Approximately 250 doctors, nurses, and physician assistants at all eight Legacy Health hospitals across Oregon and Washington filed union authorization cards with the National Labor Relations Board last week, per a press release from the Oregon Nurses Association.

“Legacy Health has received a petition for representation from the Pacific Northwest Hospital Medicine Association on behalf of hospital-based providers,” said a statement from Legacy issued Monday morning. “We respect our providers’ rights to determine union representation through processes overseen by the National Labor Relations Board.”

Eduardo Serpa tells Oregon Business that when he began working as an internal medicine doctor at Legacy Salmon Creek Medical Center four years ago, Legacy administrators were better about listening to workers’ concerns.

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Now that’s changed, says Serpa, who spoke with OB in his capacity as a member of the PNHMA, which already represents hospitalists in Sacred Heart Medical Center in Springfield and which is serviced by the Oregon Nurses Association.

“There has always been great collaboration historically, between the providers and the administrators [at Legacy], and I always felt like our voice was heard. Over the last few years, though, we’ve seen more unilateral decision-making out of the administration and changes to how we deliver care,” Serpa says. “One of the biggest concerns as health care providers, when we work these seven-day stretches, is keeping away burnout. I think the pandemic really showed us that the priorities we had of putting patients first, the hospital second, and ourselves third, is just not a sustainable practice.”

The news comes on the heels of a merger announcement between Legacy and Oregon Health and Science University, which was a point of contention during the negotiations with the Oregon Nurses Association. ONA members voted to authorize a strike against the healthcare system before reaching a tentative agreement last week.

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Serpa says the news that Legacy, which posted $172 million in losses in its 2023 fiscal year,  was being purchased wasn’t a surprise to him or many of the people he works with, but that maintaining bargaining power is increasingly important to providers moving forward. 

“Any change that might be perceived from being acquired by OHSU, we want to be a considerable part of that discussion and really pursue that equity through deliberation as a union,” Serpa says.

The health care providers will meet in the coming weeks to confirm details and schedule an election date. If approved, they will join nearly 700 Legacy nurses and mental and behavioral health professionals represented by the ONA, which has more than 16,000 members across the state.

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Kevin Mealy, communications manager for ONA, says that the NLRB has been approving unions more quickly in recent years, and says the organization could return the decision in a matter of weeks.

The filing follows a flurry of union activity across the state, notably in the health care sector  – including strikes at Providence Health Systems in Portland and Seaside this summer and a strike authorization vote at Oregon Health and Science University in September. In July, 57 employees at Legacy’s Unity Center for Behavioral Health in Portland filed for union recognition with the National Labor Relations Board, voicing concerns about staffing and safety.

Last year 15 health care providers — including doctors and nurse practitioners — at four Eugene-area clinics announced plans to file for union recognition in partnership with the PNHMA. It’s unclear how many Oregon doctors belong to a union, but PNHMA says it has 200,000 members nationwide, and ONA says U.S. physicians are increasingly drawn to unions as “health care systems have become larger and more corporate.”

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Mealy says the growth in union activity among Oregon health care workers is part of a larger movement of organizing around the country. He says President Biden’s visit to Michigan to stand with workers striking against the big three automakers last week was a sign of increasing momentum for the labor movement, and that Oregon workers are setting an example for the rest of country.

“I do think this is a historic moment. ‘Historic’ is an often overuse term, especially these days, but seeing elected officials stand together with active unions is a crystallizing moment in this growth of union activity that we’ve seen over the past few years, and certainly healthcare workers are leading the way in Oregon and across the country,” Mealy says. “We’ve seen renewed healthcare organizing and different types of professions that haven’t traditionally been union-profession positions. And it goes the other direction, too. We’re seeing Starbucks workers organize. I think there’s a new wave of unionism coming because people see a union as a way they can have a voice at work, and make work better for them, and for the people they serve.”

Medford Mayor Randy Sparacino wasn’t surprised by his city’s standout income growth.

According to data from the 2022 American Community Survey released in mid-September by the U.S. Census Bureau, the median household income growth in the Medford metropolitan statistical area increased by 23% during the 2019-2022 cycle, compared to a statewide increase of just 5.7% during the same period.

Income growth in the area — which includes all of Jackson County — was the 37th fastest in the country, outpacing 91% of other U.S. metros. The growth pattern also extended to other Oregon cities, with Bend and Grants Pass also seeing gains.

Sparacino says Medford’s expanding leisure and hospitality sector, as well as an influx of in-migration among retirees and people fleeing more expensive metros, are partly behind the city’s strong income numbers.

“Pretty much all across the service industry, they’re raising their baseline to get people that come through the door and apply for jobs. Locally, we’ve seen a lot of significant expansion in the service industry with regard to additional hotels and restaurants, and they have almost all increased their baseline in annual wages,” Sparacino says. “Years of wildfire smoke are having an impact, but over the course of the last two years, the travel has actually gone up. We’re seeing a recovery in our tourism — a turnaround since the pandemic.”

During the inflationary cycle that began in 2019, leisure and hospitality, trade, transportation and utility workers have consistently received wage gains that have outpaced the declining dollar, with leisure and hospitality jobs seeing the largest gains. In the leisure and hospitality sector, worker compensation grew at an annual pace of 9.1%  between June 2021 and June 2022. Wages have gone up 6.5% in the sector, even after adjusting for inflation.

Medford Chamber of Commerce president Eli Matthews says the American Community Survey results are the fruit of years of work by the chamber and Travel Medford, the city’s tourism office, which have focused on creating tourism-related projects, including wine tours, children’s sports events and the state’s first-annual major-league cornhole tournament to the city since 2012.

He also mentioned Asante Health Systems, which he says attracts seniors and health care sector jobs to Medford.

“We’ve seen tremendous growth in the last 10 years in travel and tourism for Oregon. It’s over $15 billion industry, and it’s one of the driving factors down here,” says Matthews. “We’re projecting real good growth year-over-year. Through the pandemic, we were fortunate to get a lot of people who wanted an exodus from the larger cities. But the truth is travel, tourism has always been one of our driving successes here.”

Regional state economist Guy Tauer, who conducts workforce and economic research for Coos, Curry, Jackson and Josephine County for the Oregon Employment Department, tells Oregon Business that Medford’s eye-catching survey results may contain a lot of statistical noise.

“This survey is not similar to a Census where it’s counting everyone. When the sample sizes are larger, the margin of error is smaller,” says Tauer, who adds the Medford income will need to show continued growth and expansion for him to consider the upward growth a real trend. Purchasing power in Medford, for example, rose 6.7% according to the survey, but the results were not outside the survey’s margin of error. The survey also excluded proprietary income received by self-employed individuals and unincorporated business owners.

“I would say this is headed in the right direction, I just think you just have to read the survey with caution. If you’re trying to get to the bottom of ‘why did incomes go up?’ It’s hard to say,” says Tauer.

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Tauer says the Medford MSA’s growth numbers fell back to earth when adjusted for inflation, but still showed some statistically significant signs of growth during the 2019-2022 cycle. Average earnings in the Medford MSA increased 3.7% even after adjusting for inflation while inequality levels (calculated by the GINI coefficient) held steady, and remained lower than the national average. The amount of households with income between $100,000 and $149,999 also jumped from 14.9% to 18.4%, all statistically significant gains, according to Tauer.

In his article analyzing the survey data, Oregon state economist Josh Lehner pointed out that the positive income gains in southern Oregon have reversed a decade of decline. Over the last 10  years, regional growth in southern Oregon didn’t pick up until mid-to-late cycle, and the ground lost during the 2008 financial crisis housing that was not fully regained by the time the pandemic hit. Using a multi-year average, Lehner found “Medford’s relative income position compared to the statewide numbers hasn’t been this strong since the mid-2000s.”

With eight new hotels currently in development in the city and surrounding area, the Rogue X community center to host indoor sporting events slated to open this year, and steady population growth from people coming to the Medford MSA, Matthews says the city is well-positioned to continue its growth into the future.

“Compared to California, it’s far easier to have that quality of life, and your dollar will go a lot farther in southern Oregon. Our median home price right now is $401,000. In California, it’s literally triple that. There are over 220 days of sunshine, and you literally drive 20 minutes and you’re out enjoying all sorts of beautiful nature, rivers and lakes,” says Matthews, who adds that the chamber is still planning ways to grow. “The one thing we’re lacking here in Medford is a spot to hold larger, formal, conferences and meetings. So that’s one of our other goals that we’re going to achieve here shortly.”

Genesis Financial Solutions, a Beaverton-based financial services company which services credit cards and lending to consumers and suboptimal credit, announced this week that it has rebranded as Concora Credit. The rebrand features a new website, and comes after a year of forming business partnership with retailers looking to service lower-credit customers.

Jason Tinurelli, chief marketing officer at Concora Credit tells Oregon Business over email that the name Genesis Financial Solutions was not performing as well as desired. “As a company, we are 20 years old and have helped millions of people access credit, but our name and branding were not breaking through in the market. We took rebranding as an opportunity to stand out with our name, branding, and ‘Do More’ tag line,” says Tinurelli.

Genesis Financial Solutions was founded in 2001, and specializes in subprime consumer credit and student loans, and work with merchants, retailers, educational institutions and healthcare providers to offer credit to customers with FICO scores between 300 and 689 — scores considered subprime by most financial services providers.

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In March of this year, Genesis partnered with Michigan-based Gardner White to become the primary servicer of the furniture retailer’s secondary credit program, which offers revolving credit lines of up to $6,000 and deferred interest programs for customers with lower credit scores.

In May,  the company partnered with the Texas-based Upbound Group Inc, owners of lease-to-own furniture retailers Rent-A-Center and Acima, to issue its credit cards  to consumers. The Upbound Group reported $979.16 million in quarterly revenue in June, an 8.6% year-over-year decline.

In addition to the partnerships with Upbound and Rent-A-Center, Tinurelli says Concora Credit has two businesses it is looking to expand.

“The Mastercard programs are big and well-known, and we want to continue to expand those markets. On the Private Label Credit Card side, we want to continue growing with Upbound while adding other retailers and healthcare services where a second-look credit card program makes sense to help them do more business,” says Tinurelli.

The company’s credit cards will also be rebranded. According to the release, Concora’s headquarters will remain in Beaverton.

A previous version of this article said Concora Credit issued credit cards. The cards are issued by banks. Oregon Business regrets this error.

Forty-five members of United Auto Workers Local 492 at the Stellantis Parts Distribution Center in Beaverton have joined 5,600 workers at 38 parts and distribution centers in an expanded strike against Detroit automakers.

The work stoppage began after UAW President Shawn Fain announced the strike on Facebook Live Friday. The Beaverton workers join 13,000 other workers who began strikes last week at Ford, GM and Stellantis assembly plants across the country. Fain invited President Joe Biden to join striking auto workers during the announcement, an invitation the president accepted. 

The UAW has been in negotiations with Ford, General Motors and Stellantis – a Dutch multinational automotive manufacturing corporation formed from the merger of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and the French PSA Group — since June 2023. Workers began striking on Sept. 15 but have not seen sufficient movement to meet demands, which include wage increases and end to differential pay for temporary workers.

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Members of the Ford assembly plant in Portland are not on strike for now. Ford avoided additional strikes this week by meeting some of the union’s demands, according to Fain .

“This is an important time for our industry. As our country makes a needed transition to a green economy we have a historic opportunity to raise autoworkers standards instead of lowering them,” Local 492 President Rob Perdue said in a press release. “Unfortunately as the Big Three corporations expand into EVs they’re using it as an excuse to slash wages and undermine standards that generations of UAW workers have fought for and won. That needs to stop for all of our sake.”

“We’re planning to stay out as long as we need to win a fair contract,” Jill McCambridge, UAW Benefits Representative at the UAW Local 492, said in the release . “We’re done accepting wages that don’t keep up with the cost of living, and we’re done tolerating a two-tier system for temporary workers. The companies we work for are making record profits so it’s time to share with those of us who do the work every day.”

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Last week, Stellantis announced layoffs, which a company spokesperson attributed to the United Auto Workers strike.

A representative from Stellantis respond to request for comment with the company’s own press release, stating: “We question whether the union’s leadership has ever had an interest in reaching an agreement in a timely manner. They seem more concerned about pursuing their own political agendas than negotiating in the best interests of our employees and the sustainability of our U.S.”  

They did not address questions about layoffs at the Beaverton plant.

For former Oregon Department of Corrections director and Oregon Community Foundation CEO Max Williams, fixing Oregon’s Drug Addiction Treatment and Recovery Act through a ballot measure is the least best option.

The former Republican state legislator says he would prefer lawmakers address what he sees as “system deficiencies” in the state’s 2020 drug decriminalization Measure 110 during a legislative session.

In a conversation with Oregon Business, Williams pointed to Washington state as a successful example. In May, the state legislature passed SB 5536, which made drug possession and use criminal misdemeanors; it also allocates millions more in funding for addiction treatment and recovery services.

But Williams says that given the often-unpredictable results of Oregon legislative sessions, his organization — called the Coalition to Fix and Improve Measure 110 — has filed two voter initiatives with filed with the Oregon Secretary of State’s Office to act as a backstop.

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He says when he initially met with allies wanting to amend 110, there was talk of repealing the measure altogether. He says the part of the measure that works — using cannabis taxes to fund recovery and treatment efforts — will stay intact, and should be expanded to include funding from other sources. But he says decriminalizing hard drugs takes away the state’s method of handling drug-addicted individuals who are unable and/or unwilling to get help on their own.

The campaign already has $700,000 raised from high-profile donors like Columbia Sportswear CEO Tim Boyle, Nike founder Phil Knight and real estate developer Jordan Schnitzer.

Williams says if the state has the ability to arrest and detain individuals for drug possession, that also means it can mandate treatment earlier on in a person’s addiction cycle. He says the ability to mandate treatment is an important tool to help in addiction recovery and combat the state’s ongoing fentanyl crisis. The drug, which Oregon authorities seized 2 million doses of in 2022,  has surpassed methamphetamine as the most frequent cause of drug overdosing deaths in the state – which increased 41% last year.

“We are just sort of letting people stay in that space where they will eventually suffer an overdose, which is a tragedy for them and their families, or they commit a crime serious enough where they get a felony and have to do a longer jail or potential prison sentence and these tools can’t help them,” Williams tells OB. “We should intervene in these earlier steps of possession and use so that we can help move people in the right direction before they commit the more serious crimes. That’s not how people necessarily want to talk about it, but from my time in the Department of Corrections, for lots of people I worked with, a series of events led them into the system, and it was in the system where they got an opportunity to get cleaned up and make decisions about change.”

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A 2014 study published in the Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment 160 participants “under various levels of criminal justice supervision” in an outpatient substance abuse treatment program. Researchers that while those who were referred by court mandate demonstrated less motivation at entry, but were more likely to complete the six-month treatment program than those who entered it voluntarily.

Under Measure 110, possession of hard drugs remains illegal, but possession of small quantities of certain drugs is a civil violation comparable to a traffic ticket. Police can hand out $100 citations for drug users, that come with a card referring to an addiction treatment hotline; those who call the hotline can have the $100 fee waived. In May 2017, 1,483 people were arrested on drug possession charges in Oregon. In May 2022, that number declined to 176.

The program has had lackluster results; cited individuals rarely follow up for treatment on the hotline, or show up in court.

In June the Oregon legislature passed a bill that criminalizes possession of small quantities of fentanyl, rolling back part of 110.

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Both versions of the measure the coalition is considering re-criminalize possession of lethal drugs like fentanyl and methamphetamine and mandate treatment for “drug-dependent persons” convicted of or charged with drug possession or certain misdemeanor property crimes.  They also create a discharge diversion procedure for offenders who meet very specific criteria: to qualify for diversion, a defendant must have no other criminal charges pending, have not been convicted of drug manufacture or delivery within the last five years, have not have taken part in a drunk driving or drug diversion program within the last year, have not taken part in a drug diversion program or have been on probation for a drug misdemeanor charge within the last five years, and must not have a criminal history that includes two person-related felonies. They also establish record expungement procedures for offenders who successfully complete rehabilitation. Both measures also criminalize use of controlled substances in public.

One version of the measure stops there, while the other also stiffens penalties for dealing and manufacturing drugs, and transfers Measure 110’s grant program, funded by cannabis taxes and currently standing at $302 million from the Oregon Health Authority to Alcohol and Drug Policy Commission and directs the ADCP to fund evidence-based prevention programs.

“We think that the Alcohol and Drug Policy Commission has been an underutilized resource,” Williams says. “It doesn’t make sense to have one commission with a strategic plan about our long-term addiction needs in Oregon over here, and a separate group of people who are making decisions about how these important and critical resources are being managed as they go out to community over there. We think that there’s an opportunity to merge both of these things in one place. The governor directly appoints the members of the Alcohol and Drug Policy Commission, so this puts this squarely in the governor’s basket to pick to choose people who can serve on ADPC who have a mix of backgrounds and experience necessary.”

Willams says his organization prefers the lengthier bill, but which bill will make it to ballot depends on the titling process by the Attorney General’s office. He says he has been in contact with Rep. Rob Nosse (D-Portland) about a potential legislative fix. Nosse confirmed he had spoken with Williams, and that he assumes and hopes they will talk more. He says he discussed both versions of the bill with Williams, and that the process of addressing Measure 110’s consequences is “an evolving thing.”

“Max [Williams] is very engaging and being a former legislator and corrections department head and a lawyer, he knows a lot about this topic.  My hope is that he and his clients will work with us legislators to figure all this out as there are likely unintended consequences for what he and his funders want to accomplish,” Nosse told OB over email. “My hope is the legislative process will surface all that, and help bring him along to a series of solutions to the challenges our state is facing because of P2P, Meth, and Fentanyl.”

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According to Oregon Health and Science University and the ADPC, Oregon currently has a 49% capacity gap of treatment services, and the state ranks 50th in the nation for access to addiction treatment. According to the Oregon Health Authority, approximately 8,400 people have received treatment from services funded by Measure 110.  

An August poll found slightly more than half of Oregonians support of a repeal of Measure 110, with more than 64% supporting repealing parts of the law. Lawmakers across the state have already begun reacting to the potential shortcomings of the measure. In October, state legislators will go on a fact-finding mission to Portugal, which decriminalized drugs in 2000, to look for ways to curb addiction.

Williams is skeptical as to whether the Portugal trip will yield any substantial lessons for Oregon legislators. He says the addiction support infrastructure is already built in Portugal, that the money from Oregon’s cannabis tax is still insufficient to treat the state’s addiction problems, and that more funding will have to be found by state departments and the state legislature, especially as the state’s cannabis industry contracts.

“Even with even with those dollars, there’s insufficient infrastructure. It’s not enough to cover it and so if you’re serious about addressing the ravages of drugs and addiction in the state, you’re going to have to make more of an investment,” says Williams, who adds that he is hoping the legislature will address the issues with before either of his group’s measures make it to the ballot.  “It’s my hope that they will take this up. I think we have the potential to get a better product through that process. But again, forecasting the legislature has become increasingly difficult over the last 20 years and we just don’t feel like we just sort of stand by and take our chances.”

Erica Swartz wasn’t surprised by the wide margins of this week’s strike authorization vote against Oregon Health and Sciences University.

What was surprising, according to Swartz and to leadership in the Oregon Nurses Association, was what preceded it: OHSU’s August announcement that it intends to merge with Legacy Health Systems.

Swartz, who works in the pediatric oncology department at OHSU and as co-chair of the hospital’s staffing committee, says the merger announcement — exactly one week after nurses declared an impasse in their ongoing contract negotiations with OHSU — took nurses by surprise and has created uncertainty and mistrust between nurses and management. When the merger was announced, OHSU nurses and management had been engaged in bargaining since December of 2022 over safe staffing levels, compensation and other issues.

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Nearly 3,000 nurses at OHSU voted to authorize a strike against the health care provider Monday: 95% of those who participated in the vote favor a strike, and 96% of union nurses at the hospital voted.

ONA spokesperson Kevin Mealy told Oregon Business that in April, the ONA bargaining team asked OHSU’s chief financial officer if the hospital aware of any major acquisitions on the horizon, and that nurses were told no.

“[That] was in April and in August, they announced this merger with Legacy so obviously that was already in the making. I think the other piece behind that is there’s a little issue of trust, in this particular discussion, but also more broadly,” Mealy says. “If you weren’t as open about that merger at that point, then we definitely want a backstop or something written in the contract that we will have a role, and not just the CFO or someone else from the executive suite saying ‘Yeah, you’ll have a say; we’re very interested in your input.’”

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Sara Hottman, associate director of media relations at OHSU, told Oregon Business over email that OHSU notified members of the merger once the letter of intent was finalized in August. Now OHSU and Legacy Health are in the due diligence phase of the nonbinding letter of intent, and she says they expect to have a definitive agreement by December of this year. Hottman provided an FAQ about the merger, but did not directly address Mealy’s claim about the CFO’s April comments.

Swartz says she has questions about how her future at the company will look under the combined health care system which OHSU has not yet answered, and could impact the delivery of care to patients.

“So far, OHSU has provided no information to us about how our work environments may change,” Swartz says. “At the bargaining table we have been asking for a memorandum of understanding, which is management agreeing with us that if and when the merger happens, they will return to bargaining and work it out with us if our working conditions were to change. They have not been willing to do so, and have expressed sentiment that it is their administrative right to do as they see fit.”

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Mealy says that while the ONA is still “cautiously optimistic” about the merger but that in general, health care mega-mergers lead to fewer services and higher costs for patients. According to a 2023 literature review by the health care research nonprofit KFF (formerly known as the Kaiser Family Foundation), a growing body of evidence shows that consolidation in health care provider markets has led to increases in prices without clear evidence of increases in quality.

The quality of care at hospitals acquired during recent waves of consolidation either got worse or stayed the same, according to a 2020 study led by Harvard Medical School published in 2020 issues of the New England Journal of Medicine.

Mealy says having a front-line voice during the process of merging the two healthcare systems means patients and workers will have an advocate as the healthcare systems go about the restructuring process.

“I think there’s a sense that having a frontline voice during that merger process, looking at the details and how we work through combining two different systems with two different sets of standards and ways of working, is going to be very important to make it successful and  something that’s actually good for patients and nurses, as opposed to what we’ve seen across the board, which is that mergers haven’t delivered what they promised.”

The nurses’ contract expired June 30, and the two sides have now completed the required 30-day cooling off period after the impasse declared in August. The union is required to give OHSU 10 days’ notice before calling a strike.

A research and outreach unit at the University of Oregon’s College of Education has announced a partnership with Irish voice tech startup SoapBox Labs, to integrate the company’s dialectical artificial intelligence technology into the university’s assessment tool.

A press release accompanying the announcement said UO plans to integrate SoapBox Labs’ technology into CBMskills, a program which pairs with easyCBM, the platform the College of Education uses to measure the progress of entry-level readers. SoapBox Labs’ system can accurately assess children based on their own unique speech patterns, accents, and dialects, leading the company to win tech certification nonprofit Digital Promise’s Prioritizing Racial Equity in AI Design product certification in 2022.

The announcement follows two other recent SoapBox Labs collaborations with educational publishers Scholastic and Imagine Learning.  Gerald Tindal, director of behavioral research and teaching at the University of Oregon, said in the press release the incorporation of SoapBox Labs’ technology into CBMskills “[A]llows us to much more effectively and precisely unpack where students are struggling, so we can intervene more strategically and more quickly.”

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“This partnership underscores our commitment to revolutionizing language and reading development through technology, and together with the University of Oregon, we’re continuing to leverage voice technology to help teachers and students,” Martyn Farrows, CEO at SoapBox Labs, said in the release.

UO’s College of Education launched, easyCBM, 15 years ago to assess acquisition of reading skills and inform educators’ interventions to support struggling students. Since its release, the program has been used to deliver eight million education assessments, according to UO. CBMskills is a voice-driven assessment platform which records and assesses timed reading passages to track student’s learning progress in order to identify and intervene with struggling readers.

Using the SoapBox language engine, the assessment tracks a student’s progress through timed reading passages, making it easier for educators to accurately and specifically identify where students are making mistakes in oral language proficiency. For example, a child who skips words or sentences but pronounces the words correctly may have a visual processing problem rather than a reading problem. If a child regularly replaces an “R” with an “lL,” an articulation disorder may also be present. The type and frequency of errors can be highlighted through a voice-enabled learning tool, enabling more personalized instruction and faster intervention.

The College of Education’s behavioral research and teaching division plans to onboard an additional 10,000 teachers with CBMskills by the spring of 2024, according to the announcement.

QPO Energy, a lithium battery maker based in Tualitin, announced plans this week to expand its Tualatin operation and relocate an inverter factory from China to Oregon.  

A press release from Greater Portland Inc. does not offer a timeline for the expansion, and Oregon Business was not able to reach either QPO or GPI for comment.

In the release, Greater Portland Inc., QPO CEO Joseph Lu told Monique GPI’s Monique Claiborne the expansion was  made possible by incentives from the Inflation Reduction Act and support from private investment  firms as well as support from Taiwan’s Yulon Group.

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It isn’t clear how many Oregonians the company —which was founded in 2020 — currently employs, nor how many Oregon jobs the expansion will create. but Lu told Claiborne the expansion will allow the company’s workforce to grow to 400 people.

Per QPO’s website, the company’s product line includes semi-truck batteries, battery modules and packs and PCS inverters.

According to data the U.S. Energy Information Administration, Oregon’s renewable energy consumption as a share of the state’s total was 51% in 2022. In the release, Lu said Oregon has “logistical advantages,” with its location, ports and transportation network providing access to key markets in North America, China and Japan.

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Lu also noted that Oregon provides grants of up to $50,000, through the Governor’s Strategic Reserve Fund, to organizations who plan to apply for federal Inflation Reduction Act funds. The Strategic Reserve Fund is dedicated to supporting private sector Oregon climate tech, renewable energy, and advanced manufacturing companies.

“I anticipate more businesses will follow in QPO’s footsteps and explore the remarkable opportunities that Greater Portland, Oregon has to offer,” Lu said in the release. “From its dynamic business landscape to its unmatched quality of life, Oregon stands ready to welcome visionary enterprises and partner in their journey towards success.”

According to CBRE’s Second-quarter Portland Office Figures Report released in July, the overall vacancy rate rose across the Portland metro. The average direct asking lease rate across the metro area also remained flat, at $32.23 per square foot. At the same time, overall direct asking rates for office space downtown have increased 4% when measured from the same period in 2020.  

The report partially attributes the rise in vacancy to the completion of The Offices at 11W. The report also noted the amount of available subleased space in downtown Portland decreased 2.3% quarter-over-quarter, the first decrease since 2021. Sublease availability still accounted for 19.7% of overall availability in the market, increasing by over 1 million square feet year-over-year.

Samuel Hatcher, field research manager for CBRE in Portland, says while some commercial real estate prices are coming down, Portland’s premier Class A buildings won’t be lowering lease rates any time soon. He says overall trends showing workers coming back into the office, as well as cyclical indicators, signal the recovery of Portland’s commercial real estate market. 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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According to CBRE’s 2^nd-quarter data, asking lease rates are relatively flat, despite the vacancy rate. Do you see lease rates going down any time soon?

I don’t think we would come to a consensus that rates are coming down, especially on Class A product. But there has been some movement downward, potentially, in Class B and Class C. We really haven’t seen your prices come down in Class A office buildings, whether that’s downtown in the central city, or in the suburbs. On Class B and Class C buildings, maybe some movement to the downside.

Why are Class A buildings slower to drop asking prices?

It’s just the nature of the environment, and the nature of the market. When you think about the mix between institutional owners versus family owners or smaller portfolios, I would say that institutional ownership can withstand turbulent market volatility, and they aren’t necessarily as incentivized to fluctuate with the market.

When we’re talking about Class A buildings, we’re talking about the trophy office buildings that have been determined to be the top-tier buildings in the market by our office leasing and sales professionals, whether it’s due to their age, location, and really, we’re looking at amenities. I would just say it’s the fact that there is a large share of the market owned by institutional owners with deep pockets that don’t necessarily move based off what other owners might move off of.

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There are reports of companies moving into [downtown] Portland [or choosing to stay downtown], specifically Miller Nash, Davis Wright Tremaine, and All Classical Radio. Is there more demand from people wanting office space in downtown Portland?

We do have active tenants in the market. We are tracking an overall trend of flight to experience or flight to quality. It’s something that we’re building a database off of, their reasons for moving and so on and so forth.

The example that you mentioned with All Classical falls into the category of flight to experience or flight to quality, where they were originally located on the East Side, now they’re downtown, and KOIN tower is a Class A building in prime location. I would say that same with Miller Nash and Davis Wright Tremaine.  

Your report mentions sublease agreements expiring as a reason to be bullish on Portland’s commercial real estate market recovering. Why is that positive?

When you’re looking at Q4 of 2019 or Q1 in 2020, before the pandemic we were tracking about 500,000, 550,000 square feet. Fast forward two and a half, three years. We’re sitting at about two and a half million square feet across the market. Subleasing space could be an indication of a downturn in the market. But when we’re looking out into 2024 2025, there’s a great chunk of that space expected to expire.

During the time period of 2019 to 2020, when there was a lot of scrutiny on commercial real estate needs, you saw a lot of tech companies, a lot of health care companies, reevaluating their office needs and putting space on the market. That’s an indication of, I don’t want to say necessarily tougher times, just a higher level of scrutiny.

We’re projecting nearly a million square feet of sublease availability to expire between now and the end of 2025, so that is a signal of a recovery.  Now that is coming back on the market for direct space. When the sublease space is expiring, it’s an indication that the market is absorbing that space. Rather than having more space come online, seeing it come off in a wave is showing the cycle of the market.

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What are the other trends you’re looking at for Portland’s commercial real estate market?

Irrespective of sublease, keeping a continued eye on office utilization. That’s not necessarily tracking occupancy, having in-depth conversations with property managers about employees returning to the office. As far as positive trends that we’re seeing in Portland, both downtown in in the suburbs, is a year-over-year uptick in office utilization.

We don’t account for every single last building in the market, but when we’re looking at July of 2022 in downtown, multi and single-tenant building utilization was between about 25% to 30%. Fast forward a year to the July-August time frame in 2023, we’re at about 40 to 65%. So, there has been a noticeable difference. And that trend is replicated in the suburbs where there’s a noticeable difference in not necessarily occupancy rate, but the amount of employees who are coming into the office building.

I think that’s a very positive trend, whether that means we’re getting further away from the pandemic or offices are implementing different types of incentives for people to come back, just the idea that we are seeing more people both downtown and, in the suburbs, coming into the office I think is very positive.

Why is your report bullish on Portland’s commercial real estate market’s recovery?

One of the things that Portland has going forward for it and I think always will, is people in their 20s and 30s. They’re always going to look at Portland as a destination for lifestyle. You know, it’s always going to be a metro area that offers live, work, and play options.

Downtown just welcomed a Class A premier trophy office building with 11W, a mixed use property that also has residential and retail space as well. The Ritz Carlton opening in block 216 is the first Ritz Carlton in the Pacific Northwest, and that is a very positive story for downtown, and Portland generally. I think that the Midtown Beer Garden that just opened in collaboration with Expensify and Chef’s Table will spur additional foot traffic back downtown. That’s all part of Portland’s culture.

There’s a lot of very exciting things happening in Vancouver both on the industrial side and on the office and residential side. Zoominfo signed a lease couple years ago for new construction of 365,000 square feet. The Vancouver waterfront is, I think, one of the most exciting places to be on a on a Thursday, Friday, Saturday night. The investment and development that is ongoing right now at the Vancouver waterfront is, I don’t want to say going unnoticed, but I think it’s almost a national story. Just the amount of activity and foot traffic.

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What are you most concerned about?

When I have conversations with my colleagues or other brokers, it really comes down to a couple of things. Number one, the business environment. Then also, just wanting to do our best to get this city back to being as clean and as safe as it can be. I think we’re making great strides right now.

Downtown is in great shape compared to where it was a year and a half ago, but I think we need to just continue with that sentiment, and continue putting our efforts into making the city more lively. I think we’re doing a great job right now. But I think there’s room for improvement.

Last week, Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley announced that 28 renewable energy projects targeting rural parts of the state will receive $2.3 million of grant funding.

Funding for the projects — mostly solar panel installations at rural farms and businesses — comes from  the Inflation Reduction Act, which includes $369 billion in federal funding over 10 years to support renewable energy projects, according to a press release issued jointly by Wyden and Merkley last week.

Nearly half of the procurement — $1 million — will go toward the installation of a ground-mounted solar energy system for Verde Light Community Solar LLC in Ontario. The system is estimated to generate over 8,000,000 kilowatt-hours per year, the equivalent needed to power 750 single family homes annually, and will provide $121,170 per year in energy cost savings to local subscribers.

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Smaller projects included $11,824 to help Lexington-based Tin Willow Sheep Dairy farm purchase and install a solar panel system capable of replacing over half of the business’s energy use with solar power, reducing its utility bill by $782 per year in the process.

Of the 28 projects to receive funding, 26 projects involved the installation of solar panel systems.

The Deschutes Soil and Water Conservation District, Spark Northwest, North Fork John Day River Watershed Council, and the Yamhill Soil and Water Conservation District received a combined total of $100,000 to increase implementation of renewable energy generation by rural small businesses, farms and agricultural producers throughout the state. The University of Oregon’s Resource Assistance for Rural Environments AmeriCorps Program also received $100,000 to work with area partners to increase implementation of renewable energy generation by rural small businesses and farms.

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“We can address high energy prices due to the volatility in the price of oil and natural gas by bolstering our clean, domestic energy supplies in every nook and cranny of our state and across the nation,” said Wyden in the press release. “I was proud to have fought for and secured some of the most consequential pieces of the Inflation Reduction Act to tackle the climate crisis and create new jobs, but one of my main goals was to ensure that rural farmers, ranchers, businesses and organizations could benefit from the cost savings. I’m gratified to see so many Oregonians getting much-deserved benefits.”

“Oregon’s communities—both big and small, urban and rural—make our state successful and vibrant,”  Merkley said in the release. “Investing in Oregon’s small businesses, farmers, and ranchers supports strong local economies, especially in the more rural parts of the state. The benefits of these investments stretch to every corner of Oregon, and I’ll continue to champion critical support like this for Oregon’s rural economic opportunities.”

A full list of the funded projects is available on Wyden’s website.

Correction: A previous version of this article said the Verde Light Community Solar Project would generate 8.066 gigawatt hours per year. Oregon Business regrets these errors.