Completed in 1999, ODS Tower is 99% leased and has little near-term rollover. The building has about 360,000 sf of office space, 40,000 sf of retail and six levels of above-grade parking. The building sits on a full block at southwest corner of Second Avenue and Alder Street, just off the west end of the Morrison Bridge. The location is one block from the city's riverfront park and on the light rail line that that connects Downtown to the Lloyd District and the airport, among other places.

The seller is a joint venture of ODS Cos., the majority owner; Wright Runstad & Co., the developer and property manager; and the Goodman family, which owned the dirt and held a 10% in the project. ODS, the building's anchor tenant with 132,000 sf, is a provider of dental and medical coverage and professional liability insurance. Wright Runstad is a Seattle-based developer; ODS Tower was its only Portland property. The Goodman family owns a portfolio of Downtown parking lots for which it has been actively seeking joint venture development deals.

The bulk of the street-level retail space is occupied by Nordstrom Rack. Office tenants in addition to ODS include Lane Powell, Barran Liebman, Mulvanny G2 Architects, Foster Pepper and the US Government. Ashforth Co.'s longtime local real estate services affiliate Ashforth Pacific will manage the property along with the four others Ashforth Co. owns in the Lloyd District totaling about 2.1 million sf.

"It may be our first acquisition in the core but it won't be our last," Ashforth Pacific president Scott Langley tells GlobeSt.com. Langley describes the investment as a "low-risk, low-return, core asset" that will be held for the long term.

Ashforth's Lloyd District properties include Lloyd Center Tower, Liberty Centre, Lloyd 700 Building, and Oregon Square. In addition to managing the properties here, Ashforth has been focused on the city's $100-million convention headquarters hotel project. Ashforth and partner Garfield Traub were recently selected by the city to develop the eventual 600-room hotel on city-owned land across from the Oregon Convention Center, which delineates the southwest edge of the Lloyd District. In addition, Ashforth has been master planning the mixed-use redevelopment of a superblock it owns in the Lloyd District, and recently closed a $50-million private equity fund and is now out looking for the funds first investments.

Instant Insights /

Ashforth Jumps River, Buys Downtown Tower for $123M

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