Office to Residential Conversion - The Mason Ehrman Building

Everyone in Portland seems to agree on two things these days—we need more housing, and downtown needs to continue improving. There’s a big push to convert empty office space into housing, which would bring more life to downtown and provide much-needed housing. The city of Portland passed a couple of key incentives last March, aimed at making it easier for developers to convert office space into residential—they removed large fees typically levied when changing the use of a building and relaxed seismic upgrade requirements.

These incentives appear to be making an impact, although progress is slow and incremental. We’ve seen a few buildings enter the conversion process, and this month another has started the process.

The historic Mason Ehrman Building, located at 222 NW 5th Avenue, has applied to convert into housing. Built in 1907, this beautiful brick building was renovated to LEED Gold standard in 2001. With 60,000 square feet over its seven stories, this building will provide many new homes (and neighbors) for the Old Town neighborhood. We can’t wait to see it happen.