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- Address: 3312 NE Broadway
- Year built: 1918
- Square footage: 25,665
- Market value: $2.74 million
- Owner: 3300 NE Broadway LLC and Grant Park Parking LLC
- How Long It’s Been Empty: 8 years
When a group of Seattle investors bought the old Gordon’s Fireplace Shop on Northeast Broadway in 2017, there were reasons to be optimistic: The outfit had already rehabbed Pine Street Market in Old Town and the old YMCA (now Under Armour’s West Coast headquarters). The company behind the deal, Interurban Development, hoped to convert the onetime aircraft factory into hip live-work lofts.
But slowly and then all at once, the Gordon’s building became Portland’s biggest eyesore. It was one of the first buildings WW examined as we launched a study of underused and unused properties (“Chasing Ghosts,” WW, Aug.17, 2022). After accumulating a stack of unpaid city liens, it got a last-minute reprieve from a city foreclosure auction on Sept. 24, but the building is nowhere close to being out of the woods.
Here’s a timeline of the project’s rise and fall, including details of earlier financial struggles that haven’t previously been reported:
Dec. 28, 2017: Aircraft Factory LLC buys the building for $2.7 million.
May 21, 2021: Related LLCs, 3300 NE Broadway LLC & Grant Parking LLC, borrow $7.5 million for refinancing and construction from a Delaware lender.
Nov. 19, 2021: O’Brien & Company LLC signs a $4.833 million contract with Interurban to convert the shell of the building into an inhabitable structure.
Aug.17, 2022: WW puts Gordon’s on its cover, introducing a series about vacant properties titled “Chasing Ghosts.” Interurban principal Rob Brewster blames city permitting woes for the development’s lack of progress.
Aug. 29, 2022: O’Brien files a construction lien, claiming it did $113,298 worth of work but never got paid.
Dec. 19, 2022: Lorentz Bruun Construction, another contractor, files a lien for $189,821, also for nonpayment.
June 18, 2023: The city of Portland files its first in a series of liens for code violations.
July 26, 2024: In a civil lawsuit Lorentz Bruun filed seeking to collect on its lien, a lawyer representing the building owner forecasts doom. “The companies intend to file a bankruptcy petition before the trial date in this matter,” the letter reads.
Aug. 26, 2024: The project’s current lender, an investment company based in the Cayman Islands, files foreclosure in Multnomah County Court, citing $4,948,593 in unpaid debts. It seeks payment from Robert Boyce, a former partner with Interurban and the guarantor of the debt, or it will take back the building. (Through his attorney, Boyce declined WW’s request for comment.)
Sept. 24, 2024: Multnomah County Circuit Court Judge Judith Matarazzo files a motion postponing trial on the O’Brien lien, noting the property owner is “not represented” by a lawyer any longer and “threatening filing of bankruptcy.” On the same day, at the request of the lender, a different judge appointed a receiver to take control of the property.
Sept. 27, 2024: On the eve of the city’s Sept. 30 foreclosure auction, as KGW first reported, a representative of the lender pays $102,662 in city liens on the building. That’s what’s known as a “protective advance,” and used to make sure whoever might buy the property at auction didn’t supersede the lender’s claim on the property. The advance will add to the borrower’s debt.
As it stands, the original lender holds a secured interest in the property, although that property is likely worth far less than the $4.95 million the lender says it’s owed. The construction companies, O’Brien and Lorentz Bruun, will jockey with the lender for whatever the receiver can now recover.
Aaron Bell, an attorney for the lender, declined to comment.
Meanwhile, residents of the Grant Park neighborhood are clamoring for relief. Ken Ray, a spokesman for the city’s Bureau of Development Services, sounded a note of cautious optimism. “The receiver is just starting to get engaged with us in dealing with the long-standing safety concerns,” Ray says. “We expect to see progress soon in addressing the loose bricks as well as the ongoing concerns about illegal entry and illegal dumping.”
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.