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For Pacificmark Construction in Milwaukie, turning a 3,447-square-foot former shopping area in West Linn into a Providence Medical Group clinic was a series of challenges and solutions.

The project included partially demolishing and replacing storefronts and installing new plumbing and heating systems – basically gutting the place down to a shell and starting from scratch.

The schedule was tight. Workers had only 68 days between September and December of last year to get everything done. And there was no staging area. “It was necessary to deliver materials to the suite as they were being installed,” said Mark Matthews, the president of Pacificmark.

Then there were the neighbors.

“Because the suite was adjacent to an existing tenant, we needed to mitigate noise,” Matthews said. “Our solution was to insulate the demising wall early on and schedule noise producing work outside the operating hours of the adjacent tenant.”

The project also required a new water meter and service line. Matthews said the challenge was to handle that while minimizing the disturbance to the existing businesses in the area and limiting the destruction of sidewalks and parking lots.

Workers used directional boring (trenchless technology) to bore the new water service line completely around the building and core drill a hole through the concrete floor at the rear wall of the space to make the new connection.

There were other challenges as well.

“Mid-stream in the project, we were advised by the city of West Linn that they had not required a roofing access ladder when the building was originally built. However, they would be requiring one for the final inspection on our tenant improvement,” Matthews said.

“We negotiated with the building owner to install the rooftop access ladder under a separate contract prior to the final inspection.”

The end result, Matthews said, was a new medical clinic with all the amenities.

“Due to Pacificmark’s teamwork and support of Providence core values, the project was on schedule, on budget and a medical suite Providence and Pacificmark are proud of,” said Rick Sanders, project manager at Providence Health & Services.