Portland’s Historic Bank Block Obtains $51M Refi

Historic Bank Block. Image courtesy of CBRE

An entity owned by funds managed by real estate investment firm Westport Capital Partners has refinanced the Historic Bank Block, a three-building, 212,705-square-foot creative office property in downtown Portland, Ore., with a $51 million loan.

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Mark McGovern and Brian Cruz of CBRE’s debt and structured finance team in San Diego, arranged the refinancing on behalf of the owner. Further information on the loan and the lender was not disclosed.

Located at 303-317 SW 6th Ave., the property comprises three buildings and spans an entire city block in the heart of the tech hub in Portland’s CBD. Westport Capital Partners purchased the property in 2018, according to CBRE. In February 2019, the sale was 5th on Commercial Property Executive’s list of the top 10 Portland office transactions for 2018. CPE reported the property had changed hands for $53.9 million in the first quarter of 2018, after four years of ownership by ScanlanKemperBard Cos. The property is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and includes the Wells Fargo Building, which was completed in 1907 and is considered the city’s first skyscraper. The US Bank building was completed in 1917 and expanded in 1925. The third building, the US Motor Bank, was constructed in 1956 and includes a three-level parking garage and two floors of office space. The property is managed by Interurban Real Estate.

The asset was renovated in 1999 and 2015, before the new Westport ownership spent more than $20 million to upgrade the property to Class A creative office space. The property is within one half-mile from both I-5 and I-405 for easy commuter access. Amenities include a fitness center, a locker room with showers, bike storage and bike workshop area, event space and a fifth-floor game room.

McGovern said in a prepared statement the property is a unique office project with distinctive office suites that are not found elsewhere in the city. He said that despite the challenges in 2020, Westport strategically managed the asset and finished the capital improvement program that will allow it to compete effectively during the recovery. 

Westport deals

Westport, which has offices in Los Angeles and Stamford, Conn., has a variety of funds that attract domestic and international investors and target distressed, opportunistic and core-plus real estate assets. In August, a joint venture of Westport and Cannae Partners sold Sycamore Technology Park, a three-building office/R&D campus in Milpitas, Calif., to Vertical Ventures for $45.5 million. The partnership had owned the property since 2016. In July, Westport was part of a joint venture led by Redrock Developments and Wharton Industrial that sold Florida Crossroads Logistics Center, a 617,000-square-foot industrial facility in Ocala, Fla., to Lexington Realty Trust in a deal valued at $58.4 million.