We believe that cities are only as great as the sum of their communities and therefore try to study the effect every part of a building will have on how people interact and spend time together. The practice of designing for enhanced human interaction is carried out in all of our endeavors from residential to commercial and retail.

In our quest to create better communities, we often find ourselves asking “Why do most developers just build boxes?” It seems that too much of the new development in America is detracting from community more than it is enhancing it. Our best answer to why this happens is, the role of the developer seems to have changed.

100 years ago, land was relatively inexpensive and permit offices barely existed. As a result, developers spent more of their development budget on the design and construction of the building.

Today, land and permits are expensive and it seems like the role of ensuring that a project serves its community has shifted to the city. This has left most developers finance oriented and the results are apparent.

SolTerra stems from a design and construction background, not finance. We believe that creating community is a long-term investment that we must make. We have spent years developing our philosophies around community-oriented design and invite you to learn more in the following pages.

What is the journey a resident takes when they come home? This is the first question we ask ourselves when we are designing a project. We then look at ways to increase human interaction on this journey which can include, lobbies integrated into retail, open air common areas that provide visibility to neighbors, and integrated amenities for residents to connect.

We aim to avoid double loaded corridors that feel like hotels as we want our tenants to take pride in their home and incorporate something unique outside their unit that is important to them. This shows off what makes our tenants unique is one of our key ingredients to creating vibrant communities.

We don’t like most chain retail, primarily because it does not add the  uniqueness and authenticity that is so important to us and our communities. We love working with entrepreneurs bringing their lifelong dream to our building. When the owner is the one standing behind the counter there is an energy that just doesn’t exist when it’s the 827th location of a chain.

To help small businesses find a place in our buildings, we design smaller, more unique retail spaces and market them to the local community first. We manage all of our leasing in house and believe that this curation of retail is something that makes SolTerra buildings stand out.

Often times we are involved in the design and construction of the retail spaces to help them tell a successful story that is enhanced because it is consistent with the design and construction of the whole building. This partnership is something that is rare in the retail industry but is something we value as we see retail as one of the greatest amenities we can provide to the communities we create.

We love commercial and have experience developing office, industrial office, manufacturing, and research and development with wet lab space. We believe commercial space is critical to a vibrant community because we all need jobs, well at least most of us do.

The SolTerra Building in Portland was our first all office building and it was a beautiful experience to create. We realized that most developers prefer to have as few tenants as possible as it is easier to manage. The result is that small businesses are being overlooked in the current office marketplace.

We support small business and believe they are the cornerstone to successful communities. Our belief is so strong, we have decided to handle all of our office leasing in house. We start with a vision for the community plant a seed by finding the first few perfect tenants who can really help  curate the rest of the community. This business eco-system facilitates collaboration and is an x-factor that benefits everyone in a SolTerra building.