INSIDE: DEAR ABBY, HOROSCOPE, PUZZLES & FEATURES
C1
B USINESS
THE BULLETIN • SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2021
bendbulletin.com/business
FOR SALE
Price: $5.4 million
Future tire center location
on Third Street has been
cleared for development
BY MICHAEL KOHN
The Bulletin
A
Les Schwab is selling its property on Franklin Street that
is planned to be redeveloped into a mixed-use property
with residential and commercial opportunities.
3.5-acre patch of real estate
on Franklin Avenue in Bend
that is home to a Les Schwab
Tire Center could soon be a
bustling hub of offices, shops and restau-
rants, plus a range of badly needed hous-
ing within walking distance of down-
town.
The property, located at 105 NE
Franklin Ave, is listed for sale at $5.4
million, according to NAI Cascade, the
commercial real estate service company
that is representing the seller, Les Schwab
Tires.
The property sits at the southern edge
of the Bend Central District, a neighbor-
hood mainly comprised of warehouses
and fast food joints that the city is trying
to redevelop as a new area of mixed-use
development. Affordable housing, shop-
fronts, artisan workshops and public
spaces could fill the area by 2040 if the
city’s vision comes to pass.
“It’s right in the heart of downtown
at the gateway to the Bend Central Dis-
trict,” said Walt Ramage , a broker with
NAI Cascade.
See Les Schwab / C8
Ryan Brennecke/The Bulletin
Pandemic, remote work bring permanent changes to the office
C
OVID-19 accelerated changes in
the traditional office, but many
of them were already in the
works. A growing remote workforce
that began years ago has accelerated,
making us re-think the office, how we
communicate with co-workers and
redefined how we see ourselves as em-
ployees. As we ponder what the office
will be like post-pandemic, there will
be changes in where we choose to live,
how we work with one another and to
the very space in which we work.
A recent Gallup poll shows that
INSIDE
BUSINESS
By Katy Brooks
more than a third of current remote
workers indicated they would like to
continue working remotely on a per-
manent basis. This realization is in-
fluencing residential and commercial
design. Changes are occurring on how
office space and commercial districts
are designed. For example, urban land-
scapes in traditional office-dominated
employment districts are increasingly
a mix of housing and workspaces due
to the rise of hybrid and remote work.
In Central Oregon, we see another
phenomenon spurred by COVID-19
as businesses in large cities opt for
smaller markets that are perceived to
be safer and more livable. Many lo-
cal commercial leases are from out of
town or out of state companies either
moving their entire business to Bend
or establishing satellite hubs away from
dense urban areas.
These new companies are also
changing the commercial design. Re-
nee Alexander, principal at BBT Ar-
chitects in Bend sees businesses mov-
ing to a hybrid model. This includes
work from home, office and out in the
community with flexible hours and
shared workplaces. “I know some of
this already exists with consultants and
smaller companies, but larger compa-
nies will be coming on board,” she said.
MIT Sloan researchers studied how
this trend of hybrid work is influenc-
ing the labor force. They found that
non-permanent employees are per-
forming more than 25 percent of work
for businesses. They also found that
the nature of work is evolving, with
more need for “short-term, skills-fo-
cused, team-based work engage-
ments,” dramatically changing the re-
lationship between the workforce and
employers. People who work for com-
panies now include a blend of full-time
employees, contractors, gig workers
and a wide variety of contributors and
professionals.
See Brooks / C8