Down and out in downtown Portland
To me, Jackson Tower has always been the ultimate symbol of downtown Portland. Even more so than the Pioneer Courthouse. The "tower" (not even a dozen stories) is a grand structure, built when style counted. And it has seen so much come and go along Broadway and Yamhill Street since it first opened as the headquarters of the Oregon Journal newspaper in 1912. The good. The bad. The weird.
But like the rest of downtown, the building has fallen on hard times. A year ago the retail tenant on the ground floor moved out. Graffiti now mars the building's upper floors. And this week we learned that the place is in foreclosure.
It doesn't help that it's an office building. I know a few lawyers who have had their offices in there at one time or another, but not now. These days there's not a need for much office space, what with people working from home and all. And with all the vacancies, those who do need a physical office can rent one cheap, way cheaper than downtown prices. Plus, who wants to be downtown these days if they don't have to be?
It's not the first commercial property to go under since Covid changed the world, and it certainly won't be the last. It's hard to see how there isn't going to be a big financial crash when all the other dominoes like Jackson Tower start falling. There are still some businesses paying rent for empty space under leases that still have some time to go. But when those leases are up, they aren't going to be renewed.
There's been a lot of talk about converting office buildings to apartment buildings, but so far it's been all talk. For one thing, the plumbing's all wrong. People could live in some of the space, but a lot of it would be wasted. Homer Williams says these conversions aren't feasible, and if he can't sugar-coat it and make a buck selling it, nobody can.
But if you were going to give an apartment conversion the old college try, Jackson Tower seems like it might be an attractive place to take a shot at it. It's such a good-looking building when it's kept up. I'd rather live in there than in the soulless Ritz Carlton, any day of the week.
My dad and his law partner at the time, Gordon Keane, had their practice there (6th floor, phone ATwater 6464) until about 1950, when they moved to the American Bank Building.
ReplyDeleteIn the ‘50s. There building had an office that was notable for having just the room number on the door. Local guy for a DC agency.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately Jackson Tower is a 12 story unreinforced masonry building. It is in bad shape too with years of deferred maintenance. Reconstruction will be nearly physically impossible and at least a cost of $2 million a floor economically impossible as well.
ReplyDeleteAnd with all the “sh*ty” of Portland bureaucracy demands it would take decades! to complete.
I see a vacant lot in the future.
Portland is doomed!
That is unfortunate, because actually the floor plate of the Jackson Tower seems like it would be very feasible for residential. Most office buildings have too much interior space, but the Jackson Tower is small enough that it isn't an issue.
DeleteCommercial/retail downtown is gone. There will probably be a future around the courthouse and government offices for some restaurants. But, I don’t see any attraction for people coming to the area to shop. Because magnet stores don’t want to be near dumpster fires or broken windows.
ReplyDeleteTwo choices. A rat infested drug house or big gaping hole in the ground.
ReplyDeleteDowntown Portland was ruined by the "Black Lives Matter" & Antifa rioters & looters. They made Portland unsafe, and then the drug-addicted violent homeless junkies took over. Worthless District Attorney Mike Schidt made it clear he would not prosecute rioters or thieves, but he WOULD prosecute anyone who fought back against them.
ReplyDeleteI've listened to the "convert empty office space and malls into affordable housing!" crowd for years, and after a while, I have to use my late mother-in-law's favorite phrase for these folks: "Bless your heart." It's not that it CAN'T be done: it's that the conversions usually cost so much that it's cheaper to build new to suit the use than to retrofit. (Defunct shopping malls are particularly tough to modify: with most malls built in the 1970s and 1980s, the plumbing, particularly the sewer lines, is both hard to reach and increasingly fragile from age, in many cases requiring massive upgrades to bring the lines from "the occasional employee using a back restroom every once in a while, with one restroom to every five shops" to "multiple individuals and families needing to shit, shower, and shave every day" without blowing them out, and while trying to reach lines that may impact still-running businesses. Anyone who worked retail in a mall between 1990 and 2010 will tell stories of store restrooms blocked off because every flushing would leak into a big high-end store below, and mall management couldn't or wouldn't deal with the screams of said high-end stores if replacing a failing sewer line meant having to block off half the store to reach and repair it.) The big issue is the money, and the question is whether the greedheads get enough for rent or tax subsidies to justify a conversion versus the cost of demolition.
ReplyDeleteJackson Tower is small enough that you would probably only need to do 2 apartments per floor, so the plumbing requirements would be the same or less than currently. That said, if you have to do a full seismic upgrade to it, then the economics won't work.
DeleteThe tower is emblematic of downtown portland. It was the center of national attention. It’s probably cruel to point out that it’s day is over.
ReplyDeleteMandatory seismic upgrades may be a long way away, if ever. The big campaign from the last decade lost steam and political viability.
ReplyDeleteThere is a new 50+ story building going up in the entertainment district of Tokyo that is all games and entertainment. Maybe we could do something similar to one of the historic buildings downtown. Of course we have to get rid of the hobo-sapiens first.
ReplyDeleteYou should be aware that this building is owned by a non-US citizen, non-US resident who has been a horrible landlord for more than a decade. The fan in the ladies room bangs — turn off the fan. This place was a Management disaster. It’s a beautiful building that was run into the ground. The state of the city shouldn’t be a scapegoat for a bad landlord.
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