Downtown's Next Office Building, 100 Columbia, Two Years Out

PORTLAND-Downtown’s next class A office development is nearing the last hurdle in the city’s building approval process: the design review process.

Louis Dreyfus Property Group is proposing an 15-story, full-block project at a block off the Willamette River between the KOIN Center office building it already owns and the waterfront Marriott Hotel. The building will front Columbia Street, seven blocks south of the ODS Tower, which was completed last year.

Dreyfus announced plans to erect 100 Columbia last spring. Portland-based GBD Architects released its design of the building last week, in preparation for its Nov. 16 hearing in front of the city’s design review commission. A city-generated report on the design is due back Nov. 6.

The 100 Columbia will have 315,000 sf of rentable office space, 12,000 sf of ground-floor retail space and four levels of underground parking. The unique geometry of the building, which features column-free corners that offer wrap-around windows, will allow up to 10 corner offices per floor, with views of Mount Hood, the Willamette River and the Downtown skyline.

Hoffman Construction, which erected the newly completed Fox Tower, will serve as general contractor on the project. The 100 Columbia building would have been designed taller than 15 stories, but the views from the condominiums atop KOIN Center are protected. Initial rental rates are slated to be under $30 per sf for lower floors in the building, which listing agent Joe Vaughn of Norris Beggs & Simpson says should draw potential tenants from more expensive West Coast markets like Seattle and the San Francisco Bay Area.

“With space in those areas becoming prohibitively expensive, it’s quite possible there will be a wave of people from the north and south looking at Portland,” says Vaughan, who is marketing the property with fellow NBS broker Chris Johnson. In addition, says Vaughan, several existing downtown tenants are on the hunt to lock down future expansion space.

Most floors will have 20,471 sf (rentable), but three lower levels have 28,000 sf. Finished ceiling heights are 9.5-feet high, and 10-feet high on the larger floors, which would allow for utilities to run under risen floors, allowing maximum interior design flexibility. A broadband fiber-optic backbone will be provided on each floor.

Louis Dreyfus Property Group is the real estate division of Paris-based S.A. Louis Dreyfus & Cie, which has been wholly owned by the Louis Dreyfus family since its founding in 1851. The property group, which has had offices in Portland since 1950, currently owns three other projects in town: KOIN Center, 400 Sixth Ave. and Riviera Plaza. When 100 Columbia is complete, Louis Dreyfus will own more than one million sf of space in Downtown Portland.