Leasing broker Buzz Ellis tells GlobeSt.com that an LOI has been signed for 13,000 sf on the first floor of the 106,000-sf building, for which the last concrete panel was hung yesterday(Monday, Aug. 5). Preferred Bank of California provided a $15 million loan for construction of the building. Shell completion is scheduled for later this year.

The city had made proof of construction financing a condition for the project to move forward after the original developers, Selwyn Bingham and Sylvia Cleaver, went bankrupt in 1999, two years after it got the project off the ground. Until work restarted earlier this year, the project's first two structures--the office building an apartment building--sat half built. Dorn-Platz agreed to buy the project's development rights for $2.3 million last summer from the City and Enron Microclimates, which gained control of the property in bankruptcy court.

"There's been a ton of activity from local tenants," Ellis tells GlobeSt.com. "The project sat here for so long and now that it's moving forward, everybody's interested." The full-service asking rate for the office space is $22.50, but that's apparently just a starting point. Ellis says he will provide users with "the lowest cost class A alternative in the greater Portland area."