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1609 SW Twelfth Avenue, Portland, Oregon 97201

The Helen Gordon Child Development Center stands at the north end of a long block between SW Market, 12th, Montgomery and 13th, with Parking Three at the south end. 

The center was built as the Portland Fruit and Flower Mission , which supplied food, clothing, furniture and other items to local charities in 1928. It is the only building on the PSU campus that is currently registered on the National Register of Historic Places, and was one of the earliest structures in American designed specifically as a day-care facility. The Fruit and Flower Day Care Nursery, which cared for children of poor working parents, is the oldest continuing day-care center in Oregon. It moved to Northwest  Portland in 1972, which was the year the original building was acquired by PSU.

The current center has more than 90 children ages 2 to 5 enrolled. It serves as PSU's laboratory for preschool teaching, open to students from local colleges for practicums, observation and research.

The architect in 1928 was Sutter and Whitney. The structure is designed in a modern interpretation of Georgian style townhouse architecture, with Flemish Bond pattern brick walls, flat brick quoins at the corners, and a simplified cornice in brick. There are three floors and a basement, though the third floor is not currently in use because of access limitations.