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Over the past 67 years, renovations to The Oregonian‘s former headquarters in downtown Portland have masked the original design by renowned architect Pietro Belluschi.

The latest project led by the building’s new owners seeks to turn back the clock. Drop ceilings will be removed and long-lost details of Belluschi’s mid-century modern aesthetic will be exposed.

鈥淎 lot of what we’re doing is undoing,鈥� said Chris Bixby, associate principal with Portland-based Allied Works Architecture. 鈥淲e’re trying to bring some unique elements of the building back to life 鈥� There are some big cavities that we’re planning to open up. We’re really peeling back some of those unfortunate renovations over the years.鈥�

Allied Works Architecture is designing the renovation project for Seattle-based Urban Renaissance Group and New York-based Clarion Partners. The real estate companies recently purchased the Oregonian Building at 1320 S.W. Broadway for $14.5 million. The Oregonian moved out this past summer, and the new owners will spend nearly the same amount as the purchase price to renovate the five-story, 165,000-square-foot building to accommodate office tenants and ground-floor retailers, said Tom Kilbane, head of Urban Renaissance Group’s Portland office.

Urban Renaissance Group officials were attracted to the building because its design will easily lend to creating offices with open floor plans and lots of natural light, Kilbane said.

鈥淚t was the opportunity that those high ceilings created and the potential to create the office space that everyone is interested in right now,鈥� he said. 鈥淲e really like the location. Enlivening this building is going to have a great impact on that neighborhood.鈥�

Renovation plans call for exposing the building lobby’s original 28-foot-high ceiling, restoring a cafeteria on the fourth floor, and adding both a private rooftop terrace for the fifth-floor tenant and a common-area terrace to the mezzanine level between the fourth and fifth floors. A new entrance and storefronts will be installed along Broadway, and windows will be cut into a truck tunnel that runs through the building to provide visual connections from the lobby to Southwest Sixth Avenue.

鈥淥ne of the critiques of the building is that it has very little street presence,鈥� Bixby said. 鈥淧eople are realizing the importance of reconnecting the building to the street.鈥�

The project also involves conversion of the basement into an 80-space parking garage with an entrance on Southwest Columbia Street as well as the addition of a 100-stall bike parking area, showers and locker rooms to the lower level.

When the Oregonian Building was constructed for the newspaper in 1947, prominent features included large windows facing Sixth Avenue that allowed passersby to see the press in operation as well as an expansive lobby on the building’s Broadway side, Bixby said.

鈥淭he building was really designed to be a machine for making newspapers,鈥� he said. 鈥淚t was really lauded as an exemplary building for the newspaper industry at the time.鈥�

One of the challenges of the renovation has been navigation of the unusual layout designed to accommodate newspaper printing and distribution operations, Bixby said. Many of the floors do not extend through the building, and the Allied Works Architecture team was tasked with finding a way to open the truck tunnel and repurpose it as a pedestrian access point.

鈥淚t’s a pretty complicated series of levels and planning stuff; it’s a bit hard to get our head around it,鈥� he said. 鈥淏ecause of that, it has some interesting spaces, so that’s what we’re trying to reveal.鈥�

An especially meaningful part of the renovation will be restoration of the building lobby’s original volume, Bixby said.

鈥淚 imagine this civic feeling,鈥� he said. 鈥淚t was a public place. It had this sort of connection to Broadway. The intent is to recreate that connection to Broadway.鈥�

To ensure that the renovation respects the era of the building and Belluschi’s design, Allied Works staffers consulted the original building plans. Project team members also reached out to Belluschi’s son, Portland architect Anthony Belluschi, to get his feedback on renovation plans.

鈥淭o work on a Pietro Belluschi building is fascinating,鈥� Bixby said. 鈥淚t’s a building with a story in the city and it’s fascinating because of that.鈥�

Urban Renaissance Group crews have already performed some light demolition to remove drop ceilings, but a general contractor will be hired to start major transformative work early next year, Kilbane said. The project is scheduled to finish by late 2015.

The Oregonian Building renovation

Location: 1320 S.W. Broadway, Portland

Cost: approximately $14 million

Anticipated construction start date: early 2015

Anticipated construction completion date: late 2015

Owners: Urban Renaissance Group, Clarion Partners

Architect: Allied Works Architecture