The Vancouver-based Al Angelo Co. has purchased the Riverview Tower, one of downtown’s largest office buildings, for $18.75 million through its affiliate Wyndhaven Mesa Partners.
The 11-floor building, which opened in 1991 as First Interstate Tower, is at 900 Washington St. The Class A office building is headquarters to Riverview Community Bank and houses a number of other commercial tenants. It also contains 26 rental apartments on the building’s midlevel floors as well as ground-level retail.
With about 240,000 feet of space for lease or rent, the building is about 96 percent occupied, said Craig Angelo, managing partner for the Al Angelo Co. The purchase deal closed Aug. 31.
Angelo said his firm had long been interested in the building to complement its Class A office building at 400 E. Mill Plain Blvd., which also is nearly fully occupied.
“It fit our portfolio just perfectly,” Angelo said. The building had been owned by local investment firm Mc Investments Inc.
Angelo said the building would retain the name Riverview Tower. The new owners will make improvements to common areas throughout the building and to the apartment units as they become open, he said.
Opened in 1991, the building that was originally the First Interstate Tower was renamed the Riverview Tower in 2000 when the local bank moved its headquarters into the building.
The Al Angelo Co., founded in 1944, now owns and leases more than 700,000 square feet of commercial space and 2,500 residential units on the West Coast.
While the high occupancy in the two buildings is a strong showing for downtown’s commercial real estate market, some brokers say it has lagged at a time when the east Clark County and Portland regional commercial markets are booming. Angelo said he agreed with those who say downtown’s market relies too heavily on company relocations within the downtown district while failing to attract new tenants from the outside.
“The issue that you have in Vancouver is that we need to do something to attract outside corporate users into downtown Vancouver,” he said, adding that more residents and retail would bring new energy to downtown.
