Overview
Owen has an extensive range of legal experience in business, commercial, real estate, and corporate matters. Among the clients he represents are small family-held businesses, national and international corporations, nonprofit organizations, and charitable foundations. His industry experience includes manufacturing, retail, sports, media, entertainment, and technology.
Representative transactional matters Owen regularly handles include:
- Real estate sales and acquisitions
- Business mergers, acquisitions, and dispositions
- Professional sports matters
- Media and marketing contracts
- International licensing and distribution agreements
- Computer and software sales, acquisition and development agreements
- Secured and unsecured financings
Owen’s experience also includes counseling nonprofits on their governance, operational, and investment issues. He has served as a member, officer and/or director of many civic and nonprofit organization committees, task forces, and boards of directors. For over two decades, Owen and his colleagues at Tonkon Torp have provided pro bono legal services to Albina Head Start, which serves approximately 1,000 children and their families.
Featured Representative Matters
Formation of Qualified Opportunity Fund
Sale of High Profile Downtown Portland Mixed-Use Property
Featured Work
Portland’s First Living Building in the Heart of Downtown
On March 31, 2020, Owen Blank and Rachel Atchison helped their client close on the beginning of Portland’s first living building, which will be located at SW 1st Avenue and SW Pine Street. The “Living Building” will meet the world’s most stringent sustainability standards. It will have many amazing attributes, like use of filtered heat recovery ventilation and cross-laminated timber certified by the Forest Stewardship Council.
Tonkon Torp Helps Albina Head Start Purchase Property for Community Cornerstone
Attorneys from Tonkon Torp’s Real Estate & Land Use Practice Group are celebrating a successful real estate purchase for pro bono client Albina Head Start (AHS). For more than 40 years, AHS has leased space at a former church building in NE Portland for its Tina Clegg Center. The Center, a community pillar for one of Portland’s historic communities of color, houses both a Head Start program serving 60 low-income families and AHS administrative offices that coordinate and provide services for numerous additional families.
Tonkon Torp Attorneys Help Secure Portland’s First Five-Star Hotel Project
Tonkon Torp played a foundational role in paving the way for Oregon’s first five-star hotel development, the 35-story Ritz-Carlton hotel in downtown Portland. Attorneys from the Real Estate & Land Use Law Practice Group represented their client, the landowner, in negotiating an agreement to enter into a ground lease (AEGL) with BPM Real Estate Group, a Portland-based developer, assisting with the fulfillment of the AEGL’s conditions, and closing the transaction with the parties entering into the ground lease itself.
Albina Head Start Turns on First Solar-Powered Building with Assist from Tonkon Torp
When Albina Head Start learned it was awarded a Blue Sky Fund grant to install a rooftop solar array on one of its buildings, it turned to its long-time pro bono legal partner, Tonkon Torp. The nonprofit organization knew that it would need legal guidance to ensure that it could meet the terms laid out in the grant’s detailed and binding Memo of Understanding.
Tonkon Helps Tonkin
For decades, Tonkon Torp has been honored and proud to represent the Tonkin family and its businesses. In fact, the relationship dates back to the post-World War II era.
Tonkon in the Driver’s Seat for Fast Dealership Purchase Ride
Auto dealership sales are generally straightforward affairs that frequently involve both business and real estate assets. In 2015, Tonkon Torp got involved in a purchase transaction that took a unique turn. Find details and more featured cases here.
Tonkon Torp Helps Albina Head Start Stabilize Finances for Enhanced Programming
Albina Head Start, Inc. (AHS), which serves more than 1,000 low-income children and their families in North, Northeast and Southeast Portland, faces the future in a stronger financial position thanks to a significant pro bono effort by Tonkon Torp. Find details and more featured cases here.
Tonkon Torp Finds Solution to Property Purchase Dilemma
Tonkon Torp attorneys Owen Blank and Max Miller represented the buyer in a recent purchase of Portland area property that was previously the site of a gas station and had contaminated soil that presented potential liability and development risk issues.
Community Involvement & Activities
Multnomah Bar Association Equity, Diversity & Inclusion Committee
Member
Professional Memberships
Multnomah Bar Association
National Sports Law Institute
Awards & Recognition
The Best Lawyers in America
2008-2021, Mergers & Acquisitions Law
2008-2021, Real Estate Law