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, and are teaming up for an apartment project that could become the first housing development in Corvallis to achieve a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design rating.

But the team is facing resistance from neighboring residents, who say the project should be downscaled and include more parking spaces.

The Harrison Apartments building is planned as a replacement for the former Corvallis General Hospital structure, which has unreinforced masonry and asbestos inside. The building is owned by Samaritan Health Services; it selected Project Ecological Development to redevelop the site.

鈥淭he building is old and vacant, and there’s not really a reuse for it,鈥� Project Ecological Development partner Anyeley Hallova said.

Hallova said the site is ideal for student housing because it is about two blocks from Oregon State University, on Northwest Harrison Boulevard 鈥� a major Corvallis street with transit access.

Plans call for a 104,947-square-foot building featuring 91 units with either two, three or four bedrooms. The development would include 179 parking spaces and 204 bike stalls. A LEED gold rating is being targeted, Hallova said.

However, the College Hill neighborhood association recently appeared before the city’s planning commission to present its opposition to the project planned near the national historic district.

鈥淎s it currently stands, even if it met the code requirements technically, which we dispute, we would see a minimum of 100 cars looking to park in adjacent neighborhoods,鈥� said Gary Angelo, president of the neighborhood association. 鈥淥ur neighborhood is already dealing with a severe parking problem, as are the neighbors to the north.鈥�

Hallova said that apartment building management will discourage residents from parking motor vehicles. Also, the bike parking spaces are intended to attract students who rely on alternative transportation, she added.

However, Angelo is skeptical that such a plan would work. He said that many students who live in his neighborhood and others who live closer to campus bring their cars to Corvallis when they’re attending the university.

鈥淭he current owners and managers of the property may very well be successful themselves at encouraging students to not bring cars to campus, but we don’t know how long these owners or managers are going to own these properties,鈥� Angelo said, adding that in the future, another owner may not follow suit.

College Hill residents also are concerned about the proposed scale of the apartment building, Angelo said. The hospital building that will be demolished is 35 feet high; however, the Harrison Apartments would be four stories, include a gabled roof and stand 51 feet.

鈥淚t’s larger than anything in the adjacent neighborhoods,鈥� Angelo said. 鈥淚t dwarfs not only the houses but the adjacent fraternities and sororities.鈥�

Angelo said College Hill residents would prefer a project appropriate for the small-scale residential area and able to provide housing for not only students, but also families and the elderly.

Project Ecological Development is attempting to address design concerns, Hallova said. Residents expressed concerns about the planned vertical wood siding, which she said can easily be changed to horizontal, with some brick intermixed as well.

The ZGF Architects team is striving to design a building that fits within the context, ZGF associate Heidi Bertman said.

鈥淐reating a pedestrian environment was one of the main focus points during design,鈥� she said. 鈥淥n the ground level, we pull back from the street a little bit and each unit on the ground floor has a front porch. It’s a long building, but it’s bent or kinked at places to reduce that feeling of scale.鈥�

Bertman said she and ZGF principal Gene Sandoval are passionate about the project, which is one of ZGF’s first midsize apartment efforts and one of its first in the Corvallis area.

鈥淟ike anybody else, we’re all learning a lot right now,鈥� Bertman said. 鈥淭hat’s where the industry is.鈥�

Apartments present attractive prospects for developers in Corvallis these days, because OSU‘s enrollment is increasing. A limited number of sites for new projects and an often difficult city approval process have made the apartment market even tighter, Hallova said.

After a long hearing before the Corvallis planning commission last week, it postponed deliberations until another meeting Jan. 4. In the coming days, Hallova said the project team will decide if and how it would adjust the project to meet the neighborhood association’s requests.

If the project were to move forward as the team anticipates, the building would open in 2013, Bertman said.