Miller Nash has been a trusted legal advisor to Portland Community Reinvestment Initiatives (PCRI) for more than 15 years and we are proud to be longtime partners of a nonprofit that is so beneficial to our community. PCRI was born out of the fallout from redlining and deceptive lending practices for families in inner North and Northeast Portland. After these practices were exposed, neighborhood and government leaders decided to form a nonprofit whose goal would be to preserve, expand, and manage affordable housing in Portland. The nonprofit they created is PCRI. Today, PCRI has added over 700 units of affordable housing. These units are woven into the fabric of their neighborhoods and are a model for eliminating concentrations of poverty. At the most basic level, PCRI’s affordable rentals help residents achieve family stability.
As PCRI began developing affordable housing projects through the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit program, members of Miller Nash’s affordable housing team—Ryan Nisle, James Walker, and retired partner Ron Shellan—have represented PCRI along the way. The team has provided guidance in a variety of areas, including low-income housing tax credits, construction, condominium creation, environmental, real estate, nonprofit governance, and financing. Additionally, as the completed projects have matured and included a component of mixed use, we now assist with leasing related to commercial tenants.
“When I joined PCRI in 2019 and began working with the team at Miller Nash, their familiarity with our projects and our organization provided me great comfort that our legal counsel had our best interest in mind, especially during these challenging times,” said Kymberly Horner, Executive Director of PCRI. “It has been a pleasure to continue PCRI’s partnership with Miller Nash as they are committed to helping us advance our mission to expand affordable housing in the city of Portland.”
Miller Nash’s support for recent PCRI projects includes the Beatrice Morrow (pictured above), an 80-unit affordable housing project, completed by PCRI in the Eliot neighborhood in 2018, and is impressively certified LEED Gold. The Beatrice Morrow offers affordable rental housing and community-serving commercial retail space at the site of the former Grant Warehouse on NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
Miller Nash also assisted with the King + Parks, a 70-unit multifamily rental project that opened in the fall of 2020, developed by PCRI in the Piedmont neighborhood of the Interstate Corridor Urban Renewal Area. And most recently, our firm supported the Blandena Townhomes project, which includes six new 2- and 3-bedroom townhomes designed for purchase by first-time homebuyers.
We are honored to partner with PCRI’s leadership and staff through the years as they continue to help the communities in which we live and work by providing affordable and stable housing. To learn more, visit pcrihome.org.
