December 19, 2004
(Updated) Strange Naito Actions On Import Plaza Block
Can Anyone Decipher What This Means?
Note: This post has been updated. Any and all updates appear at the end of the original post.
One of the stories we haven't checked with in awhile is the dispute over the Naito-owned block to which the City wants to relocate Fire Station #1. We had hoped that today's Sunday Oregonian article (which appears to have escaped being posted to OregonLive) on the internal conflicts amongst the various branches of the Naito family might shed some light on that matter, but alas we find no mention.
The reason we were hoping for some sort of update is this earlier Oregonian item from December 13, which reported that while the Naitos and the City were allgedly heading into the home stretch of their legal battle over the block in question, the Naitos had gone ahead and taken a rather bizarre parallel action.
Owners of the former Import Plaza building in Old Town have applied to the city of Portland for a demolition permit while negotiating sale of the historic building.
The demolition application, filed with the city Bureau of Development Services, came just before attorneys for the city and Naito family companies that own the building told a judge they were a week from resolving the city's condemnation suit.
According to that article, it was hoped that a negotiated settlement between the Naitos and the City would be presented in court on December 17 -- which of course was this just-passed Friday. Either nothing happened, or no media outlet reported on what happened, or we missed any mention of what happened. We certainly can't seem to find any announcement out of the Portland Development Commission.
At any rate, here's the status of the demolition request, if anyone's interested. It hasn't seen any activity since December 8.
Update
For those who haven't checked the comments to this item, here's the word from John Ray, on behalf of H. Naito Corporation: "The negotiations continue, amicably, and the demolition request has been withdrawn."
Comments (1)
John Ray on 20 Dec 2004
To update: The negotiations continue, amicably, and the demolition request has been withdrawn.