Jive Inks 38,000-SF Office Lease

PORTLAND, OR-Jive Software will relocate its headquarters later this year to the former Federal Reserve Building at Ninth Avenue and Stark Street in Downtown Portland. Mark Friel, the Pacific Real Estate Partners broker who represented Jive tells GlobeSt.com the company signed a 38,000-sf five-year lease for the top three floors of the four-story building, including a new penthouse level that is being added by the building owner, locally based Harsch Investment Properties.

Jive, a maker of collaborative software, received $15 million of venture capital in mid-2007 from Sequoia Capital. Jive’s current headquarters are housed in approximately 20,000 sf in the Loyalty and Hamilton buildings, two historic structures with 4,000-sf floor plates at Southwest Third Avenue and Alder Street in Downtown Portland. Jive, which has a few years left on its lease term, will be looking to sublease the space when it relocates in July. The buildings are owned by John Beardsley.

Built in 1950 for the Federal Reserve, the Pietro Belluschi-designed trapezoidal building sits on the city’s streetcar line one block north of Powell’s Books and the Brewery Blocks development on the edge of the city’s Pearl District. It has four floors above grade, each about 14,100 sf, and two windowless floors below grade that have been used for parking and storage, one 20,600 sf and the other 11,000 sf. The first floor has 20-foot ceilings.

Harsch acquired the marble-clad building from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco in mid-2006 for $12.5 million. At the time, there was interest in the building from both office users and hotel operators. An official with Harsch was not immediately available Thursday afternoon for comment.

The asking lease rate for the former Federal Reserve building was $23 per sf per year, fully serviced when Jive entered negotiations, and in the $30s per sf for the planned penthouse level. Trevor Kafoury of CB Richard Ellis has the leasing assignment.

Harsch and Jive will spend about $250,000 on tenant improvements. Jive may ultimately lease an additional floor in the building before all is said and done, Friel says. “They’ve got a free look at [at the second floor] until the summer and then a right of first refusal after that,” he says.

As for the first floor of the building, Trader Vic’s Restaurant Co. is reportedly considering the space for its entry into the Portland market. A source at Trader Vic’s tells GlobeSt.com that it has been looking at multiple locations in Portland but has not signed any lease agreements.