“It’s a real edgy, semi-industrial office plaza,” said Maria Duncan, a broker on the project for Melvin Mark Brokerage, adding the building is meant to retain the historical character of the area.

By Design Commission decree, the four-story complex at Northwest 14th Avenue and Overton Street will keep its industrial-looking resolve. In a report to the Design Commission filed over the summer, the city’s Bureau of Development Services recommended the project “have a more industrial feel.” The report stressed that the building cannot feel “residential.”

But the development hasn’t secured tenants yet, says Don Drake, lead broker for Overton. He and his team are in talks with a few medical companies, he says, but nothing is complete.

Along with Drake and Duncan, Nick Ehlen of Melvin Mark is also brokering the project.

The Melvin Mark team and the project’s developers – a conglomerate of Portland and Seattle investors, going by the name Overton Pearl – intend the Overton complex to be the first building in a multi-phase project that will incorporate more buildings in the future.

But this means tenant retention.

“Developers today are looking for anywhere between 25 percent to 50 percent pre-lease activity,” Drake said. Most developers, he says, get anxious if this goal isn’t met.

And this need for pre-lease activity delayed the groundbreaking temporarily, to give Melvin Mark more time to secure tenant commitments. Initially, developers announced a January groundbreaking. The groundbreaking has since been pushed back to an indeterminate time during the spring, between late February and early April.

Mark Denyer, an engineer at MFIA Inc. and the LEED specialist on the project, is aiming at efficient water and energy use in his and architect Steve Fosler’s pursuit of gold certification through the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design rating system.

In getting this certification, one must perform a simulation of the building’s energy consumption for the year, proving the energy features would be more efficient. The development will also take advantage of stormwater-filtering bio swales, and building materials will incorporate salvaged wood products and recycled products.

“The challenge for us now is that all we’re building is just the shell with nothing inside,” Denyer said, adding the development is a core-and-shell building and the developers are constrained by the size of the footprint.

Undeterred, developers expect occupancy to begin during the first quarter of 2009.

“It’s a real edgy, semi-industrial office plaza,” said Maria Duncan, a broker on the project for Melvin Mark Brokerage, adding the building is meant to retain the historical character of the area.

By Design Commission decree, the four-story complex at Northwest 14th Avenue and Overton Street will keep its industrial-looking resolve. In a report to the Design Commission filed over the summer, the city’s Bureau of Development Services recommended the project “have a more industrial feel.” The report stressed that the building cannot feel “residential.”

But the development hasn’t secured tenants yet, says Don Drake, lead broker for Overton. He and his team are in talks with a few medical companies, he says, but nothing is complete.

Along with Drake and Duncan, Nick Ehlen of Melvin Mark is also brokering the project.

The Melvin Mark team and the project’s developers – a conglomerate of Portland and Seattle investors, going by the name Overton Pearl – intend the Overton complex to be the first building in a multi-phase project that will incorporate more buildings in the future.

But this means tenant retention.

“Developers today are looking for anywhere between 25 percent to 50 percent pre-lease activity,” Drake said. Most developers, he says, get anxious if this goal isn’t met.

And this need for pre-lease activity delayed the groundbreaking temporarily, to give Melvin Mark more time to secure tenant commitments. Initially, developers announced a January groundbreaking. The groundbreaking has since been pushed back to an indeterminate time during the spring, between late February and early April.

Mark Denyer, an engineer at MFIA Inc. and the LEED specialist on the project, is aiming at efficient water and energy use in his and architect Steve Fosler’s pursuit of gold certification through the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design rating system.

In getting this certification, one must perform a simulation of the building’s energy consumption for the year, proving the energy features would be more efficient. The development will also take advantage of stormwater-filtering bio swales, and building materials will incorporate salvaged wood products and recycled products.

“The challenge for us now is that all we’re building is just the shell with nothing inside,” Denyer said, adding the development is a core-and-shell building and the developers are constrained by the size of the footprint.

Undeterred, developers expect occupancy to begin during the first quarter of 2009.