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Portland Business Journal
The best and worst industries for finding a job right now
Workers in the market for a new job are finding quick success if they're targeting a select few industries — and, perhaps surprisingly, if they're hunting without the aid of artificial intelligence.<\p> A new survey from Resume Builder of workers hired into new jobs within the last six months paints a picture of workers in food and hospitality, retail, and construction being been able to find jobs quickly. Prospective employees in business and finance, education, and software are having a harder time landing a new job.<\p>
Downtown Portland hotel once again faces foreclosure
Owners of downtown Portland’s Dossier are again in peril of losing the upscale hotel thanks to lingering debt and a tepid market for guest rooms.<\p> Borrowers under the name Portland Hotel LLC defaulted on debt tied to the 205-room hotel at 750 S.W. Alder St., public records obtained by the Business Journal disclose. Dossier is owned in a joint venture between Gordon Sondland-founded Provenance Hotels, Miami investor Gencom and private real estate fund manager Corten.<\p>
Rose Festival plucks a parade grand marshal from the sports world
After only two years in business, the owner of the world’s first women's sports-focused bar in Portland will lead the Rose Festival’s Starlight Parade.<\p> Jenny Nguyen, owner of the Sports Bra, will act as the grand marshal of the parade, one of the most popular events of the two-week-long festival. The parade features marching bands, floats and other hand-built works of art. It starts at 8 p.m. June 1 on Southwest Naito Parkway near the Morrison Bridge, and ends at Providence Park.<\p>
MG2 acquires Portland firm known for its work on affordable housing
Seattle-based architecture company MG2 on Wednesday announced its acquisition of Portland-based Studio C Architecture.<\p> Studio C is a four-member firm known for its multifamily residential design with a specialty in affordable housing.<\p>
AI's latest casualty? Entry-level jobs
Welcome to The National Observer, a roundup of top business news and actionable insights from across The Business Journals. We'll take a look today at how artificial intelligence is taking roles that used to act as entry-level positions; Frontier Airline's strategy targeting business travelers; and how you can buy everything in a Red Lobster restaurant. But we'll start with what higher-for-longer rates mean for those in the real estate business.<\p> Get more stories like these every day in your inbox by subscribing to The National Observer newsletter.<\p>
Ampere touts souped-up chip, Qualcomm collaboration
Ampere Computing is promoting a more powerful version of its data center processor and an AI collaboration with Qualcomm Technologies in an annual report released on Thursday.<\p> In the report, Ampere picks up on the theme it hit hard a year ago as the realization began to grow that ubiquitous AI, for all its possible benefits, could bring overwhelming energy demand.<\p>
PGE's controversial rate increase proposal gets public hearing
Portland General Electric customers can tell Oregon utility regulators Thursday night what they think about the company's already hotly contested proposed 2025 rate increase.<\p> The proposal by the state's largest electric utility has drawn attention less for its size — a 7.4% overall average increase — than for its timing: PGE filed the general rate case just a few weeks after residential customers began absorbing an 18% increase that went into effect at the beginning of the year.<\p>
Managed care giant buys 104-year-old Portland retirement community
Private investors are buying the 104-year-old Cedar Sinai Park, a Jewish senior living community in Southwest Portland.<\p> Cedar Sinai announced the change on its website, saying that it is selling its Boundary Street campus after a yearlong effort to forge a “future path to sustainability.” <\p>
California-based running shoe brand grows office in Goose Hollow
The parent of running-shoe brand Hoka, known for its chunky soles, is taking space inside the Canvas office building by Providence Park.<\p> Deckers Brands, with its U.S. headquarters in California, is leasing an undisclosed amount of space within Canvas, the first phase of the Press Blocks development where the Oregonian's printing press used to operate, developers Urban Renaissance Group and Security Properties said on Wednesday. <\p>
Oregon AAPI Food & Wine Fest returns this weekend with the Cho touch
It's been a busy spring for Lois Cho.<\p> She and husband Dave Cho have opened their Cho Wines & Vineyards tasting room and winery on Bald Peak in the Chehalem Mountains. And the CEO has been at work on the Oregon AAPI Food & Wine Fest, which she founded and leads.<\p>
OHSU building boom: How a $1B investment could transform care
OHSU Hospital, which is already Oregon's largest hospital, is undergoing a major expansion, and Doernbecher Children’s Hospital could follow suit in the coming months.<\p> The 14-story inpatient wing is rising on Marquam Hill on the former site of the School of Dentistry, which moved to the South Waterfront years ago. <\p>
Umpqua Bank parent cuts more than 230 jobs so far this year
Columbia Banking System (Nasdaq: COLB), the parent of Lake Oswego-based Umpqua Bank, has cut 233 employees so far this year.<\p> In first-quarter earnings in April, President and CEO Clint Stein said the company cut its workforce by 91 full-time equivalent positions in the first quarter of 2024, and had told employees of another 142 scheduled to happen in April. That brings the total to 233 so far this year.<\p>
Aequitas prosecutors share stories from Oregon's largest fraud trial
The largest criminal fraud trial in Oregon history was set to begin in about a week, when the prosecution was faced with a major curveball.<\p> Brian Oliver, the former No. 2 man at Aequitas Capital Management and the star witness in the case, was preparing for his upcoming testimony at the U.S. Attorney’s offices in downtown Portland, as he’d been doing for countless hours leading up to this moment. Oliver, who had been feeling unwell for weeks, took a call from his doctor. The news was not good: pancreatic cancer.<\p>
Elevated interest rates force re-pricing of billions in CRE debt
Just shy of $20 billion in commercial mortgage-backed securities debt backing U.S. office properties is set to mature in the next year, occurring at a time that's now also expected to feature a higher-for-longer interest-rate environment. <\p> Moody's Analytics Inc. found that as of April, $19.9 billion in office CMBS loans will mature by next spring. That's a marked increase over the $8.75 billion in office CMBS debt that matured in 2023. <\p>
A Clackamas brewpub supplier buys a North Carolina firm
A Clackamas-based company has made a move that takes it further into the sustainability realm.<\p> Hoptown Handles, a custom tap manufacturer, has bought Beer to Bags, a Raleigh, N.C.-based startup that uses breweries’ throw-away malt bags and turns them into customized beer tote bags.<\p>
Former Portland exec faces seven years in prison after guilty plea
The former CEO of a Seattle-based medical device company pleaded guilty on Wednesday to one count of wire fraud related to a scheme in which he allegedly bilked investors out of millions of dollars.<\p> More than a decade ago, Stephen Baird pitched investors on what was supposed to be a revolutionary product for the dental industry. His company, S-Ray Inc., was developing a product with ultrasound technology that would make traditional X-ray technology obsolete. However, the product never came to fruition and money from investors disappeared from the company's account.<\p>
Stunning report lays out fentanyl's human toll in Portland
New data from Multnomah County suggests that Portland's number of fentanyl-overdose deaths has jumped 18-fold over the past five years.<\p> Early numbers from 2023 indicate that nearly 36 people died each month from the easily obtainable synthetic opioid, up from two deaths per month in 2018 and 2019.<\p>
A major Portland artery will close for maintenance on Sunday
Drivers, bicyclists and runners looking to get between Northwest and North/Northeast Portland next Sunday should take a quick look at their planned routes.<\p> Multnomah County will close the Broadway Bridge May 19 for maintenance work. The county has long planned to replace the deck and sidewalks of the bridge's lift spans in calendar year 2024.<\p>
OLCC bourbon investigation wraps up
Oregon's attorney general said this week no criminal charges are warranted for Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission officials who "improperly used their positions to obtain in-demand bottles of bourbon."<\p> Ellen Rosenblum said the Department of Justice's report "is limited to criminal matters and does not separately address whether the conduct of any OLCC employee violated Oregon’s civil ethics laws." The decision comes after Rosenblum's department reviewed 10,000-plus documents and interviewed more than 40 OLCC employees and others.<\p>
Portland marketers join forces in new industry group
Two Pacific Northwest groups that work with marketing execs say they've formed an alliance that will help its member professionals better connect.<\p> Club CMO and ThinkNW say the strategy "will benefit and connect brand, agency, creative, technology and entrepreneurial leaders across the region." Club CMO offers networking opportunities chief marketing officers and other senior execs while ThinkNW calls itself "a next-generation community" that connects marketing teams.<\p>
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