BUILDING SALEM: Four-story apartment building planned on former surgery center land
Building Salem is a regular feature from Salem Reporter intended to highlight planned building projects around the city. Is there a building going up or demolition underway you’re curious about? Let us know by emailing [email protected].
Name: Koz on 14th
Project type: New construction, residential
Location: 1411 State St. (east of downtown)
Units: 194 apartments, including 135 studio, 36 one-bedroom and 23 two-bedroom
Cost: $42 million, including $1.75 million land purchase
Estimated completion: Fall 2027
The need: The building is intended to provide “missing middle” housing geared toward single people who may prefer short-term leases, including Willamette University students, people in Salem for the legislative session and traveling health care workers, said Cathy Reines, president and CEO of Koz Development.
A Washington development company is moving ahead with its second major apartment building in Salem on the site of a former surgical center a few blocks east of the Oregon Capitol.
Snohomish-based Koz Development is planning a four-story building with 194 apartments, mostly studios.
The company completed its first Salem project, Koz on State, downtown in 2021. Reines said that building hit 95% occupancy within a few months, faster than most of their projects.
That was “a strong signal to us that the demand in Salem for workforce housing was strong,” she said. “We began looking for a second site then.”
The property used to house Willamette Surgery Center, which closed in 2023. Salem Health bought the property and demolished the center early last year.
Koz finalized its purchase of the site in late June, Reines said.
She said the location, near Willamette, Salem Hospital and the Capitol, was ideal for the demographic they typically rent to. The company has leases as short as three months, ideal for traveling nurses or Capitol workers in town for the legislative session.
“It’s an easy walk to the hospital, medical district,” she said.
Koz will pursue tax incentives, which typically exempt developers from paying property taxes for years in exchange for building needed housing.
The building won’t be designated “affordable housing,” a government distinction that typically comes with subsidized funding. Rents at their State Street building are about $1,100 for a studio, $1,400-$1,500 for one bedroom and $1,700-$1,800 for two bedrooms. Reines said the new building would have similar rates.
They’re intended to be affordable to people making slightly less than the area’s median income.
The building will include a pickleball court outside.
A site plan for the project is working through the city’s approval process.
“We feel incredibly fortunate at the support of this project from the city and the neighborhood,” Reines said.
May 2025 building statistics from the city of Salem
New multifamily building permits issued: 0
Total multifamily building permits issued since July 2024: 54 permits for 741 units
New home permits issued: 16 permits, including 1 duplex and 1 triplex
Total new home permits since July 2024: 316
New commercial and industrial permits issued: 7
Total new commercial and industrial permits permits issued since July 2024: 70
Contact reporter Rachel Alexander: [email protected] or 503-575-1241.
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Rachel Alexander is Salem Reporter’s managing editor. She joined Salem Reporter when it was founded in 2018 and covers education, economic development and a little bit of everything else. She’s been a journalist in Oregon and Washington for over a decade and is a past president of Oregon's Society of Professional Journalists chapter. Outside of work, you can often find her gardening or with her nose buried in a book.
