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The area surrounding Union Station in Old Town Chinatown is about to gain a huge injection of development, providing Multnomah County commissioners give a go-ahead this week.

The county’s board on Thursday is expected to approve the Multnomah County Health Department‘s plans to build a $46 million headquarters facility on the vacant lot east of Bud Clark Commons. Officials say the six-story building’s benefits will extend beyond health.

“We will have 350 people in this building that make a living wage or better than a living wage,” health department interim Director Joanne Fuller said during a public planning meeting at Bud Clark Commons on Monday. “What I see is that every morning, swinging into that building, will be a bunch of highly educated professionals that want to buy their coffee, drop off their laundry, or go to a yoga class. I do think that will change the dynamic … of this neighborhood.”

Health department officials more than a decade ago began looking for options for relocation from their facilities in the Gladys McCoy Building in downtown Portland. The 12-story building, constructed as a department store in 1923, long ago outlived its usefulness as the hub for one of Oregon’s largest federally qualified health centers.

The health department began researching the feasibility of developing the half-block site west of Northwest Sixth Avenue, between Irvington and Hoyt streets, and acquired it from the Portland Housing Bureau in 2012. Last year, health department officials brought on Home Forward, ZGF Architects and JE Dunn to formalize a building plan.

That plan calls for financing the project with approximately $26.9 million in River District urban renewal money, $5.4 million in county cash, and a long-term loan of $13.7 million. The county would pay down that debt in part via increased operational savings made possible by a newer, more efficient building. Fuller said the health department also will likely look to sell the Gladys McCoy Building, and put that money toward debt service.

Meanwhile, the team has completed schematic designs and is beginning to ferret out details. Of course, those details are still somewhat preliminary and won’t be cemented until after design review.

“One of the main principles that’s informed a lot of the process is that Multnomah County is looking for an 80-year building,” said Jonah Gamblin, a ZGF project designer. “We’re trying to provide something that meets immediate needs but also something that can be open and adaptable, and sort of evolve over time.”

To that end, ZGF plans to condense vertical passageways for things like stairs and mechanical circulation into the same areas so the remaining floor plates can remain open and adaptable. That would be critical because the 96,000-square-foot building will be slightly smaller than the Gladys McCoy Building.

With little room on the site for green space, a green roof is planned. Also, a courtyard of sorts along the building’s western edge would link up with an open area at Bud Clark Commons; Gamblin said it would help connect the two properties.

As for massing, the bottom two floors would have a taller storefront quality, while the upper windows would be more squat and interspersed in pattern. The facade prominently features glass and a light-colored stone.

“Stone is durable,” Gamblin said. “We would like to have something that communicates it’s not something that’s going to go away next week, but it has presence to it.”

The project team is hoping to navigate the permitting process by March 2015 so that ground can be broken the following month. JE Dunn, the construction manager-general contractor for the project, hopes to issue requests for sub-bids in the fourth quarter of this year.

The tentative occupancy date is October 2016. By that time, the health department won’t be the only major tenant in the northern corner of Old Town Chinatown. The Pacific Northwest College of Art is expected to complete its $32 million renovation of the 511 Federal Building (one block southwest) by the 2014-2015 school year.

The Portland Development Commission also owns the vacant city block just south of the health department’s site. That property is expected to be developed at some point, though no plans are in the works.

“And then at some point I imagine down the road the (U.S. Postal Service superblock) will be redeveloped,” said Mike Andrews, director of development and community revitalization for Home Forward. “So there are immediate projects, but then there’s a pretty significant change that’s likely to occur in the next 10 years. That neighborhood is going to look a whole lot different.”