In cooperation with the PDC, the building's owner, Kalberer Co., spent more than $1 million to have Venerable Properties turn the raw warehouse into a wired office building. In return, the PDC inked a 10-year, top-of-the-market master lease for the building's 57,000 rsf. The negotiated lease rate is about $20 per sf per year, or just over $96,000 per month, not including annual increases.

At the time, the city thought it would be able to achieve sublease rents in the high $20's per sf per year, full service, which is why it essentially gave the third floor to the not-for-profit Oregon Creative Services Alliance, renting them 675 sf at a cost of $1 per year and letting them keep all the rental income from leasing the rest of the 8,500-sf floor.

Then came the economic downdraft, which stole the city's potential tenants and beat up market rates, knocking them down into the mid-to-high teens. As a result, until recently, the only tenants in the building were on the third floor, which means the city has received little to no rental income while having paid well more than $2.5 million in rent and another $250,000 in tenant improvements (estimated based on 12,500 sf finished at $20 per sf).