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Address: 511 SE 60th Ave.
Year built: 1919
Square footage: 4,460
Market value: $1.8 million
Owner: City of Portland
How long it’s been empty: 3 years
Why it’s empty: Unfunded affordable housing plans
Before the two-story brick building overlooking Southeast 60th Avenue and Stark Street was abandoned to vandals, it housed a day care operated by the YMCA.
But the Y’s lease with the city on the building known as the Mt. Tabor Annex ended in 2019. “The city of Portland took it back and hasn’t done anything with it. It has a fence around the whole building now with overgrown weeds,” according to a YMCA executive whose message was forwarded to WW by the nonprofit’s CEO, Tyler Wright.
Now, the Tabor Annex is mothballed and abandoned. Its windows are crudely painted over— the consequence, neighbors say, of the city’s effort to cover up graffiti that coated the building’s walls during the pandemic.
It’s a relic with some history. The Mills Open Air School was built in 1919 to serve children with tuberculosis. The lot, on the south side of then-rural Mount Tabor, was once “thought to be particularly healthful” for sickly kids, according to city historical records. Later, it was converted into an annex of a nearby elementary school.
In 1994, the city took over the property in a land swap with Multnomah County. Since, assessors have twice determined that “the building is at the end of its useful life.”
For nearly a decade, the city has planned to build affordable housing on the lot. A 2016 City Council resolution transferred the property to the Portland Housing Bureau (market value then: $1.2 million) with the “intention to work with the YMCA in order to ensure that it is able to maintain a daycare facility on the Property.”
That has not happened. “There are no resources identified for development,” says Martha Calhoon, a spokeswoman for the Housing Bureau. But, she noted, it’s still “earmarked for affordable housing development.” Money from both the 2016 Portland and 2018 Metro housing bonds has already been fully allocated for other projects. But the bureau has been “land banking” properties so it can move quickly once new money becomes available, Calhoon says.
On a recent morning, lights were still on in the former school’s hallways, which are strewn with debris.
A reader noted the former school overlooks what appears to be another abandoned building across the street, a hulking brick structure owned by Portland General Electric. It’s next to the electrical substation that exploded and burst into flames in November, leaving 3,000 houses without power.
A spokeswoman for PGE assured WW that the structure was still in use, although she declined to give further details. A maintenance crew was working at the site last week.
Every week, WW examines one mysteriously vacant property in the city of Portland, explains why it’s empty, and considers what might arrive there next. Send addresses to newstips@wweek.com.