88,000-SF Federal Reserve Building Coming to Market

The for-sale building sits on an acre of land at 915 SW Stark and is covered with black and gray marble. Built in 1950 for the Federal Reserve, the Pietro Belluschi-designed trapezoidal building has four floors above grade, each about 14,100 sf, and two windowless floors below grade, one 20,600 sf and the other 11,000 sf, both fitted out for office use.

Rich Sabel of CB Richard Ellis has landed the disposition assignment. Sabel tells GlobeSt.com the base asking price is $8.5 million, which compared to a tax-assessed value of about $14 million. The interior is built out with a cafeteria, conference rooms, and a bank-like lobby that used to be off the building's main entrance until the entrance was moved in the aftermath of Sept. 11. "They've put a ton of money into that building since the attack," says one local office broker.

The building sits on about half of the lot. The parcel is zoned for a 9:1 Floor-Area Ratio, which means that it could hold nine times its size in built space, or about 392,000 sf of development. As developed, the current FAR is about 2:1.

Sabel says he plans to market the building to a select group of likely buyers. "We want more of a rifle shot than a shotgun," he says.

The Federal Reserve announced plans to relocate its local branch into leased space last September. Since that time, in accordance with previously announced Federal Reserve System consolidations and changes, check operations were moved to Seattle, all Portland vault cash was moved to the Federal Reserve Bank's Seattle branch, and Portland's cash processing operations were consolidated into the Seattle branch as well. Depository institutions (DIs) in the Portland zone now are being serviced through new Federal Reserve business models that employ offsite check relay systems and a secure offsite cash depot.