Fresh

Just over one year ago eROI moved its office from the Albers Milling Co. building under the Broadway Bridge to a revamped multi-floor space on NW 5th and Couch St – right in the heart of Old Town/Chinatown.  Not only is our new space cooler,  bigger and greener, it’s also in the ‘most exciting’ neighborhood in Portland!  ‘Most exciting’ can be interpreted many different ways… but for most of us I think being in OTCT is overall a very positive experience.  Yea, there’s drug dealers, crazy people and homeless folks asking for change or cigarettes – but it’s all part of the special charm of the neighborhood.

Plus, we have some awesome neighbors: Someday Lounge, Backspace, Ground Kontrol, Compound, Upper Playground, Floating World Comics, just to name a few.  Access to galleries, good food & drinks, and public transportation is primo.  And there’s good things in the future too: A new restaurant, Ping, should be opening up in the Hung Far Low building soon, and there’s potential for our very own neighborhood Uwajimaya right across the street from us.  (But hopefully all of the ‘rejuvination and modernization’ of OTCT doesn’t take away all of that neighborhood charm – once the Hung Far Low sign gets put back up we’ll all feel a lot better.)

Here are some pictures from moving day, back on November 30, 2007!

Cleaning out the old office:

Members of the development team breaking in the new office, sans desks:

And on the other side of ‘the wall’, the design team, planning out their office space:

It didn’t take long for us to start breaking in the new office.  Here’s some of the crew in December 2007:

The epic eROI party this summer:

Friday morning yoga:

And of course we also spent a lot of time hanging out in neighborhood cafes and bars.  Like the Crown Room:

…Someday Lounge:

… and Backspace:

It’s been a great year for eROI in Old Town/Chinatown.  Looking forward to 2009!