from Hacker News

A Fire Sale of Portland's Largest Office Tower Shows How Far the City Has Fallen

by kamaraju on 5/20/25, 5:42 PM with 8 comments

  • by mikestew on 5/20/25, 7:06 PM

    From TFA:

    "The property, once a premier address in the city, was afflicted with 'vagrants sleeping in hallways of vacant office floors.' They were 'starting fires in stairwells, smoking fentanyl and defecating in common areas,' according to papers the company filed in a lease-termination lawsuit."

    Where is building security in all of this? Card keys, visitor check-in, all the stuff that I thought was standard-issue these days? If entire floors are vacant, why do the elevators open on those floors? Stairwell doors should already be card-keyed; it's been years since I've been in a building that doesn't do that. Other than sheer neglect (and that is certainly a a reasonable hypothesis), I am at a loss as to how this would continue for long.

  • by kylehotchkiss on 5/20/25, 9:33 PM

    "He expressed a willingness to provide city permits and other nonfinancial support for the construction of a bridge from the building to a parking garage across the street. This would enable office workers to get into the building without having to go out in the street."

    Great solve, guys. Would it not be cheaper to just station an officer on that block?

  • by FireBeyond on 5/20/25, 6:43 PM

  • by blacksmith_tb on 5/20/25, 7:42 PM

    "Big Pink" has also been home to New Relic's Portland office for the last decade or so, though I gather they've been switching to remote more and more. But articles like this one make me laugh, my office is about a mile away, and while the city took a beating during the pandemic, I am skeptical it's much different than most other major metros - but the conservative press love to trash Portland.

  • by evereverever on 5/20/25, 11:09 PM

    If rents for commercial spaces don't reduce I welcome more of these fire sales. Portland is still great, but the future of small businesses and the tech scene is abysmal.

  • by khaki54 on 5/21/25, 5:25 AM

    A lot of words to bury this being the result of "the state’s botched experiment with drug decriminalization"