Oregon Developer Enters Joint Venture Agreement With Vietnamese Investment Firm

Plans call for building green/solar affordable housing in Oregon and high-end housing in Viet Nam.

Plans under this agreement call for building green/solar affordable housing in Oregon. Photo: Ortiz & Associates

(SALEM, Ore.) - In a meeting at the state capitol, Mr. Nguyen Van Kinh, President and CEO of KVN Investments, LLC, a Vietnamese firm with offices in Hanoi and California, affirmed his commitment to invest in the Oregon housing market utilizing state-of-the-art green and solar panel technology.

Baltazar “Buz” F. Ortiz, founder of Ortiz & Associates, will partner with Mr. Kinh to build Champion Village, a $25 million solar-powered pilot housing project in Sandy, Oregon, using GeoPanel™ light concrete and other green technologies.

The two firms will build Champion Village in two development phases. Starting in the summer of 2010, the first phase will consist of 65 townhouses built on 4.9 acres.

The second phase will consist of an additional 100-plus townhouses on 16 acres.

GeoPanel™ is a prefabricated modular reinforced light-concrete system developed in Oregon that provides exceptional strength, resistance to fire or earthquake, is both sound and mold proof, and is a highly efficient insulating material for heating and cooling.

The partners plan to leverage Oregon’s leadership in solar panel technology throughout their projects.

Mr. Ortiz and Dr. Dat Vu, Director of Operations for Ortiz and Associates in Viet Nam, will travel to Viet Nam within the next few weeks to conclude the joint venture agreement, launching the partners’ Vietnamese pilot project.

The joint venture with Nguyen Van Kinh, a leading Hanoi land developer, affirms Buz Ortiz’s special devotion for Viet Nam, and will lay a foundation for future projects, assisting this developing country’s growth and encouraging further investment into Oregon’s economy.

KVN Investments LLC has offices in Hanoi and Fountain Valley, California. The firm’s projects include a 700-acre, US $1 billion ecological sustainable park, Cam Dinh – Hiep Thuan, located 25 km west of Hanoi, and the Anh Tri horticulture supermarket, the largest marketplace for exotic flowers and landscape trees in Viet Nam.

Also present at the meeting were: Mr. Ocean Yuan, President of Grape Solar, a Eugene-based solar panel manufacturer, and Sandy City Councilor Olga Gerberg. Mr. Yuan’s company will design the solar panel system for the Champion Village Project.