That is why fellow Enron subsidiary Portland General Electric, of which PES was spun out last year, is seeking approval from the Oregon Public Utility Commission to make the necessary loan and keep the company on track for an early April completion. The PUC passed on the issue in March, and now is scheduled to hear the request at its April 1 meeting.

If the PUC disapproves of the loan, Heikkinen says the company has other options, though he's not ready to talk of them yet. "PGE is not the only back-up position we are pursuing," says Heikkinen. "It's the best looking one right now, but we have others."

The first phase of the PES project includes two 30-foot-tall water cooling towers on the roof of Brewery Block 1 and a system of distribution pipelines that run throughout the three-level, two-and-a-half block underground parking garage that will service the five-block redevelopment. The air conditioning plant will be powered by electricity, says Heikkinen, but because of its size, when operating close to capacity, it will be much more efficient than if each of the buildings it services powered its own chilling system.

"Most of the larger buildings in downtown Portland have older chilled water equipment in them and simply hooking up to our system is a low cost alternative to property owners replacing, operating and maintaining their own systems," Heikkinen told GlobeSt.com last year, estimating that a 300,000-sf office building could avoid between $500,000 and $1 million in up front costs by connecting to Puget Energy Solutions air conditioning plant rather than upgrading their own system. After that, says Heikkinen, the cost of service--between 50 cents and $1 per sf per year, depending on the size of the building--is comparable to a building owner operating and maintaining its own independent system.

A few dozen cities in North America are said to have district-wide cooling systems operating or in the works. The PES system will be the first in the Northwest. If all goes as planned, Heikkinen says the first extension of the distribution lines beyond Gerding Edlen's project will be across Burnside Street and then down Southeast Stark Street to Sixth Avenue. More rooftop chillers -- up to eight -- would be added to handle the increased business.

"We are still in the final design stages of the Stark extension, but we already have some contracts in hand," said Heikkinen last summer, acknowledging that PES is already searching for a second plant location on the south end of Downtown. Heikkinen also said his company would love to get in on the ground floor of any redevelopment effort along North Macadam, if and when it ever comes to fruition.

A recent Oregonian article about PGE's loan request contained information on the financial condition of Portland Energy. It attributed the information to PGE's filing with the PUC. A source at the PUC says it did not give out that information and that the information is supposed to be kept confidential. He did not challenge the accuracy of the figures themselves, however, which show the company losing $221,000 on revenue of $241,000 during 2002, and project it losing another $203,000 in 2003 on revenue of $532,000.