Heavy equipment recently leveled the 35-by-100-foot lot at 8416 SE Clay Street, which has remained vacant for years awaiting development. In 2021, Provision Investments purchased the property, intending to construct a three-story apartment building containing nine residences. That multifamily project never broke ground, and in 2023, the owner listed the project for sale with city-approved building permits. By February 2024, the ownership team converted the project to a four townhome development. In late 2024, the group used Middle Housing Land Division (MHLD) to place each unit on individual lots without needing a condominium-style homeowners association.
The builders will construct the four townhomes on a gravel-covered and partially paved segment of SE Clay Street. A shared walkway will provide access to the back residences. The three off-street homes will offer residents around 920 square feet of living space, with the street-facing unit slightly larger at 1,000 square feet. The City addressed the two-story townhomes as 8416 SE Clay Street, 8418 SE Clay Street, 8420 SE Clay Street, and 8422 SE Clay Street. MHLD documents show the builders will add 35 feet of sidewalk to the front of the property. The sidewalk area creates a six-foot-wide pedestrian path set back seven feet from the new curb. In the space between the sidewalk and curb, crews will construct a three-foot-wide planter with stormwater inlets to collect rainwater from the street.
The developers of this property will need to relocate the City’s water main, which is currently running under the future sidewalk segment, to a path under the road. They must also pave 20 feet of the street in front of the development. This work will not dramatically transform SE Clay Street, which has no adjacent sidewalks or curbs. Provision Investments will be the first developer to contribute modern shared infrastructure on this block. However, this is the first step towards improving these substandard streets. The City mandated infrastructure updates are costly for developers and sometimes prevent home builders from taking on a project due to the added expense.
This project faced many delays and transformed over the years, trying to find a path to construction. Having crews working on the townhomes after four years of awaiting the right conditions may signify Portland’s recovering housing production market. A recent progress report on middle housing production in Portland indicates the Residential Infill Project (RIP) and the Residential Infill Project Part 2 (RIP2) have successfully encouraged developments like these townhouses on SE Clay Street and many other locations in Montavilla.
