By Rusty MacKenzie, Franklin High School’s The Franklin Post
Legin Commons, a new four-story apartment complex in SE Portland, officially opened on September 10. The grand opening featured a panel of speakers, a ribbon-cutting and an optional tour of the facilities. The new building’s site is leased by Portland Community College and features 124 units of affordable housing, 63 of which are sized for families.
Legin Commons is situated on SE 77th Ave. and Division St. in the Jade District. “It’s such a beautiful building and a unique space with lots of green space,” says Michael Magnes, the director of resource development and communications at Our Just Future (OJF). OJF is a housing equity organization serving the Portland area that aims to “[counter] the forces that keep people and communities in poverty by building relationships and assets that create opportunity,” according to their website.
OJF is a co-owner of Legin Commons, alongside the real estate firm Edlen & Co. and the Asian Pacific American Network of Oregon (APANO). The Jade District is a majority-Asian neighborhood with many Asian-owned businesses and restaurants. As such, APANO helped ensure that the development was responsive to the needs and wants of its community. APANO also runs Legin Commons’ residential services.
“Stable housing is the foundation for almost everything else in a person’s life, including health, education, employment, family stability and the ability to remain connected to a community,” says Emily Gazda, business operations and executive administrator at Edlen & Co. Magnes adds, “There is an affordability [and] housing crisis in Portland. … People simply cannot afford to pay rent.”
All 124 units at Legin Commons are affordable to households earning at or below 60 percent of the area median income, with rents restricted accordingly. “Area median income represents the midpoint of household incomes within a particular region and is adjusted based on household size,” explains Gazda. “20 homes at Legin Commons are reserved for households earning no more than 30 percent of the Portland area’s median income, based on their household size. These are the most deeply affordable homes in the building, helping make a stable home more accessible to people and families with extremely low incomes.”
Funding for Legin Commons came from a variety of public and private sources, including a grant from the Portland Clean Energy Community Benefits Fund (PCEF), which funds community-oriented climate action efforts in Portland. “The building is all-electric and highly energy efficient, and its 99-year affordability period means the public investment will serve the community for generations,” says Gazda.
Features of Legin Commons highlighted during the tour portion of the grand opening include an on-site laundry room with a view of an indoor play area, which allows parents to watch their children while doing laundry. “These amenities help to make the community a home,” says Magnes. “We wanted to create spaces for childcare, laundry, meeting rooms to reduce barriers to these services and to make sure that the property was near grocery stores, restaurants, parks and major transportation lines.”
“Projects like this only happen through genuine collaboration because no single organization holds every piece,” says Gazda. “It means bringing different areas of expertise to the same table, making decisions together and remaining coordinated throughout a process that can take several years.” Alongside the main development team, many other organizations, including Bora Architecture & Interiors, Portland Housing Bureau, LMC Construction and PCEF, helped make this project a reality.
“I love how, thanks to APANO and Edlen [& Co.], we were really able to honor the legacy of the neighborhood and the community,” says Magnes. The legacy he refers to is Legin Restaurant—the new apartment complex’s namesake—which, 14 years ago, sat just three blocks away. Once praised by the Portland Chinese Times as the largest Chinese restaurant on the West Coast, Legin Restaurant was beloved by its community in the Jade District. “Legin Commons is named in honor of a place that once brought people together, and I hope it carries that same spirit of connection and belonging forward for the people who make it their home,” says Gazda. “To me, it is a powerful example of what is possible when organizations unite around a shared mission and contribute their individual strengths.”