Beaver nation to expand in Bend? 4-Year OSU campus effort gaining strength

            The momentum is building to expand the Oregon State Universtiy-Cascades Campus to a full four-year institution with its own campus in Central Oregon and a potential student body of 5,000 by 2025.

            If successful, many community and business leaders say the expansion would dramatically enhance the region’s status as a diverse economic center extending beyond its current reputation as a tourism and retirement hub.

            As the effort intensified with private fund raising and support by the legislature and Gov. John Kitzhaber, OSU officials in early 2012 hired a Portland firm, SRG Partnership Inc., to assess requirements for classrooms, administration facilities, student housing, parking and other facilities. A report is due in April.

            OSU has also picked Compass Commercial, long-time Bend commercial brokerage, to work from the SRG needs analysis to target specific locations for the campus facilities.

            Compass is already the broker for seven properties within the City of Bend’s 1,500 acre Juniper Ridge project on the city’s northern boundary. Bend’s master plan for the project includes the possibility of a university campus in addition to research, business and residential uses.

            However, Compass and university officials have said the brokerage will be working from the guidelines established in SRG’s report to OSU officials. The university has already expanded some graduate programs into facilities along Columbia Street above the Old Mill District.

            An announcement by Compass noted that the company was selected after responses statewide to the university’s requests for proposals. The company said it “will utilize the results (of SRG’s work) to identify the optimal properties,” including those, “available and potentially available.”

            Currently OSU offers junior and senior level courses and some graduate instruction at facilities integrated within the Central Oregon Community College campus on the soutwestern slope of Awbrey Butte off Mt. Washington Drive.

             In his 2013-2015 biennial budget, Gov. Kitzhaber asked the legislature to approve $16 million for the OSU expansion, or two-thirds of the $24 million goal set by university officials.  Another $4 million would come from fund raising within the community and the university would match that with another $4 million.

            The community effort had yielded $2.9 million by late 2012 including a $1 million commitment from the Tykeson Family Charitable Trust, the family that

controls Bend Broadband, the region’s leading internet and cable corporation.

     There is also a separate $2 million endowment established by Mike and Carmen Cutting, 1965 OSU graduates. Earnings from that endowment could be used at the discretion of the OSU-Cascades vice president, who is now Becky Johnson, until the entire endowment is released from the Cuttings estate.

            As of early 2013, the OSU-Cascades enrollment was slightly more than 1,000 students. About 75% of those are juniors, seniors and graduate students with the remaining taking classes at COCC before entering the OSU programs.

           

            OSU Cascades/4 - Follow the progress for a 4-year university in Bend

           

City of Bend gets a taste of market challenges

            There may be a lesson to learn--or one of those “teaching moments”—in two City of Bend forays into real estate investment and development.

            Much like any private entity, the city has been whipsawed by the disastrous economy of the past few years and a dispute with original partners on, respectively, it’s investment in the former Bend Bulletin site near downtown and the 1,500 acre proposed Juniper Ridge mega-mixed use project on the northern end of town.

            On the one hand the Bulletin site might have appeared a good investment when the city paid the newspaper’s controlling corporation $2 million in late 2002 for the 3.17 acre site at 1526 NW Wall St. on the northern edge of the downtown business core.

            In 2009 the city listed the property for sale through Compass Commercial brokerage at $3.9 million, as the full impact of the economic slump reached through the Bend residential and commercial real estate market.

            Since then the asking price has been ratcheted downward to $3.5 million in 2010, and $2,278,406 in mid-2012 before going into expired status on the Multiple Listing Service of Central Oregon database in mid-February. All told the property has been on the MLS for 1166 days as of the expiration date.

            The listing information emphasizes that site zoning on the northeast corner of Wall and Olney allows for multi-story buildings up to 55 feet high. And, the listing notes, the “City is open for creative ideas, public/private partnerships & may be able to help with some attractive financing.”  

            Juniper Ridge has endured a more tortuous path since the city took ownership from Deschutes County at no cost with the conditions that it be used for a “public purpose” such as job creation, follow a master plan and include at least 10% of the land for parks and open space.

           At the start the city was faced with conflicting opinions from real estate brokers, neighboring residents and the Oregon Department of Transportation—among others. Brokers claimed there was potentially too much emphasis on residential at the expense of attracting industrial companies and building regional employment.

            Traffic impact issues, initally a major stumbling block, appear to have been resolved in negotiations with Oregon DOT.

            But the city ran headon into dispute with the original private development management group over ownership of the Juniper Ridge master plan that resulted in a $2.5 million payment by the city of to acquire it outright.

            As presented on the city’s web site Juniper Ridge should eventually evolve into a business, research, retail shopping and residential community that could also include a university.  As described in the master plan, it would be “a mixed-use, walkable environment that encourages alternatives to private auto use.”

There is increasing public and private support and momentum for expansion of the Oregon State University OSC/Cacades to a full four-year college. But  thus far Juniper Ridge doesn’t appear to be the leading candidate for the potential college location.

 


Seven lots totaling 23 acres are listed
 in Juniper Ridge

   

To date Juniper tenants are the headquarters of Les Schwab tire company, which moved from Prineville; Suterra, a biotechnology company: and PacifiCorp, which has plans for a service center.  

There have been suggestions the city should follow the lead of Prineville, which has attracted major data centers for Facebook and Apple. But a counter argument is that the centers consume larger sized lots and have high power demands without producing significant long-term employement.

 Compass Commercial listing information shows the brokerage has seven 1.5 to 9 acre parcels totaling 23 acres ready for construction within Juniper Ridge, all at approximately $7.00/ square foot or $305,000 an acre. The total listing price of all parcels is slightly more than $6.97 million.

Some commercial brokers say the market for industrial land has improved substantially in recent years, with vacancy rates cut in half from about 20% to 10%.

To date Bend has spent an estimated $18 million on Juniper for infrastructure and other costs, and assumed debt of about $10 million.  It has financed the debt with about $1 million annually in urban renewal tax funds and land sales have totaled nearly $10 million

 The Juniper Ridge Master Plan