s inquiry, is a two-bedroom house on a dead-end road overlooking Interstate 5. It has since attracted so much attention from firefighters and city inspectors that it’s now in foreclosure.
Sass, city permit records show, planned to turn it into a 23-unit apartment building. The City Council granted him a partial tax break after he promised to make three of the units affordable.
But financing hasn’t come together, Sass told the city. Permitting stalled. Then, last year, his architect died. (The city says the architect’s associates have stepped in to usher other projects through the process—but not this one.)
Meanwhile, the property was left to rot. Shortly after Sass bought it, someone complained of foul-smelling water leaking into the basement. City inspectors arrived to find that the garage had been converted into an unpermitted living space. The home’s tenants had left.
Squatters moved in. Firefighters responded to a pair of blazes in early 2022, one in an SUV out front and the second inside the home, which was “full of trash needles and other drug items,” according to a state fire marshal report.
The city gave Sass a fee waiver, reserved for those “making a good-faith effort to address the violations,” city spokesman Ken Ray says. Sass apparently didn’t make an effort, and the waiver was revoked after the city cited the property for new nuisance violations. The city has filed more than $30,000 worth of liens on the property.
The city is trying to get the building demolished, and initiated foreclosure proceedings earlier this year. Neighbors have emailed city officials demanding legal action against the owners, records show.
Sass did not return WW’s calls. His property manager, Sonya Haggerty, put the blame on bottlenecks in the city permitting process. “He’s still trying to develop it,” she said.