Portland Public Schools is poised to spend $16 million to buy the One North development in North Portland to turn into the long-promised Center for Black Student Excellence. But the price tag is perhaps the easiest of the issues that school board members and the public must confront before buying the complex that will primarily house nonprofits – not classrooms.

If the sale proceeds, the district would have to spend another $20 million to $25 million on updates, including to the building’s heating and cooling systems and to gird the sleek 10-year-old development for a possible earthquake – even as dozens of rickety elementary and middle schools remain on a waiting list for life-saving seismic repairs. While the district has bond dollars to cover the center’s capital costs, operating

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