The National University of Natural Medicine’s campus is dispersed over five acres south of downtown Portland that can be described as in the middle of everything but close to nothing.
Sandwiched between freeway onramps and offramps and Southwest Naito Parkway, the university sits in a food desert, far from residential neighborhoods and hard to access by public transportation. Good luck finding parking close by if you’re driving.
“It’s tricky for patients to find the campus,” said Dr. Melanie Henriksen, NUNM’s president and CEO. “I hear jokes all the time about this being the Bermuda Triangle.”
Which is why the university plans to pick up stakes and move. Where exactly is still to be determined, but likely not downtown. The goal is to move by winter 2023.
“We’re wide open,” Henriksen said. “We want to stay in greater Portland area.”
A place ‘like home’
NUNM is the oldest accredited naturopathic medical school in North America, founded in 1956 as the National College of Natural Medicine. Its hub is a former elementary school constructed in 1912. The building served as the first location of Portland Community College until NUNM purchased the property in 1996. The university later expanded to other buildings in the area.
David Schleich, who served as NUNM’s president from 2007 to 2019, had planned to expand the campus to include more urban green space and a permaculture food forest. Although he won approval from the city for a master plan, it was never executed. Dr. Christine Girard succeeded Schleich after he retired but stepped down after about 18 months for personal reasons.
Henriksen was appointed president on an interim basis in October 2020, then made permanent in the position in July 2021.
Last April, Henriksen presented a balanced budget for the current fiscal year without increasing tuition for the first time in 20 years and restored cost-of-living increases for all faculty and staff, along with increasing retirement contributions for full-time employees. The school also awarded $200,000 worth of new scholarships to students.
Since 2015, NUNM has launched 10 new programs, including acupuncture, social activism and international development and service.
Henriksen has a long association with the school. She graduated from NUNM’s naturopathic, Chinese medicine and natural childbirth/midwifery programs in 2005, then went into private practice as a licensed primary care physician and acupuncturist before becoming a certified nurse midwife. But she never really left the university.
Before her appointment as president, she served in a variety of roles at NUNM, including adjunct faculty, residency director, associate dean, attending physician, dean and chief medical officer.
“This place is like home and always has been,” Henriksen said. “I don’t know what pulls me back, but it’s something about the people, the place and the medicine that’s near and dear to my heart.”
Meeting 21st century needs
Six months after Henriksen took the helm on an interim basis, Covid struck, prompting a shift to online classes and a re-evaluation of space needs. While classes are back to in-person, for the most part, Henriksen anticipates that faculty and staff will continue to work in a hybrid capacity.
Enrollment is down slightly, to 494, from the mid-500s a few years ago. But Henriksen said those numbers aren’t driving the new space considerations.
Not only is the current location inconvenient and spread out, but the main building also requires seismic upgrades, Henriksen said.
“The building has charm, but in training providers for the 21st century, it’s not able to meet the needs of students and providers, and the campus is lacking in many things,” Henriksen said.
Last June, Henriksen received approval from the university’s board to put the campus up for sale. Cushman & Wakefield listed the property in September and is also working with NUMN on a purchase or long-term lease for a new site.
The current campus, consisting of seven buildings, has attracted interest from “a number of different groups looking at the entire campus and individual buildings,” Henriksen said.
While there’s no asking price, Henriksen believes the proceeds will certainly cover a lease and tenant improvements. NUMN is seeking around 85,000 to 100,000 square feet and plans to add a simulation lab and a new and improved teaching kitchen.
As for where exactly NUNM might land, it’s too soon to say, but the next beachhead likely won’t be downtown, Henriksen said. She anticipates that the university will end up with two clinics, one at a primary campus and the other on the opposite side of town.
Brad Christiansen, a senior vice president at Colliers specializing in education and health care, said the listing presents a unique opportunity. Anyone who buys the entire site would need to do "exhaustive due diligence" that could take six to nine months, but plenty of buyers are out there for the individual pieces, Christensen said. And high-density housing is also a possibility, though that would require a rezoning.
"Having multiple blocks available and that close in is unusual," Christiansen said. "A couple of potential buyers for the entire piece are out there that have seriously looked at it already."
NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF NATURAL MEDICINE (NUNM)
What: the oldest accredited naturopathic medical school in North America, offering programs in naturopathic and classical Chinese medicine, integrative medicine research, nutrition and global health
President and CEO: Dr. Melanie Henriksen
Full-time faculty and staff: 103
Students: 480
Unique patients in the 2019-20 fiscal year: 4,759, down from 10,730 in FY 2015-16
TIMELINE
1956: National College of Natural Medicine is founded
1996: The college moves to its current campus near downtown Portland
2016: Name changes to the National University of Natural Medicine to reflect the addition of undergraduate degree programs
2021: NUNM decides to pull up stakes, sell its campus and move to a new Portland location