Portland State of the Market

“My People used to say, when a stranger appears at your door, feed him for three days before asking who he is, where he's come from, where he's headed. That way, he'll have strength enough to answer. Or, by then you'll be such good friends, you don't care.” Bashar Wali is a founder, a father, and a hotel fanatic. He’s a pragmatist—hungry to experience life not as it is packaged and sold, but as it is. His vested interest in hospitality, culture, and design, is cut with curiosity of what’s possible, beyond the status quo. Bashar is always looking for that spark—that perfect symmetry of an idea and its physical manifestation—to make human experiences as we know them, better. He’s the consummate Host of the Soirée—ever in pursuit of a shared humanity among friends, colleagues, and total strangers. This is perhaps his greatest gift: bringing together a group that’s more inspiring than the sum of its parts. As founder and CEO of This Assembly and Practice Hospitality, Bashar draws upon expertise honed over a 30-year career in hospitality. An expert in the lifestyle space, Bashar is known for pushing limits in his philosopher-meets-hotelier kind of way. Whether helming the TEDx stage, hosting a Global YPO event, or collaborating on Clubhouse, Bashar’s message is unwavering: service is what you deliver, hospitality is how you make people feel. Bashar has done every job in a hotel—from frying an egg to negotiating a deal—working for Starwood Hotels before leading acquisitions and development globally at Grand Heritage Hotels. Prior to launching This Assembly and Practice Hospitality, Bashar served as President/CEO of Provenance Hotels, where he remains a partner, for 15 years, growing the company from five to 15 hotels, 1,500 team members, and expanding the collection from the Pacific Northwest to an award-winning national brand, with annual revenue in excess of $150 million. When Bashar isn’t traveling to 50+ countries and 45+ states, he’s home in Portland, Oregon with his wife and kids, dreaming up the hotels of tomorrow.

Kurt Huffman is a Portland boy, born and raised. It’s not that he’s being coy when he describes his restaurant group ChefStable as “a small company.” It’s that he gets what Portland is all about: chef-driven, independent concepts. He applies his experience to assure that every time ChefStable works with a new partner that the chef's vision remains sacred. The goal is that the final shape and identity of the restaurant proves to be a true reflection of this vision. And it has paid off. From James Beard-nominated Aaron Barnett's St. Jack to Greg and Gabi Denton's Ox and Rick Gencarelli’s casual sandwich shop Lardo, things have gone well. The seed of the business began at Huffman’s first cooking class, when he was 10 years old. Four years later, he was working as a dishwasher and grill cook at Fat City Café in Multnomah Village. He would go on to study at UC Berkeley, but at 25 he found himself in Scotland, balancing rugby and a good amount of beer drinking with a master's degree in law from the University of Glasgow. He had beer in mind when a French friend asked him to collaborate on a business in Lyon, France. They settled on a brewery, “because it’s such an obvious thing to do at 25.” It turned into a gastropub called Ninkasi. By the time Huffman left France, there were five locations. He returned to his hometown of Portland and founded ChefStable in 2008, with the mission to open culinary concepts geared toward the vision of individual chefs. From there the business has grown mostly by word of mouth and continues to get bigger everyday.

Jennifer Quist is a Portland-based restaurateur and hospitality consultant who most recently led F&B development at Provenance Hotels and opened the internationally acclaimed Multnomah Whiskey Library and its sister bar Green Room. A classically trained chef originally from the Bay area, Quist’s nearly two decades of experience and passion for partnering with industry thought leaders inspired her to launch her own hospitality firm in 2015—JLQ Hospitality. There, she and her team identify, partner with and foster culinary talent while bringing a dynamic skill set in restaurant fundamentals, strategy and financial growth to the table. When she’s not in the kitchen, you’ll find Quist travelling Europe and researching her next meal.

Chris co-founded Capstone Partners LLC in 2002. He brings over 26 years of real estate investment, development and asset management in all product types. Chris has personally sourced and directed the development, investment and management of over 8 million square feet of industrial, multi-family, retail and office properties in the Pacific Northwest and Northern Nevada for institutional partners and clients including Morrison Street Capital, Prudential Real Estate Investors, PCCP, LLC, Washington Capital Management and several family offices. Chris received a BA in Economics from University of California, Davis in 1989 where he also served as its Student Body President. Chris lives in Portland with his wife Barbara and two teenage children Nikki (18) and Conner (15). Chris is an Eagle Scout. He serves on the Advisory Board for the PSU Center for Real and is a Board Member of KairosPDX, a PPS K-5 Charter School. He is also a member of the Urban Land Institute and The Forest Park Conservancy.

Noel has worked in commercial real estate since 2001 and brings experience in sourcing, capitalizing and building innovative, institutional-scale housing, office and retail developments. Raised in Minnesota, Noel met his wife Lauren at Williams College. They worked in San Francisco and Chile before returning to her home of Portland, Oregon. Since then, Noel has focused on the Oregon & Washington markets and earned graduate degrees from both Portland State University and Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. Noel began his career working at architectural and commercial appraisal firms. In 2005, he joined Trammell Crow Residential (TCR) where he managed mixed-use apartment and condominium projects from inception through stabilization and sale. After Stanford, Noel reopened the Seattle office of Alliance Residential. As the local Managing Director, he grew firm staff, established office operations and expanded market presence while sourcing and managing multiple institutional joint ventures. In early 2012, Noel returned to Portland and joined Killian Pacific. As a Managing Director, Noel led firm development, finance and accounting teams through a time of leadership transition, expansion and diversification. He was one of the early leaders in the mass-timber movement, developing “Clay Creative”, “The Hudson” and “120 Clay” to attract millennial workforces, while providing product differentiation to investors. During Noel’s tenure, Killian was recognized as 2015 Development Firm of the Year, and won Office Development of the Year from the Portland Business Journal and NAIOP. Noel has also focused on redevelopment of urban brownfields, using unique public-private indemnity structures to enable institutional-quality investments like the historic, adaptive re-use Viewpoint building, and the $140 million Goat Blocks project. In joining Cairn Pacific, Noel reunites with old Trammell Crow colleagues, Rob Hinnen and Tom DiChiara. Together with Scott Eaton, he shares the firm’s ethos of building quality, enduring projects that benefit both neighbors and investors. Noel spends his spare time skiing, biking and travelling. He supports Social Venture Partners and is on the board of contemporary art center, Yale Union.

Mr. Gooding has 29 years of commercial real estate experience, 23 of them with SKB where he is credited with developing the firm’s “value-add/opportunistic” acquisition platform. He was named a principal in 2002 and president and chief investment officer in 2006. During his tenure at SKB, Mr. Gooding has initiated some $4.36 billion of acquisitions, and concomitant debt placements and restructuring, and he serves as a member of the SKB Investment Committee. He was also responsible for initially sourcing and maintaining SKB’s institutional capital partner relationships. He started his real estate career as a licensed real estate appraiser with then CB Commercial, Inc. Prior to joining SKB in 1996, he served as vice president of acquisitions for G.E. Capital Investment Advisors and senior real estate analyst with CB Commercial, Inc. in San Francisco. In these capacities, he underwrote over $500 million of commercial real estate investments for clients such as General Motors retirement funds, CalPers and the AT&T Master Pension Trust. Mr. Gooding is a member of ULI, ICSC, and an Advisory Board member for The Center of Securities Analysis at the University of Oregon. He received his Bachelor of Science degree in finance from the University of Oregon, and holds FINRA 22, 39 and 63 licenses.

Gene Sandoval is a Design Partner whose philosophy is based on fresh, holistic and socially responsible ideas that also respect aggressive budgets and schedules. For the last two decades at ZGF, he has been responsible for the design and design team leadership on architectural, urban design and interiors projects, ranging from academic buildings and corporate headquarters to regional transportation systems. He led the design of the Port of Portland Headquarters Office Building, the Twelve | West Mixed Use Building, which is home to ZGF's Portland office, and the University of Oregon John E. Jaqua Academic Center in Eugene. His other recent experience includes the University of Oregon Athletic Medicine Center in Eugene, the Eliot housing project in Portland, the Portland Transit Mall Revitalization, and stations for the Sound Transit Light Rail system in Seattle. Gene was honored as one of Portland's top "40 Under 40" business leaders by Oregon Business Magazine. He has a Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Oregon.

Jordan Menashe is a Portland native who joined Menashe Properties, Inc. as a Principal in 2011. Prior to joining the family business, Jordan studied Real Estate, Finance, and International Business at the University of Southern California. Following graduation, Jordan established success and growth in a role at First Property Realty Corporation in Los Angeles, but found himself eager to get back to Portland and pursue an expansion of the family business. Since joining Menashe Properties, Jordan has brought a creative and energetic leadership approach to all aspects of the business from modernizing and expanding his brand, improving building aesthetics and spaces in a creative manner, and strategizing assets. Jordan has taken the company to a new level with unlimited potential. He knew and still knows that “one cannot run before they learn to walk.” He has managed to strategically, but carefully, refinance the family portfolio while adding a number of significant assets in a very short amount of time. Jordan has already made an impact on the greater Portland, Seattle, and Denver markets and has his eyes on many other cities for the near future.

Garrett Stephenson is a real estate and land use attorney in Portland. Garrett focuses his practice on obtaining entitlements and permit approvals for a wide variety of land development projects in both urban and rural settings. He has considerable knowledge of urbanization matters, Portland metro area land use regulations, and rural zoning. Prior to attending law school, Garrett was a land use planner with both public and private sector experience.