Decision near on UO's Portland site.

Byline: Greg Bolt The Register-Guard

The University of Oregon should know within a few weeks which of two downtown Portland buildings will house its expanding programs in the state's biggest city.

The university is looking for larger quarters to replace its existing building at Northwest Second Avenue and Yamhill Street.

It has been negotiating for a portion of what's known as the White Stag building in the Old Town district of downtown and hopes to have a lease proposal ready to submit to the state Board of Higher Education at its meeting March 2.

It also has submitted an application to acquire a building at 511 N.W. Broadway currently owned by the federal government.

UO Provost John Moseley said the university is seeking the building, which the government would give away, in case the deal for the White Stag property falls through.

Either building would require substantial remodeling. Moseley said the plan is to have the new UO Portland Center ready for classes in fall 2007.

The current Portland Center, which also houses a Duck Shop retail outlet, gives the university about 40,000 square feet of space. The new center will increase that by 50 percent, to 60,000 square feet.

The UO offers a master's degree program in architecture, continuing education law classes and a variety of professional development and distance education programs in the Portland Center. It also has offices for athletics, alumni relations and development.

Those programs all will move to the new building. In addition, the university recently received a $9.2 million endowment to establish journalism and communications programs in Portland.

The new building will house those programs, along with the offices of the AHA International study abroad program.

The university also would put a new "IT disaster recovery center" in the new building to give the university a backup system in case of a major problem with the information technology and computer systems on the Eugene campus, Moseley said.

The UO, which once operated the medical school that is now Oregon Health and Science University, has had a presence in Portland for decades.

Portland also is home to Portland State University and several private colleges, including Reed College and the University of Portland, but Moseley said the UO expansion isn't an effort to draw students away from other schools.

"Nothing we're doing competes directly with Portland State," he said.

"It's not an attempt to compete with PSU or even the private schools."

The UO has been working with a private development firm, Venerable Properties, on the Old Town location, which is near the corner of Northwest Naito Parkway and Burnside close to the waterfront.

The company intends to buy three of the four run-down buildings on the block and renovate them into office and retail space with the university as the main tenant.

The $30 million project is seen as a major step toward redeveloping a struggling area of Portland's downtown that now houses several large homeless shelters.

Those shelters are not on the property Venerable hopes to buy; the buildings targeted for renovation are currently unoccupied.

Moseley said the university will simply be a tenant in the finished building and will not provide funding for the renovation. But it will have an option to purchase the building after seven years, he said.

No decision has been made on whether to sell or lease the UO's existing building once the move is complete.