For not more than $2.45 million cash and responsibility for maintaining a chunk of Martin Luther King Boulevard, the city will purchase from the Oregon Department of Transportation several properties on the East bank of the Willamette River, including the 80,000-sf Holman Moving and Storage building. The City Council last week unanimously authorized the City's development arm to draft a final purchase and sale agreement.

Alas, the PDC is currently unable financially to follow through with its plans for the building, which is penciled in as Phase III of its Eastbank Esplanade project, the first phases of which included a new transient moorage and improved and lengthened waterfront access. Phase III entailed renovating the former warehouse at 49 SE Clay St. and then leasing it out to companies with river-related operations, Michael McElwee, a project manager for PDC, told GlobeSt.com last fall. The building has 22-foot ceilings, two oversized elevators and a mezzanine on each level.

The money for the project disappeared on Dec. 20, however, when the Oregon Supreme Court decided a 1998 suit brought against the PDC, the city and the county by Shilo Inns, which owns property in the Airport Way Urban Renewal District. In reversing a ruling by the Oregon Tax Court, the Oregon Supreme Court decided that the PDC did, in fact, collect its funds from Shilo in violation of Measure 5, a property tax limitation measure passed in 1990. If the ruling holds up, the issue will return to the Oregon Tax Court, which then must decide to broaden the case based on the Oregon Supreme Court's decision. If the case is broadened to look at more than just Shilo, the PDC could be forced to refund tens of millions of dollars to taxpayers.