The vacant floors of the Meier & Frank building have at least one future tenant. Oregon State University announced Tuesday that it will occupy the second floor of the historic building in downtown Portland.

The new location will give the state's largest university a major foothold in Portland's central core and close proximity to Portland State University and the University of Oregon's two buildings in Old Town Chinatown.

The bottom five floors of the Meier & Frank building have sat empty since Macy's closed its doors this spring.

The Cincinnati-based retailer sold its space to a California real estate investment group, KBS, for $54 million late last year. At the time, KBS told The Oregonian/OregonLive that it planned to redevelop the property into "a best-in-class" facility with street-level retail and creative office space.

According to OSU's announcement, the Corvallis-based university will occupy the second floor – 39,509 square feet of space – beginning Aug. 1, 2018.

University spokesman Steve Clark said the university has signed a 10-year lease for the space, and will pay about $115,000 a month (roughly $1.4 million total) in the first year.

The price of the prime real estate is worth it, he said, because it provides a prominent location for the university with good access to transit.

The space will serve as a new Portland base for OSU, whose footprint in the city includes The Food Innovation Center in the Pearl District. It also operates a pharmacy program in collaboration with Oregon Health & Science University in the South Waterfront.

Clark said the university's new space will house offices from OSU's foundation and alumni association, which are currently located a few blocks away. Advisers will also work there, serving the 1,000-plus students in the Portland area who take online classes.

The floor will also be home to OSU's Advantage Accelerator, which helps local businesses.

"We're very happy to have this opportunity," Clark said. "We believe the central location makes perfect sense."

Though KBS, the building's owner, initially said retail would take up the first two floors, Tuesday's announcement said shops would occupy the ground floor, with "additional tenants" in the third through fifth floors. Previously, KBS has said it hoped to dedicate the upper floors to creative office space.

The 15-story Meier & Frank building occupies a whole city block at Southwest Fifth Avenue and Morrison Street, adjacent to Pioneer Courthouse. The upper floors house The Nines hotel, the Urban Farmer steakhouse and rooftop bar Departure.

Andrew Theen of The Oregonian/OregonLive contributed to this report.

-- Anna Marum

amarum@oregonian.com

503-294-5911

@annamarum