PORTLAND-As part of a court-approved settlement, the Portland Development Commission acquires the property for the appraised fair market value of $177,000, which the owner must split with the Environmental Protection Agency as partial reimbursement for an emergency abatement of the contaminated property.

SEATTLE-With more and more apartment building owners billing tenants for utility costs separate from the monthly rental fee and an increasing number of complaints about bogus charges, the city has regulated how such supplemental billings are to occur. The new rules became effective Feb. 1.

OREGON CITY, OR-The General Services Administration today will ceremoniously give Clackamas County a 9,415-sf building located adjacent to the county's Red Soils property, on which it is consolidating operations.

TEL-AVIV, ISRAEL-The Chicago-based fund management company agrees to acquire 19 shopping centers in Europe owned by Plaza Centers BV, a wholly owned subsidiary of publicly traded, Tel-Aviv-based Elbit Medical Imaging Ltd.

CUPERTINO, CA-PricewaterhouseCoopers LLC resigns the post without explanation, a move Mission West Properties CEO Carl Berg describes as "one of the most bizarre circumstances I have ever been involved in.

INDIANAPOLIS-The locally based medical office REIT closes on a 43,728-sf surgical center in Coral Springs, FL, the fifth of five property acquisitions funded by a secondary public offering that brought in $44.4 million.

SEATTLE-Craig Hill, Grubb & Ellis' vice president of investment sales and office leasing, is handed the job of sales manager and charged with recreating the dominance the company had here in the 1980s. As part of the plan, the company is doubling the size of its Downtown office space and planning to triple its number of brokers.

SAN FRANCISCO-For approximately $14 million, Wyndham International sells the Pickwick Hotel here to LA Koreana, which owns the Radisson Wilshire Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles and the Sheraton Four Points Hotel in Fresno.