FBI Building

Innovative financing, patience, and creativity were all required to accomplish the completion of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Portland field office at 9109 NE Cascades Parkway in the Airport Way Urban Renewal Area.

Photo by Port of Portland

Prosper Portland’s 2010 sale of an eight-acre parcel on Northeast Cascades Parkway to the Molasky Group, a Las Vegas developer that specializes in building facilities for lease to the government, cleared the way for the project to proceed.

The state-of-the-art facility, designed by HGA Architects and Engineers of Minneapolis, Minnesota, and built by Skanska USA Building of Portland, Oregon is more than 134,000 square feet and houses most of the FBI’s Portland operations and personnel.

Prosper Portland collaborated with the Port of Portland to help the General Services Administration find the Airport Way location for the FBI. The project took just 18 months to complete, breaking ground in December 2010 and welcomed with a ribbon-cutting in June 2012.

Project cost was estimated at more than $60 million, generating 600-plus direct construction jobs and between 300-500 related jobs through the supply chain. More than 85 percent of the craft labor on the project came from the Portland area.

In addition to the building investment, which will generate property taxes estimated to grow from approximately $500,000 annually in 2012 to more than $900,000 in 2030, sales proceeds from the transaction created revenue for the Airport Way Urban Renewal Area (URA) to support ongoing economic development programs in the URA, including small business loans for business expansions remodeling and new construction.