Multnomah County’s Wikman Building is going back on the market, after a community coalition failed to raise enough money to buy and operate the old Southeast Portland library as a community space.
County commissioners on Thursday gave facilities staff the go-ahead to seek other buyers for the 95-year-old red brick building that once housed the Arleta Library.
The property, which is zoned as storefront commercial, is valued at $260,000. The building needs significant renovations.
The county has
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Multnomah County’s Wikman Building is going back on the market, after a community coalition failed to raise enough money to buy and operate the old Southeast Portland library as a community space.
County commissioners on Thursday gave facilities staff the go-ahead to seek other buyers for the 95-year-old red brick building that once housed the Arleta Library.
The property, which is zoned as storefront commercial, is valued at $260,000. The building needs significant renovations.
The county has owned the Wikman since 1973. The building has been vacant since June 2011, when the county’s Department of Community Justice moved out.
County leaders declared the Wikman as surplus in September 2011. Soon after, they entered into an exclusive agreement with a coalition of local organizations — ROSE Community Development, Southeast Uplift Neighborhood Coalition, the Foster Area Business Association, the Foster-Powell Neighborhood Association and Mt. Scott-Arleta Neighborhood Association — to convert it into a community center with offices and event space for rent.
But the coalition struggled to come up with enough money to buy the Wikman and to provide a business model that demonstrated their ability to pay for ongoing costs.
Since coalition members didn’t have control of the property, they had difficulty attracting potential donors, said Nick Sauvie, ROSE executive director.
“You can’t go out and raise funds for something that you don’t own,” Sauvie said.
So county leaders began shopping the Wikman around for other potential uses.
According to minutes from a Dec. 18 meeting between Multnomah County Commissioner Judy Shiprack and members of the community coalition, the county explored several options, from physically moving the building to selling it to Reed College, Portland State University or the City of Portland. County staff even talked with an architect about the feasibility of using the building as part residence, part public building. None of those options seemed feasible.
“This is a very difficult property to reuse and redevelop,” said county facilities director Michael Bowers.
County staff, with the help of community members, will develop a draft request for proposals by the end of February. Prospective buyers will have eight weeks to respond before a scoring committee ranks their proposals. If a buyer emerges from the process, county facilities staff could recommend a buyer to commissioners in June.
County officials estimate the property costs about $30,000 per year to maintain, and a coalition study determined it needs about $200,000 in renovations. The Wikman lacks on-site or street side parking, another challenge.
Carl Wikman, a leader of a citizen steering committee for the community center project, said his biggest fear is that the building will lose its name in the sale. The building is named after his mother, Lea Wikman, a Finnish immigrant who moved to Oregon in 1953 and spent decades advocating for children and poor people.
Carl Wikman claims the building is the state’s first government structure other than a school to be named after a woman.
“That piece of Oregon history and women’s history would just disappear,” he said.
Shiprack, who has spearheaded efforts to find the Wikman a new home since 2011, said the building’s name will be left up to the buyer, but maintaining its historic façade is one of three goals for the sale. The others: Getting full market value and finding a buyer who will maintain the building’s public use.
It’s not yet clear what activities qualify as public use, Shiprack said, except that it could not become a private residence.
— Kelly House