INCLUDES HIGHLIGHTS VIDEO | From emotional tributes to the old Legin Restaurant after which the new housing is named, to calls for long‑term housing stability, the grand opening of Legin Commons showed how much is riding on one new building in outer East Portland …
Legin Commons rises along SE Division Street near the former Legin Restaurant site in the Jade District, as a new affordable housing community celebrating its official grand opening on the Portland Community College Southeast Campus.
Story and photos by David F. Ashton
Southeast Portland’s Jade District marked a milestone on September 10 as public officials, community partners, and neighbors gathered in the courtyard at Portland Community College’s Southeast Campus to celebrate the grand opening of Legin Commons, a 124‑unit regulated affordable housing community on SE Division Street.
See our event video highlights:
Guests first mingled over a breakfast buffet of fresh fruit, yoghurt, granola, pastries, coffee, and other beverages, before the formal program got underway.
Guests enjoy a breakfast buffet inside the building’s Minoru Yasui Community Room while celebrating the completion of the Legin Commons affordable housing project.
The new community prioritizes families with children and extremely low‑income households, with more than half its apartments offering two or more bedrooms, and with twenty units “deeply affordable” for households at about 30 percent of area median income.
Speakers repeatedly paid homage to the Legin Restaurant, closed in 2012, once Portland’s largest and most beloved Chinese eatery and community hub that once stood on an adjacent site. They remarked that “Legin” means “prosperous crystal” in Chinese, and they cast the name as a symbol of hope, continuity, and cultural memory for the Jade District.
A long‑promised anchor against displacement
“Legin Commons shows what is possible when a community comes together to build long‑term, affordable homes in the Jade District,” Duncan Hwang says in his opening remarks.
Metro Councilor and APANO Community Development Director Duncan Hwang called Legin Commons “a physical manifestation” of a neighborhood promise to keep communities rooted along 82nd Avenue.
He told the crowd the affordable units, officially regulated for 99 years, would keep families, students, and elders close to PCC Southeast, and the services that ring the campus.
PCC’s President Dr. Katie Ho says, “Being located literally steps from our campus creates a seamless bridge between secure housing and life‑changing education.”
Interim Portland Community College President Dr. Katie Ho connected the development directly to student success, pointing to surveys showing that a majority of PCC students struggle with basic needs and housing insecurity.
She remarked that having affordable apartments “literally steps from our campus” turns housing stability into an education strategy, allowing residents to focus on coursework and careers instead of rent hikes.
Partnership and permanence
“Not a single nonprofit, agency, or funder can solve our affordable housing crisis alone – we need each other,” comments Our Just Future’s Elsa Natal.
Our Just Future’s Affordable Housing Director Elsa Natal praised the project as one of the most attractive “affordable housing” communities that colleagues had seen, and argued its real beauty lay in the partnership that brought it about. “Not a single nonprofit, government agency, educational institution, developer, funder, or community organization can solve our affordable housing crisis alone,” she observed. “We need each other.”
“Legin Commons makes housing stability real for many families at the heart of this community,” says PHB’s Quisha Light.
Portland Housing Bureau (PHB) Interim Director Quisha Light said the 124 new homes, including deeply affordable units sized for families, showed how targeted public investment could make housing stability “real” for the people most at risk of being pushed out of the area.
Climate‑ready; anti-displacement and cultural memory
Portland Clean Energy Community (PCEF) ‘Benefits Fund’ Program Manager Sam Baraso describes Legin Commons as an example of how climate investments could improve everyday life.
A PCEF grant helped pay for in‑unit mini‑split heat pumps, energy‑recovery ventilation, a substantial solar array, and efficiency upgrades intended to cut bills and maintain comfort during extreme weather, Sam Baraso pointed out in his remarks.
District 3 Portland City Councilor Tiffany Koyama Lane frames Legin Commons as an essential protection against rising regional housing costs and cultural erasure.
“I am proud to be Yonsei, a fourth generation Japanese American, and today we get to stand in front of Legin Commons and witness a dream become a reality.” District 3 Portland City Councilor Tiffany Koyama Lane proclaimed.
“Naming might feel like a small act, but it can be a really powerful part of memory-keeping, legacy preservation, and a way to resist erasure,” she proclaimed.
Highlighting the historic dedication of the facility’s central meeting space is Lynn Fuchigami Parks, Executive Director Emeritus of the Japanese American Museum of Oregon, and Chair for the Minoru Yasui Legacy Project.
“When buildings are thoughtfully named and intentionally connected to history, they become infused with the legacy of the people and the places whose names they bear,” Lynn Fuchigami Parks reflected on civic memory in comments as Chair for the Minoru Yasui Legacy Project.
Enterprise Community Partners’ Claire Parisa says she was struck by the generous common areas and whimsical children’s play spaces, describing the design as a “wraparound hug” for families and community.
Public investment and partnerships fund $58.9 million Legin Commons project
The project represented a major investment in community infrastructure, with a total cost reported to be $58.9 million by Metro.
The “funding stack” included $1.7 million in voter‑approved Metro Affordable Housing Bond funds, approximately $3.78 million from the Portland Clean Energy Community Benefits Fund for solar arrays and high‑efficiency systems, and a $250,000 Transit‑Oriented Development Grant, alongside support from the Portland Housing Bureau, Enterprise Community Partners, and state housing programs.
Speakers and partners line up in the courtyard of Legin Commons for the ceremonial ribbon cutting.
With residents expected to move in soon, Legin Commons now links the legacy of a beloved restaurant to a new promise of long‑term, affordable homes in the heart of the Jade District.
Thank you to Montavilla News for providing a recording of the proceedings from which we were able to transcribe the speakers at the event. See the article by Jacob Loeb: CLICK HERE.
© 2026 David F. Ashton ~ East Portland News™
