Longtime Portland developer says next industrial frontier lies in Woodburn – Portland Business Journal

“Over time, I’ve learned rule No. 1 in real estate: follow Costco,” Specht said. “It worked on Airport Way, it’s worked in Clackamas, in Tigard, in Beaverton. It’s worked a lot.”

Back in the mid-1980s, Northeast Airport Way was a two-lane road that ran from Portland International Airport east to Northeast 138th Avenue and no farther. It was a somewhat quiet area of town at the time, with little going on commercially save for a Costco.

Fast-forward three decades, however, and the area along Airport Way has become a hive of bustling commercial and industrial activity. Sprawling warehouses line the now four-lane road — which has since been extended all the way to Interstate 84 — as do hotels, chain restaurants and a giant IKEA.

One of the first projects to kick off that eventual hive was a 170,000-square-foot industrial project led by Gregory Specht, who at the time of the project’s completion in 1988 worked for Scherzer-Moore Partners, a well-regarded Portland real estate investor. Specht left Scherzer in 1990 to launch his namesake business, but not before picking up a valuable real estate lesson.

Read the full article from the Portland Business Journal.