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- ADDRESS: 10130 NE Sandy Blvd.
- YEAR BUILT: 1968
- SQUARE FOOTAGE: 7,540
- MARKET VALUE: $3.26 million
- OWNER: ELK789 LLC
- HOW LONG IT’S BEEN EMPTY: At least 2 years
- WHY IT’S EMPTY: No interested buyers
On an otherwise busy stretch of Northeast Sandy Boulevard at the southwestern edge of the Parkrose neighborhood, a massive lot—nearly 1 acre—lies fenced in and seemingly abandoned.
The space, once split between a Bank of America and a Boost Mobile shop, has been vacant since the pandemic. Annette Stanhope, outreach manager at the business guild Historic Parkrose, says she’s pretty confident both storefronts have been closed since 2020.
A host at a nearby restaurant who has worked in the area off and on for a decade says someone fenced the property after people kept breaking into the building. It didn’t work, he says, and he doesn’t know what will take its place.
“It’s because of the area,” he says. “Even if you put a business in here, I don’t know what you would do. The area is not so good.”
Indeed, in the years since the businesses shuttered, the building has become a target for vandals. Its signage was stripped away and replaced with graffiti. The chain-link fence surrounding the building has been cut through, and planks covering the glass doors were torn off. Weeds, clumps of leaves and trash lie in piles across the property.
Yunxi Gan, Ping Lai Ma and Ke Yuan, all listed as registered agents of ELK789 LLC, the company that owns the property, did not respond to WW’s requests for comment. (They are, however, current on their property taxes for the building.) The building’s current broker, Nick Bushong, didn’t respond either.
Stanhope says that in 2023 she spoke to a broker about a couple of potential tenants. But it doesn’t seem any leases panned out; there’s now an ongoing effort to sell the building. Fulcrum Pacific has it listed for about $3.4 million, higher than it’s ever sold for. (The last time the building sold, in 2018, it went for $1 million.)
The building has a few selling points, including an entire basement floor. Fulcrum’s property description emphasizes the building’s most distinctive feature, an “elusive” drive-thru lane, which is “notoriously hard to secure in Portland due to stringent regulation.” (It’s true: The Portland City Council banned construction of new drive-thrus in 2018 in an effort to reduce car use, but allowed the continued use of existing ones.) Stanhope says she’s not sure if the bank’s drive-thru meets current requirements, but the Fulcrum description is optimistic. “This property presents a compelling investment opportunity,” it reads.
The brokerage has a much brighter vision for the space than locals do.
An employee at a coffee cart across the street, who declined to be named, says the situation at the former bank is sad. She says it reflects disinvestment and lack of interest in the Parkrose community. She used to be a frequent customer at the bank.
“Now I have to go 7 miles down to the nearest bank in a Fred Meyer,” she says. “I don’t know if anything new will come here.”
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 .