To the Editor:
For over 10,000 people living in Portland’s Concordia neighborhood, there is a lot at stake with the impending sale of the private Concordia University campus on the steps of the Multnomah County Courthouse on 29 June.
Given the site’s current educational zoning and the 116 years of continuous investment in building academic property assets, my first hope is that a large public Oregon university, such as OSU or UO, would purchase the 24-acre campus to establish a campus foothold in the state’s largest metropolitan area with access to over half of Oregon’s population.
Like OSU’s Cascades campus in Bend, it is an amazing opportunity for a large and diverse public institution to establish new educational opportunities for people of Oregon. With this, PSU or OHSU, already based in Portland, would also seem to be a logical new owner possibility as an extension of their existing Portland campuses.
Beyond that, perhaps a private Oregon college could be a new owner with the goal to establish a vibrant Portland campus.
This kind of intact and close-in campus coming up for sale is exceptionally rare and could be an academic game changer not just for the institution that acquires it but also for the equity of a whole new population of Oregon students that already live right here in the City of Roses. Because of over a century of investment, certainly preservation of the site as an academic institution makes sense.
It fits well into the site’s history and proscribed use as well as it is a prime opportunity for a new century of scholarship and good neighborly relations that serves progress for the people of Oregon. — Keith K. Daellenbach
CNA respects the views and beliefs of all Concordians, and their cultures and faiths. The views expressed by these writers do not necessarily reflect the views of CNA. Submit letters (250 words maximum) to CNewsEditor@ConcordiaPDX.org.