A judge has declined to bar the transfer of Block 216 after a contentious hearing, clearing the way for the lender to take control of the downtown Portland high-rise.
The business lender Ready Capital had suggested the buildings’ owners—businesses tied to BPM Real Estate Group, led by prominent local developer Walter Bowen—were prepared to hand over the deed to avoid a potentially messy foreclosure.
Ready Capital holds a construction loan on the property it values at $510 million with principal and interest.
However, a smaller lender, Broadway EB-5 Fund, sued to halt the deed-in-lieu transfer, claiming it would wipe out the fund’s “rights and interests” in the project.
Broadway had issued a $49 million loan to help build Block 216.
Judge Robert Reed ruled during an April 9 hearing that Broadway failed to demonstrate it would suffer irreparable harm without an injunction and denied its motion to block the transfer.
As of Tuesday, no deed transfer had been recorded in Multnomah County property records.
In the court hearing last week, an attorney for Ready Capital emphasized the building is “completely underwater.”
Ready Capital stated in court documents that appraisals completed after Block 216 opened valued the building at $425 million—or $85 million short of even the construction loan.
“There’s no money to repay anyone,” the Ready Capital attorney, Jean-Marie Atamian, said during the April 9 hearing in New York Supreme Court.
“That’s why the plaintiff’s interest has no value, not because of anything the defendants have done here.”
Funding for the project also included “opportunity zone” investments, which offered investors breaks on capital gains taxes on top of any return from the project.
Court documents described the project as one that cost $650 million, opening in 2023 with condos, offices, and Ritz-Carlton hotel rooms.
A handful of securities law firms have put out calls for opportunity zone investors to get in touch, suggesting they see the potential to bring a lawsuit in light of the tower’s recent woes.
Ready Capital said in March it was planning to seize the tower, where only about a dozen of the 132 condos had found buyers and 23% of the office space was leased.
That move to take possession prompted Broadway to file its lawsuit in New York soon afterward.
“All of the investors here have lost money,” Atamian said, including Bowen, who put in money of his own and “has been brought down to a very low level” by the troubled project.
Atamian acknowledged Bowen wasn’t his client but went on to say: “Whether he’s able to pick himself up from these losses that he has suffered as a developer in Portland remains to be seen, but he has suffered massively from this project.”
After a transcript of last week’s court proceedings was released in court records, a spokesperson for BPM Real Estate said Tuesday, “BPM remains committed to working constructively with all parties to facilitate an orderly transition of the property.
“The court’s decision provides renewed momentum, and we continue working toward a resolution that protects value, avoids disruption, and delivers a responsible outcome for Block 216 and its stakeholders,” the spokesperson said in the emailed statement.
In court, attorneys for Bowen and entities associated with him largely spoke to jurisdictional issues they had with the case being filed in New York.
Broadway argued New York was the right venue because of the way the construction loan was established.
image source from：https://www.oregonlive.com/business/2025/04/at-troubled-portland-high-rise-theres-no-money-to-repay-anyone-lender-lawyer-says.html
