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More than a year has passed since Kevin Cavenaugh of Guerrilla Development first proposed his 鈥�Fair-Haired Dumbbell鈥� building for a site at the Burnside Bridge‘s east end. On Thursday he finally got the Portland Design Commission‘s approval.

Cavenaugh’s design, which won a city competition, features two six-story, cantilevered buildings slightly angled away from each other and joined at every floor level by eight-foot-wide, 30-feet-long open walkways. Both buildings will be completely covered with an original design by an artist yet to be selected.

Design Commission Vice Chairman Ben Kaiser voted against approval, but commissioners Julie Livingston, Tad Savinar and Jeff Simpson all gave approval for the art-inspired project after about an hour of discussion. Commission Chairman David Wark and Commissioner Don Vallaster were absent.

Kaiser was not explicit about his reasons for voting no, but he seemed to be concerned about how the building would fare in the long term.

鈥淲e have to think about 80 or 100 years from now,鈥� he said.

At a previous design hearing for the project earlier this month, commissioners brought up concerns about perceived insufficient glazing, whether a covering should be placed over the sixth-floor walkway and how the roof would be treated.

Kaiser said then that he thought not covering the sixth-floor walkway would be a mistake. But Savinar said Thursday that after studying a rendering of the proposed building, he decided that covering the top walkway would affect the design.

鈥淚 think a canopy won’t work and it seems stupid,鈥� he said.

Livingston said she was satisfied with plans for the building and Simpson said he was in favor of approval. And although he voted in favor the proposal, Savinar said he still had some reservations about being able to maintain the texture of the building’s skin.

Before the vote, Joe Zody of FFA Architecture & Interiors, representing Cavenaugh, defended the percentage of windows in the building by pointing to other buildings with similar percentages of glazing. Zody added that ground-floor windows accounted for 50 percent of surface area. He also pointed out that the Regional Arts & Culture Council had approved the building.

Zody also said that covering the top walkway wouldn’t work with the design.

鈥淲e look at the exterior bridges as exactly that,鈥� he said.

Zody added that he had requested that the RACC include the building’s roof in the design that will cover the exterior walls.

After the meeting, Zody said he was pleased with the outcome.

鈥淚t’s a milestone for us, there’s no doubt about it,鈥� he said.

The next step will be to complete documents required for a building permit, which Zody said he expected to be done by Christmas. He said construction could begin by next spring and finish in about a year.

In the meantime, Zody said the RACC can now initiate the process of selecting an artist to create a design for the building’s skin.

鈥淲e can start very quickly now with approval and really begin the process,鈥� he said.

The Fair-Haired Dumbbell is one of three projects at the Burnside bridgehead; the other two are already under construction.

Works Partnership Architecture designed a 10-story mixed-use building for Block 75, at 111 N.E. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., with both office and residential space in a modular format above ground-floor retail space.

A 21-story tower designed by Skylab Architecture for Block 67 will have 20,000 square feet of commercial space and 284 apartments. A lower adjoining structure on lot 76 will have a parking garage for 200 vehicles and be topped with a green, cascading public park at the bridge level.