Salem – 01/24/12 – Governor John Kitzhaber has appointed Coni Rathbone as a public member of the Oregon Real Estate Board.

Ms. Rathbone is an attorney and shareholder of Zupancic Rathbone Law Group in Lake Oswego. She has practiced exclusively in real estate and corporate law for over 23 years, 20 years of that at Davis Wright Tremaine. Ms. Rathbone’s practice focuses on real estate, corporate, LLC and securities law, mergers and acquisitions, and general business transactions.

Ms. Rathbone has written numerous articles for local and national publications on the subjects of tenants-in-common (TIC) workouts and real estate transactions. She regularly makes presentations to real estate groups and is a certified continuing education provider for real estate licensees. Ms. Rathbone was named one of “America’s Leading Lawyers for Business” in Real Estate (Oregon) by Chambers USA and Super Lawyers, for several years running. She is a member and 2011 President of the Oregon Chapter of the Counselors of Real Estate (CRE), member of the Portland Chapter of Commercial Real Estate Women (CREW) and serves on the board of the Oregon chapter of the Certified Commercial Investment Member (CCIM) Institute.

Ms. Rathbone is a native Oregonian and is married to Dr. Gail F. Ott. In her free time, she enjoys spending time with her husband, children and grandchildren and relaxing at their lake house.

The Oregon Real Estate Board consists of seven industry members and two public members. Meetings are held a minimum of six times a year. Board members are appointed by the Governor for four-year terms; however, the members serve at the pleasure of the Governor and members’ terms may be extended until the Governor replaces them.

Board duties include providing advice to the Real Estate Commissioner and the Governor’s office regarding real estate industry matters, reviewing proposed rulemaking, approving experience waiver requests of real estate licensing applicants, and overseeing the license examination process.

Published in the Portland Business Journal
August 19, 2011

An $18 million tennis-centered health club at the intersection of Tualatin, Tigard, Lake Oswego and West Linn is the brainchild not of a developer, but a law firm.

Zupancic Rathbone Law Group, P.C. a five-attorney firm in Lake Oswego, is using its real estate expertise to develop Stafford Hills Club, a 93,000-square-foot facility catering to well-heeled westsiders with a blend of fun and fitness.

The club will offer seven professional-grade tennis courts, a swimming pool that invites lingering and other health club amenities. The two-building project is tied up in a sustainable, high-tech package.

Site work has started. It’s slated to open in mid-2012.

Stafford Hills is a highprofile debut for Zupancic Rathbone Law Group. Attorneys Jim Zupancic and Coni Rathbone formed the firm in 2010 when Rathbone left Davis Wright Tremaine LLP to join her old partner in Lake Oswego. The resulting firm combines a full-service legal practice with a business development mission.

The approach is serving the firm well. It was Oregon’s 16th fastest growing private company in 2010 with about $2 million in revenue, marking the first time a law firm appeared on the annual list compiled by the Portland Business Journal.

It will move to a new 7,060- square-foot suite at 4949 Meadows Road this fall. Developing real estate and launching businesses is nothing new for Zupancic, who has married entrepreneurship and law his entire career. Rathbone is a new comer to the entrepreneurial law model.

Stafford Hills marks her de but as a developer and investor and sets the stage for the firmto recruit like-minded attorneys to the firm.

Zupancic began working on the Stafford Hills project more than three years ago when he secured the 16-acre site near Legacy Meridian Park Hospital. He initially contemplated building condominiums and jokes that, it was better to be lucky than smart, a reference to the collapse in demand for condominiums.

The inspiration for a tenniscentered project struck when his wife returned froma tennis match complaining about the “lousy” facility.

Avid tennis players, the Zupancics confirmed a shortage of high-quality courts in Portland. There have been no new indoor facilities constructed in 35 years with the exception of courts added at Sunset Athletic Club prior to the recession.

TennisPortland.com lists 14 public and private tennis clubs offering a total of 110 courts in the metro area. Zupancic’s research identifies about 70 indoor club courts.

While supply stalled, demand soared as baby boomers discovered the fitness and social aspects of tennis.

The number of active tennis players in the U.S. increased 25 percent to 3.1 million between 2003 and 2009, according to Taylor Research and Consulting Group Inc., a Portsmouth, N.H., firm that conducts an annual survey for the United States Tennis Association and the Tennis Industry Association. Despite growing demand for court time, Zupancic and Rathbone said the club needed other features to attract dues-paying members.

The club will include a 25- yard pool, fitness facilities, conference rooms, a poolside cafe and social groups catering to member interests.

Therapeutic Associates, a Seattle-based physical therapy firm with numerous clinics in Portland, will move its Tualatin clinic to the club.

Steve Anderson, president of Therapeutic Associates, also is an equity investor. Anderson said the club’s marriage of health and wellness aligned with his own mission.

“It’s just a fabulous idea for a facility. As physical therapists, it’s near and dear to our hearts,” he said. The market research paid off when Zupancic approached lenders, said Ken Griggs, president of Norris, Beggs & Simpson Financial Services.

Griggs, who arranged the permanent financing with Portland-based Standard Insurance Co., said Stafford Hills offered a compelling case.

“Outside of the Multnomah Athletic Club, there really isn’t an upscale tennisaquatics facility in Portland. Jim has been very thorough about his research,” Griggs said.

The project is fully permitted and is financed with 40 percent equity from Zupancic, Rathbone and a small group of supporters.

Umpqua Bank is providing the construction loan and Standard Insurance Co. will provide a $6.5 million permanent loan when the club opens. Other partners include Myhre Group Architects, Fabiano Designs, and contractor Todd Construction.

The project aims to earn a LEED Silver or higher designation from the U.S. Green Building Council. Green elements include restoring degraded wet lands, a rooftop solar system and electric vehicle charging stations.

Stafford Hills Club Details

Location: 5916 S.W.NybergLane, Tualatin
ProjectManager: MaggieCrepps
Budget: $18million
Employees when completed: 80
Expected members: About 5,000
Reservations: http://staffordhills.com
Fees for a full familymembership: $270monthly, plus initiation

Downloadable PDF

We are honored to be Ranked 16th Among Oregon’s 100 Fastest Growing Companies by the Portland Business Journal.  ”We credit our success to our great clients who put their trust in us to provide them with exceptional legal advice and positive results.” says Jim Zupancic. 

We were also ranked 5th in employee growth.  “Our dedicated staff have made these rankings possible and have allowed us to contribute to Oregon’s job growth in this challenging economy.”  says Coni Rathbone.

 POSTED: Tuesday, April 26, 2011 at 08:24 AM PT BY: Jim Zupancic and Neil Olsen

Jim Zupancic and Neil Olsen

TriMet’s Portland-Milwaukie light-rail project could cost $1.5 billion. Work is expected to involve the addition of 17 to 20 new light-rail vehicles, 10 new stations, 7.3 miles of new track and one new bridge across the Willamette River.

On the ground, though, these relatively abstract numbers have real effect. Armed with more than $200 million in property acquisition money, TriMet will acquire by agreement or condemnation more than 200 properties or parts of properties for the project’s right-of-way and other purposes. These acquisitions or takings will displace approximately 20 homeowners and more than 60 businesses.

The impact to property owners and businesses contrasts starkly against TriMet’s last light -rail project, which was built along Interstate 205. That project affected a few more homeowners, but only a handful of businesses. TriMet was able to work with the Oregon Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration to take advantage of the existing I-205 right-of-way. This extension, however, requires TriMet to cut through a relatively dense, industrialized area as it works its way through inner Southeast Portland to Milwaukie.

With these numbers and impacts in mind, it is without question that the Portland­Milwaukie light-rail project is rolling forward. The Federal Transit Administration has approved what it calls a “mega project,” which has a total price tag greater than $1 billion. Armed with this approval, TriMet’s board of directors has authorized the transit agency to move forward with acquisition of property for the project, through condemnation if necessary. TriMet also has authority to begin project construction.

TriMet has wasted no time exercising this authority. It has formally hired construction contractors and acquired several properties, and is in the process of making offers on many more properties through its right-of-way agent, Universal Field Services. Based upon the “need date” – driven primarily by construction scheduling requirements – for each property, TriMet will continue acquiring or taking them through condemnation as necessary. It will start bridge construction this summer, start rail construction next winter, and is aiming to begin operations by September 2015.

As the project moves forward, and property acquisitions and takings continue, business owners will not only be wrestling with TriMet over the correct valuation of their real property, but also be facing fundamental challenges to the continued viability of their businesses. Though state and applicable federal laws allow for relatively small relocation reimbursements to certain businesses, they do not directly provide for compensation of loss in business value – the value, for example, of a business being in a certain location for the last 30 years.

In addition, property owners are facing a sustained downturn of historic proportions in the commercial real estate market. This market distortion will not only affect the ability of appraisers to find adequate comparable sales used to determine the fair market value

In addition, property owners are facing a sustained downturn of historic proportions in the commercial real estate market. This market distortion will not only affect the ability of appraisers to find adequate comparable sales used to determine the fair market value of real property, but in many cases will also impact what remains after a mortgage holder is satisfied from the condemnation proceeds.

If the property owner is sufficiently “under water” on the property, the condemnation proceeds may not even cover the outstanding mortgage. Combined with recession-worn balance sheets, some business owners will be lucky to get out in one piece, much less find and obtain financing for adequate replacement property in which to continue their business and provide jobs to their employees.

Not all is doom and gloom, however. Thanks to the framers and amenders of the United States and Oregon constitutions, property owners ultimately have the right to just compensation as determined by a jury of their peers. And, at least in the authors’ experiences, juries tend to understand what justice requires.

Jim Zupancic and Neil Olsen are eminent domain, real estate and land use attorneys with Zupancic Rathbone Law Group PC. Contact Jim at 503-941-9623 or jim@zupgroup.com. Contact Neil at 503-941-9622 or neil@zupgroup.com.

Updated: Wednesday, February 23, 2011, 10:39 AM
Published: Tuesday, February 22, 2011, 10:56 PM By Dana Tims, The Oregonian

Benjamin Brink / The Oregonian
Washington County commissioners approved a four-lane plan for the
stretch of Bethany Boulevard between Bronson and West Union roads. 

Washington County’s commissioners, by a 3-2 vote, capped a long and contentious meeting Tuesday night by approving a controversial plan to widen North Bethany Boulevard from its current two-lane configuration to four lanes.

The decision came after more than an hour of impassioned testimony from residents living along the mile-long segment of roadway long targeted for widening. 

All of the Shirley Huffman Auditorium’s 154 seats were filled, with another 75 or  so anti-widening advocates lining the room’s rear and side walls.

Property owners and their supporters, wearing bright red shirts and sweaters in a colorful show of solidarity for the anti-widening group 3not5, said afterward they will weigh their options before deciding what steps they may take next.

“The group is obviously disappointed,’’ said Lake Oswego attorney Jim Zupancic, hired to represent the effort. “But you also saw democracy as its finest tonight. We saw that people can disagree, even passionately, and still act respectfully toward one another.”

A minute-by-minute account of the meeting and a map of the area:
http://www.oregonlive.com/north-of-26/index.ssf/2011/02/live_blog_washington_county_board_of_commissioners_address_bethany_boulevard_decision.html

The four-lane project’s price tag comes in at $9.1 million. That doesn’t include right-of-way acquisition, which could top $5 million.

Some residents of the area north of U.S. 26 said they were at least grateful that the commissioners had backed away from earlier plans to widen the heavily used roadway to a five-lane configuration.

That plan, according to county estimates, would have sliced off portions of more than 25 backyards of houses backing up to Bethany Boulevard. The four-lane option is projected to affect far less total area. The final vote also exposed a significant rift between Chairman Andy Duyck and commissioners Bob Terry and Roy Rogers, who voted for the widening, and commissioners Dick Schouten and Greg Malinowski, who opposed it.

“The time has come for us to think less about the gold-plated and figure out a way to make our resources go further,’’ said Schouten, whose motion to delay the project entirely until new traffic and population projections come in next year was defeated, also by a 3-2 tally.

Added Malinowski, who represents that portion of unincorporated Washington County, “Five lanes tears the heart out of a community.”

However, the prevailing side, in rejecting a five-lane widening plan, made it clear that the four-lane configuration needs to take area residents’ views into account.

“It’s unfortunate that a mistake was made in the past,’’ said Terry, referring to the county’s decision years ago not to take future growth into account when laying out Bethany Boulevard.

Rectifying that now, while still trying to plan for projected future growth in the area, he said, means finding a way not to plow through existing backyards.

The winning motion also tied Bethany Boulevard’s widening to an expansion of the roadway’s interchange to the south with U.S. 26. Members of 3not5 repeatedly noted in their testimony that it will do little good to widen Bethany Boulevard without also expanding the overpass’s capacity.

County staff members assured commissioners that, while the state Transportation Department lacks the money to widen the overpass, Washington County has enough budgeted to proceed with both projects simultaneously.

Construction timelines call for the project to get underway as early as June 2012. Some of those who testified found fundamental unfairness with the idea of widening their roadway to accommodate projected growth in the North Bethany area farther north.

However, county documents going back as far as 1988 – long before widespread growth was projected for North Bethany – envisioned widening the boulevard to five lanes.

Current traffic volumes on Bethany Boulevard between U.S. 26 and West Union Road are nearly 20,000 vehicles per day, according to county documents. That number is expected to rise to around 35,000 vehicles by 2035.

Jonathan Schlueter, executive director of the Westside Economic Alliance, was the only person whotestified in favor of any widening proposal. “As the economic engine of the state, transportation matters here in Washington County,’’ he told board members.

The comment elicited unhappy sighs and scoffs from many in the crowd.

Duyck, in explaining his vote, said that “three lanes just doesn’t get us there, but I don’t like five, either. What four lanes does get us is capacity, which we are really going to need there going forward.”