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A marquee symbol of Portland blight is changing hands, boosting the odds that it will either be torn down or rehabilitated.
The Gordon’s Fireplace Building, a spray-paint-tagged hulk on Northeast 33rd Avenue at Interstate 84, was sold at auction for $575,000 on Wednesday, according to Carl Grending, vice president at SVN/Imbrie Realty, the firm that handled the transaction on Ten-X, an auction platform.
The buyer is from Oregon, Grending said. Other details will become available when the transaction closes, sometime in the next two or three months.
The sale was first reported by KGW-TV.
“We’re glad to be part of turning around one of Portland’s most visible problem properties,” Grending said in an email. “The site has strong potential, and it’s good to finally see momentum toward a new chapter for the building and the neighborhood.”
The building was set to go to auction in January, but Robert Boyce, the Seattle-based investor who financed the property before foreclosure, fought the auction in Multnomah County Circuit Court, arguing that the property should be listed by a commercial broker for nine months to seek a higher price.
Erected in 1918, the building first served as the OK Jeffery Aircraft Factory, producing parts for airplanes during World War I, which ended a year later.
Aircraft Factory LLC, backed by Boyce’s Interurban Development, paid $2.7 million for the property in December 2017. For the auction, the starting bid for the building was $225,000, according to an an offering document.
