Oregon’s Tallest Affordable Timber Tower Opens in Portland

Residents have begun moving into Julia West House, Oregon’s tallest mass timber building and one of the first “Type IV-B” towers built since the state adopted its mass timber building code in 2018. Rising 12 stories and standing just over 44 meters tall, the project delivers 90 fully furnished apartments—60 studios and 30 one-bedrooms—for residents earning 30 percent or less of the area median income, defined as $26,070 for a single person in 2025.

The development sits on a once-underused 5,000-square-foot lot owned by the First Presbyterian Church of Portland, which bought the property in the 1980s. The site originally held a single-family home named after Julia West Lindsley, wife of the church’s first pastor. In 2024, the church sold the parcel to Community Development Partners (CDP), a developer focused on affordable housing across Oregon, California, Nevada, Arizona, and Colorado. Construction broke ground that February with Holst Architecture, KPFF, and Walsh Construction leading design, engineering, and building.

Before Oregon’s new code, heavy-timber construction was capped at six stories. The updated rules now allow taller structures—Type IV-A up to 18 stories, IV-B up to 12, and IV-C up to nine—paving the way for projects like Julia West House. Apartments are prioritized for seniors and BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) residents, groups disproportionately affected by Portland’s housing crisis. Nearly a quarter of the city’s unhoused population is age 55 or older.

Residents have access to a community room, lounge, communal kitchen, rooftop patio, laundry facilities, and secure bike parking, with onsite offices for property management and resident services. “It was the first time we had used cross-laminated timber in a multi-storey building, and it was the tallest building that CDP has ever developed,” said Eric Paine, CEO of Community Development Partners, on The Urbanist podcast. Christopher Pitt, associate engineer at KPFF, added, “This project is a great example of how to economically build high-performing, desirable housing for people who desperately need it.”

The project was funded through a combination of public and private sources, including a 4 percent Low-Income Housing Tax Credit allocation, USDA Wood Innovations funding, and a Portland Clean Energy Community Benefits Fund grant.

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