An artist's rendering of Yates Pointe, proposed for SW Yates Drive. (Submitted photo)

Matt Engel, a dentist with an office on Yates Drive, is looking to build luxury 
condominiums on land that he’s owned since 2000.

Engel is working with custom home builder Jeff Payne on Yates Pointe, a four-story, 30,072-square-foot building under review by the city of Bend’s Community Development Department. Yates Pointe would have nine condominiums in three stories over a ground floor with two furnished rentals and a 2,700 square-foot retail space. The building would be next door to Engel’s medical building at 930 SW Yates Drive, just south of the OSU-Cascades campus.

“I’ve always loved mixed- use buildings,” Engel said. “It’s very modern-looking. It’s probably more along the lines of something you’d see in the Pearl District.”

Yates Drive is a side road connecting Chandler Avenue and Mount Washington Drive, and it has several vacant parcels. At the intersection with Washington, Peppertree Hospitality Group of Spokane, Washington, is building a 
120-room Best Western 
Premier hotel.

The area has a mixed-use urban designation in the city’s comprehensive plan, so it could be built out in a variety of housing, office and retail uses. “There’s a lot of positive energy” on Yates, Engel said. “You’ll see more projects like ours.”

Yates Pointe would sit on a little more than half an acre, which is covered in brush and tall trees, according to the site plan on file with the city.

The plan calls for underground parking, which is unusual in Bend. “It’s not cheap,” Engel said. “If I was going to live in those units, I would like that.” Engel said the project will probably cost at least $6 million.

Yates Pointe will be seeking the same type of buyers — high-income professionals — as Basecamp, a luxury townhouse development south of the Colorado-Arizona loop. Basecamp’s first eight units sold last fall for $700,000 to $750,000, said Brian Ladd, a principal broker at Cascade Sotheby’s International Realty in Bend. The developer, Portland-based Project, plans to start another phase of construction this summer, he said.

“I think there’s plenty of market demand for product at that level,” Ladd said.

Ladd said he could see people who work at the 1001 Tech Center on Emkay Drive being attracted to the Yates Pointe design and location close to their offices. “We’re getting a lot more urban buyers in Bend,” he said. “This is what they’re used to.”

All of the Yates Pointe units would be 1,600 square feet, except for the fourth-floor penthouse, which would be 2,000 square feet, Engel said. The fourth floor will have a rooftop common area for residents, while the ground floor will have a courtyard area oriented toward Yates Drive, he said.

Engel said he’s aiming to have the project complete by fall of 2018, if it’s approved by the city and construction starts this season.

— Reporter: 541-617-7860, kmclaughlin@bendbulletin.com