Portland’s most recognizable rooftop sign is about to become VIDA Coworking’s third location.
If you’ve ever driven Highway 30 or I-405 through Northwest Portland, you already know this building — even if you didn’t know its name. It’s the one with the giant steel letters on the roof, towering over Slabtown like it’s been standing guard there for a century. Because, well, it has. When we started looking for a home for VIDA’s third location, we didn’t have to think twice. We wanted to be under that sign.
We’re beyond excited to share that in two weeks, on October 5th, VIDA Coworking is opening inside Montgomery Park — one of the most storied buildings in Portland’s history, and now, the next chapter in ours.
Built to be the biggest thing Oregon had ever seen.
Montgomery Park opened its doors on January 1, 1921, built for Montgomery Ward & Company — at the time, the nation’s first and largest mail-order retailer. It was constructed on the very grounds where Portland had hosted the 1905 Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition, and when it went up, there was nothing else like it in the state. Nine stories of fireproof, steel-reinforced concrete, with three railway spurs running straight into the ground floor so merchandise could roll in and catalog orders could roll back out to customers across the country. It was, by square footage, the largest building in Oregon — and reportedly anywhere west of the Rockies.
Where a lot of buildings from that era leaned on ornamentation, this one didn’t bother. Its strength was the whole point: bold, unadorned, reinforced concrete that just quietly said we’re not going anywhere.
The sign, the atrium, and a shape-shifting floor plan.
For decades, Montgomery Ward ran retail out of the first three floors and warehouse operations out of the rest, until retail closed in 1976 and the warehouse followed in 1982. In between, in 1935–36, the company added a new wing on the northwest corner — turning the building’s footprint from an L into the U-shape it still has today, and opening up room for a dramatic glass-covered atrium at its center. That atrium is still one of the building’s best features; it floods the whole core with natural light.
And that rooftop sign we love so much? It went up in 1925, and at the time was the largest sign in Portland — a title it’s more or less never given up.
From Montgomery Ward to Montgomery Park.
The building’s second life began in the mid-1980s, when local developer Bill Naito bought it and renamed it Montgomery Park. Naito’s research helped get it listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985, cementing its place as a genuine Portland landmark rather than just a very large, very old warehouse.
A new era, backed by new ownership.
Part of what made the timing feel right was a change of ownership at Montgomery Park itself. In 2024, Menashe Properties purchased the building for $33 million, and since then they’ve been investing in bringing it back to full strength — adding a fitness center, upgrading interiors, and building out spec suites so tenants can move in and get to work quickly. Watching that renovation underway is what convinced us this was the moment to plant our flag there.
It also made sense from a growth perspective. VIDA has room to expand in the Portland market, and Slabtown is home to only one other coworking space — so we’re excited to give the neighborhood a warm, local alternative, in a building that’s becoming one of the most active office addresses in the city again.
Why this building, for us.
VIDA has always believed that where you work shapes how you work. Our first home in the historic Jantzen Swimwear Building taught us that — there’s something different about building a community inside a space with real history, rather than another glass box with nothing to say. Montgomery Park gives us that same feeling, at a whole new scale: soaring ceilings, that light-filled atrium, unobstructed views of the West Hills and the Willamette, and a neighborhood that’s become one of the most vibrant corners of the city.
Opening our third location here, in a building that’s spent a hundred years being reinvented without ever losing what makes it this building, feels like exactly the right next step for VIDA. We can’t wait to welcome you under that sign!
VIDA is a coworking community designed to #MakeLifeWork for our members. With locations in Northeast Portland, Beaverton, and now Montgomery Park in NW Portland, we offer private offices, dedicated desks, and open coworking, along with thoughtfully curated amenities and a member community that feels like your own. Book a tour of any VIDA location and see what it feels like to be a regular. Prefer the community without the commute? Explore VIDA Virtual instead.