Jeff Swickard is set to take a 90 percent stake in Park Avenue West, the 30-story tower across from Director Park and Nordstrom in downtown Portland, in a deal that would avert a foreclosure auction on the property. It would mark his third downtown Portland office-tower purchase in just over a year, following his acquisitions of the U.S. Bancorp Tower and the Five Oak building.
News of the pending deal was reported by The Registry on LinkedIn, which described Swickard as set to take the 90 percent stake in the building located at 760 S.W. Ninth Ave. Park Avenue West opened in 2016 and is considered the fourth-largest building in downtown Portland, combining luxury apartments, office space and ground-floor retail that includes Pendleton Woolen Mills, according to Business News This Week. TMT Development and other existing owners are expected to retain the remaining 10 percent interest in the property, per the same report.
A Rapid Buildout of Downtown Holdings
Swickard, president and CEO of Swickard Group, has invested nearly $250 million in the heart of Portland over the past year, committing more than $100 million for the majority interest in Park Avenue West alone, according to Business News This Week. That spending follows his $45 million all-cash purchase of U.S. Bancorp Tower — known locally as Big Pink — in July 2025, a deal reported at the time by CoStar. He followed that in February 2026 by acquiring the neighboring Five Oak building for $10.5 million, a 67 percent decline in value from its 2014 sale price, as OregonLive reported.
Big Pink's price tag drew particular attention given its history: the tower last sold for $372.5 million in 2015, according to Kidder Mathews, while CoStar pegs the 2015 sale at $316.63 million, or about $323 per square foot, compared with roughly $39 per square foot in the 2025 Swickard purchase. Kidder Mathews has since been selected to lead leasing for a planned modernization of Big Pink, its adjacent plaza and a 12-story parking structure.
Betting on a Struggling Market
Swickard's buying spree comes as downtown Portland's office market remains uneven at best. Quarterly office leasing fell from an average of 400,000 square feet in 2024 to just 250,000 square feet in 2025, the lowest level on record except for 2020, according to the Portland Metro Chamber. Vacant office space in the Central City averaged more than 10 million square feet in 2025, also a record high, per the same report, even as foot traffic has climbed back to about 86 percent of pre-pandemic levels.
Downtown Portland's office market remained under pressure from high vacancy, even as sales activity picked up — Kidder Mathews reported year-to-date office sales volume of 2,247,648 square feet through the second quarter, a 73.8 percent jump from the same period in 2025, and expects the market to stay tenant-favorable in the near term even as conditions edge toward equilibrium.
More Than a Balance-Sheet Bet, Swickard Says
Swickard has framed his Portland spending as being about more than financial returns, according to Business News This Week, and has acknowledged that investing heavily in downtown Portland carries real uncertainty. He has said he wants to see the city's sidewalks busy, its restaurants full and its storefronts filling back up.
The bet has local roots: Swickard Auto Group operates five dealerships in Oregon and employs roughly 3,000 people overall, with about 500 of those employees living and working in the state, per Business News This Week. Other recent activity in the market echoes the same theme of new ownership circling downtown towers: Melvin Mark and Swickard acquired the Black Box building at 200 S.W. Market for $70 million, Kidder Mathews reported.
