A major real estate investor is cashing out of Portland’s Pearl District. On paper, the explanation is high interest rates and stock performance. In reality, it is about a city that changed so dramatically over the last five years that what was once marketed as a crown jewel has become a liability.
SITE Centers Corp., based in Ohio, bought “The Blocks” in 2019, a collection of 44 storefronts across 10 buildings totaling nearly 100,000 square feet. At the time, SITE called the Pearl “one of the most desirable places to live on the West Coast.” Just six years later, the same portfolio is being quietly shopped on the market.
As Willamette Week bluntly put it in their coverage of the sale: “The neighborhood has changed since SITE’s purchase.” That single line may be the most understated truth in the whole story…