Skip to main content
The city’s economic development agency is seeking tenants for two buildings in the Old Town neighborhood that the agency repossessed after an ambitious shoe manufacturing project went belly-up.
Prosper Portland took back the two Mason Ehrman buildings at 208 and 234 NW 5th Ave. this spring after Made In Old Town, a startup that envisioned a 9-building shoe manufacturing campus, defaulted on a $7 million loan it received from Prosper in 2025 to buy the buildings.
The saga of Made in Old Town was a black eye for Prosper, as the agency flouted its own loan guidelines to help the startup purchase the buildings, only to wind up as the landlord of two properties in a struggling neighborhood the shoe incubator had promised to revive.
Prosper is now seeking tenants for the two buildings, which between them contain 88,500 square feet of commercial and office space.
According to the agency’s request for interested renters, Prosper is looking for tenants that have been in business for at least 2 years and can demonstrate “organizational stability sufficient to fulfill lease obligations.” Other requirements include a list of all business principals, “a description of how the proposed tenancy aligns with Prosper Portland’s mission of equitable economic development” and a list of prior commercial leases, plus references from previous landlords.
Prosper spokesman Shawn Uhlman says Prosper has not set a specific rent, but is instead “asking prospective tenants to make their best offer based on their capacity to pay market rents” and that the agency will then “respond according to the offers we receive.” Bids are due by July 20.
Uhlman says that between the two buildings, Prosper is seeking anywhere from 7-10 tenants total.
