The owners of the single-story Tool Building at 7131 NE Glisan Street are working behind the decoratively painted window coverings to create seven to eight divided spaces for future tenants. With the help of listing agent JJ Hewitt, they are seeking creative businesses for the space that will complement one another while serving the community with active frontage along a historic streetcar commercial district.

Architect and one of the project owners, Bill Neburka, explained that he wants to pay tribute to the 1926-era building’s commercial laundry origins by supporting businesses that produce their products on-site. “I think that’s the only model for retail anymore, where the value add actually happens in the space,” said Neburka. He notes that stores that resell items made by others and sold to customers at a slight markup are often put out of business by their online competitors. He feels that this is contributing to the empty retail space across the city. “It’s a little bit of a hard nut to crack within that model, what is the ground floor habitation in a city anymore, because you walk anywhere and we’ve just got acres of empty storefront.” Instead, he thinks successful shops will have a modest showroom for customers but dedicate significant floor space to creating those products in the back.

The Tool Building team has some experience with supporting tenants on this street. Since 2022, they have owned the commercial building two blocks east at 7323 NE Glisan Street, which extends the full width of the city block and has frontages on NE 73rd and 74th Avenues. Neburka says that space hosts a community of fabricators who often support one another and benefit from being in the same space. They hope to similarly find complementary tenants for the Tool Building and are taking a thoughtful approach to signing leases. “We want to find—not in a snobby way—the right group of people that elevate each other,” explained Neburka. “That’s one of the things we found up the street, having a bunch of fabricators [in one building]. It’s nice to have that community. It’s not borrowing a cup of sugar but borrowing a saw blade, bringing value out of those human connections.”

Despite the leasing success at their other locations, the Tool Building owners see value in having a more customer-facing activity at this site with a wider definition of “makers.” Tool Building co-owner Michael Quinn is also the primary owner of Sparrow Salon’s building at 7243 NE Glisan Street. That location hosts a longtime local business, which adds value on-site and brings the community into the space. The Tool Building team suspects that the same community-serving, gathering-space model could do well down the street. “We’re focusing on creating a nucleus for the neighborhood, I think that’s really where things are at now,” said Neburka. “I think that these buildings begin to become more than just themselves, more than just one space, a place where people can come and interact with people who are making their stuff or food, and it becomes a real collecting spot for our neighborhood.”

Inside the building, the space is still raw, with just a few stud-framed walls built to show divided space for prospective tenants. The design team wants to preserve much of the century-old building’s character. They will clean and repair the commercial steel-casement windows along the NE 72nd Avenue frontage that give the building its industrial character. They will then create new wood-framed storefront glazing in the existing openings facing NE Glisan Street, with a centrally located atrium containing an American with Disabilities Act (ADA)- compliant entry ramp. That covered opening will have direct access to two storefronts and a central hallway that leads to additional units and shared three-stall restroom facilities. The 7,139-square-foot building features several skylights, making internal spaces naturally bright during the day.

The southwest corner was the historic laundry’s old mechanical room, and still features the ceiling-mounted line shaft power-driven rotating pulleys that provided mechanical power transmission to the commercial washers. The building owners think this space would be an ideal location for a food or bar service establishment. It has two skylights and a large roll-up door at the back that could open to a secluded outdoor seating area.

The team has developed a tenancy vision for the space, but must carefully consider the impacts of Change of Use or Change of Occupancy. Those adjustments can trigger substantial Systems Development Charges (SDCs) to the property owner. Portland collects these fees to offset the impact a project may have on the City’s streets, water, storm runoff management, and sanitary sewer systems. They can also add funds for parks and recreation facilities. In 2025, the Portland City Council temporarily exempted newly created housing units from paying SDCs to encourage more construction in that market. However, that does not apply to commercial projects like the Tool Building, and any potential tenant who wants to use the space in a way that triggers SDC fees would need to pay rent at a rate sufficient to cover those charges.

Commercial property owners can not simply rent space to any tenant. They often need to consider the long-term viability of the business to fulfill its lease and whether it will significantly change the building’s use in a way that requires them to pay the city’s SDCs. Neburka said they recently had to reverse course due to such a fee. “We got hit when we changed the front space in the building up the street. We changed that to retail, and the development charges from PBOT (Portland Bureau of Transportation) were huge. It’s onerous, to the point we’re changing it back,” explained Neburka. “At the City… there is a thirst for money, and nobody’s getting the message that it doesn’t work. It literally doesn’t work.” In this case, SDC charges can create a situation where a prospective tenant’s business could drive up property expenses to the point that the leased rate is no longer affordable to the operator or the building owner has to forgo revenue. “The charge is enough that it would be our entire profit off a three-year lease, so at what point does it make any sense for us to do it?” Neburka said.

With that recent change in occupancy experience, the Tool Building team will favor certain business types but remains flexible and open to hearing from a variety of groups. “I think we’re interested in talking to anybody right now, especially fabrication, especially art-focused. I mean, it’s close to our heart, it’s what we see the building being part of, but we’d love to hear from anybody who wants a space to do something,” Neburka explained. “I think that the design is going to be a blue-collar building. We’re just trying to be smart about it, and we’re hoping that the way we approach it will be attractive to the community.”

The team is working on building permits and bank financing for the project. Interested prospective tenants can contact JJ Hewitt with Cloud City Realty via email at jj@cloudcityrealty.com or by phone at 971-339-1456.