PORTLAND, Ore. — The Portland Opera said Thursday it will sell its Southeast Portland headquarters building.
The Hampton Opera Center is home to the Opera's administrative offices and contains a performance space, costume shop and rehearsal spaces in its 44,835 square feet. Opera leaders said the move will help alleviate debt accrued during the pandemic and since it reopened in Fall 2021. Since the reopening, ticketing revenue is down by 29% over the 2018-19 season.
Portland Opera bought the building, the former home of KPTV, in 2003 for $5.7 million. Its location within what's informally being called the OMSI District, expected to generate some of the city's biggest real estate deals in coming years, could make the distinctive structure attractive to speculative buyers.
Money from the sale will help the Opera get "the financial support for us to find and move to new artistic headquarters that supports production and artistic operations," Sue Dixon, the group's general director, said in a release.
The three-story structure sits on 1.9 acres at the east end of the Tilikum Crossing. The property, a short hop from the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, includes 117 surface parking spaces and sits along both a TriMet MAX and a Portland Streetcar stop.
Dixon said the sale "will free Portland Opera from the debt of a $2.4 million lien" put on the building in 2016. It will bolster its cash reserves and endowment.
The Portland Business Journal, a KGW News partner, has more details here.
