From its roots in the lumber industry, the Oregon Pacific Investment and Development Company has grown into the owner/manager of multifamily housing, retail and industrial properties in three states.
Despite the firm’s name, “we are no longer developers,” says Co-President Julie Saltzman Leuvrey, daughter of company founder Jack Saltzman, z”l. “We have switched our strategy to buying existing properties and renovating them – what is called a value-add acquisition strategy.”
In 2004, the family-owned company shifted from development to purely acquisition. OPID now has six commercial properties plus about 1,000 multifamily units in eight properties in Oregon; 457 multifamily units in two properties, Bellagio and Mira Santi, in Arizona; and three properties with 616 multifamily units in California.
“We typically have developed or renovated to own and manage,” says Julie. “We have passed on a lot of opportunities over the years, because we analyze the property with a long-term perspective – would we want to own it over various real estate cycles.”
Those cycles are what initially drew the company to invest in Arizona.
Arizona has attracted investors since the days of real estate syndication in the 1980s, but has a volatile history of “booms and busts” the last three decades – 1980s, 1990s, 2000s (through 2010), explains Julie.
“Phoenix has had and continues to have phenomenal employment growth and is a much larger and more diverse economy than Portland,” says Julie. “We felt that the timing was right since its economy was recovering from a very deep real estate recession, and we could get better value for our money (find better opportunities) than what we were seeing in Portland. … It remains to be seen if the latter part of this decade will follow the same path as the previous decades.”
The company is especially proud of its first Arizona acquisition, Mira Santi in Chandler purchased in 2014. “We completely renovated the clubhouse, fitness center and pool area in 2015 as well as starting renovations in the 252 units,” says Julie. “Last year, the property won the Arizona Multifamily Association’s Tribute Award for best renovation.”
OPID added a second Arizona property in March 2016, when it purchased Bellagio in Scottsdale.
The complex was built in 1995 by Prometheus (a major Jewish family-owned real estate development firm out of the Bay Area). OPID is now renovating the 202 units and the common area amenities.
In Oregon, Julie is proudest of a 198-unit multifamily development completed in 1999. It is a sister property to one her father developed in 1980, a 14-story tower built, coincidentally, on the site of the home where Jack Saltzman grew up, which became part of the South Auditorium Urban Renewal Area. The two buildings were renamed Linc 245 and Linc 301 in tribute to the light rail line that now runs down Lincoln Street.
The family-owned OPID has a long history in Oregon. Jack Saltzman was born in 1920 to immigrant parents in Portland. He died in 2004, but Julie still calls him her role model and inspiration as well as the founder of the family business. He grew up selling newspapers on a street corner to help support the family, before graduating from the University of Oregon and serving in the Navy. “He was part of the Greatest Generation,” says Julie.
Jack started a lumber brokerage business in 1946 and got interested in real estate development while building warehouses for his lumber company.
“I think he became tired of the volatility in the lumber industry and decided to give real estate development a try,” says Julie. “Oregon Pacific Forest Products was sold to the employees, and he created Oregon Pacific Investment and Development Company. He was a great role model for his work ethic, his loyalty to his employees and his unassuming nature.”
Julie earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of California-Santa Barbara, receiving the Santa Barbara City Club award, given annually to the top six women graduating with liberal arts degrees.
“I used my award to return to France, where I had studied during fall term of my senior year,” she says.
In France, she met her husband, Eric Leuvrey, now a global executive account manager at Mentor Graphics. The couple moved to San Francisco in 1984, where Julie worked for two real estate investment advisors and completed an MBA in finance and real estate at UC Berkeley. They moved to Portland and Julie joined the family business in the early 1990s, when her father was having health issues. The couple’s two children – Nicolas, 22, and Allisa, 19 – are both students at their grandfather’s alma mater, U of O.
Julie says it is a coincidence her sister, Barbara, who works in OPID handling property management and accounting, and she “married men with very similar last names that are pronounced almost identically!” Barbara’s husband, Randy Lovre, is co-president of OPID.
The family tradition of philanthropy is also still a central family value.
“My family has supported the (Jewish) Federation for a long time as well as the Jewish Community Center and other Jewish causes. We continue to support the federation in honor of our parents and to support the Jewish community.”
Additionally, Julie is a member of the OHSU Knight Cancer Institute Council and notes, “We have supported the Knight in many of its capital campaigns.” She also supports a number of causes such as Friends of the Children and Habitat for Humanity. opidportland.com.
