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The Oregon Department of Justice has subpoenaed records as part of an investigation into the failed startup Made In Old Town, which secured a $7 million loan from Prosper Portland and swiftly defaulted.
The existence of the subpoena, first reported by The Oregonian, means that Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield—and specifically the DOJ’s Charitable Activities Section—has turned its scrutiny toward the shoe manufacturing start-up that promised a revitalization of Portland’s Old Town neighborhood. The subpoena, dated July 13, is requesting records specifically from the Old Town Community Association, the neighborhood association that served as the fiscal sponsor of the project.
Made In Old Town secured $2 million grant from the Oregon Legislature in 2024 and then a $7 million loan from Prosper Portland, the city’s economic development agency, in early 2025. The project used the money to buy two buildings in the beleaguered Old Town neighborhood of Northwest Portland, promising an eventual 9-block shoe manufacturing center that would lift the neighborhood’s economic prospects.
But as WW reported extensively throughout 2025, the startup had made lofty promises with little proof of concept behind them. The project’s principals—who included an architect, former shoe executives and a local entrepreneur—had used the state money as matching funds to secure the $7 million Prosper loan, and had paid more than twice the appraised value for the two buildings. Yet the Prosper Portland Board of Commissioners asked few questions when it glowingly approved the loan in February 2025.
But once Made In Old Town purchased the buildings, tenants did not follow. Letters of intent that the project pointed to as proof of future tenants fell through. By the winter of 2025, WW reported that the project was in material default of its loan with Prosper because it had failed to secure the private funding it had promised. A few months later, in February 2025, Prosper’s executive director demanded that Made In Old Town explain why its short-lasting executive director had resigned so quickly, and why the project hadn’t told the agency about it.
In May of this year, the Prosper Board of Commissioners voted to repossess the two buildings in lieu of foreclosure. Made In Old Town was not required to pay any further loan payments to Prosper.
A copy of the July 13 subpoena, provided to WW by the ODOJ, shows the agency requesting broad records from the OTCA related to its past and present leadership and finances dating back to Jan. 1, 2024.
“The purpose of the investigation is to determine whether there has been a violation of the Oregon Nonprofit Corporations Act,” the subpoena to the OTCA reads. The document requests a broad swath of information and documents from the OTCA relating to its past and present leadership, those officers’ compensation, the association’s finances, and “any and all family and business relationships between officers, directors, key volunteers, and Representatives of the Organization.”
The subpoena also requests all documents “related to the fiscal sponsorship arrangement between the Organization and Made in Old Town, including all communications and correspondence between these entities, reports, requests for disbursements, and accounting statements.”
The ODOJ requested that the records be produced by Aug. 8, 2026.
The Old Town Community Association was led by the hotelier and political consultant Jessie Burke throughout the Made In Old Town saga. Burke is married to Jonathan Cohen, one of the primary principals of Made In Old Town. Cohen, during much of that time, was also treasurer of the OTCA.
Burke and Cohen have since left Portland for the east coast, and left their leadership roles at OTCA. Burke and Cohen did not immediately respond to a request for comment from WW, including whether they’ve been contacted by the ODOJ as part of the investigation.
Current OTCA board chair Elizabeth Nye did not respond to a request for comment.
Prosper did not respond to a request for comment, nor did Made In Old Town.
