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When the owners of Sunset Porsche Audi in Beaverton decided they needed more space, they bought a former Saturn dealership nearby with plans to establish a new home. They didn’t know it sat on a 100-year floodplain, which almost scuttled their relocation.

Soon after LRS Architects began designing the dealership, senior associate Byron Balogh said, the firm found out that the Federal Emergency Management Agency had changed 100-year flood levels all over the country, especially after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Some cities’ officials weren’t taking FEMA rules about floodplain construction seriously, Balogh said. Then they were told it could affect future federal funding, so officials in cities like Hillsboro and Beaverton 鈥済ot serious,鈥� he added.

So even though no body of water is visible (an existing creek is confined to an underground culvert) on the planned Sunset Porsche Audi construction site at 4350 N.W. 139th Way, it nevertheless qualified for floodplain status and subsequently fell under FEMA regulations.

鈥淭he very first hurdle was that the existing finish floor was now below the new 100-year flood level,鈥� said Balogh, who noted that he has done a lot of work in Seaside and become familiar with design issues caused by flood potential. 鈥淚t got expensive real fast trying to figure out how to take an old building and make it flood-proof.鈥�

The alternative 鈥� construction of a new building 鈥� also would be expensive, Balogh said. But after a six-month delay, the owners decided to do just that.

Several ideas 鈥� putting the building on stilts, elevating it with fill dirt or digging a big hole under it 鈥� were rejected by FEMA, so the plans were again revised.

Balogh said FEMA agreed to allow 鈥渟ubtle mounding and gentle contouring鈥� of soil already at the site, as long as it didn’t have the potential to increase flooding on neighboring properties.

The floor of the building had to be a foot above the floodplain, so the LRS team came up with the idea of creating a 30-inch crawl space under the first floor with vents all around the base of the building. Nothing can be put in the crawl space, Balogh said, and the vents will open only in case of a flood to allow water to enter the crawl space and flow through the building.

But first, Tigard-based Westlake Consultants, the project’s civil engineer, had to make some complex calculations after Perlo Construction, the general contractor, regraded the contours of the site, Balogh said.

鈥淲hen we drop this building down on top of (the site), they had to prove it is not displacing any water at all, but letting the water do its thing 鈥� and they had to do the calculations in one-foot increments, which is kind of crazy,鈥� he said.

Construction of the new building began about a month ago and should finish in about a year, Balogh said. But jumping through all the regulatory hoops tied to the floodplain required three years of planning. The owners also were required to have their plans certified by a floodplain manager.

The new two-story building, at 36,000 square feet, will be double the size of the old dealership a block away, project architect Ben Riemer said.

鈥淚t’s the only Porsche dealership in the region and it will have tile floors and spectacular LED lighting,鈥� Riemer said. 鈥淭hey’ll also have the room to be able to cater events on the weekend, which they like to do.鈥�

Sunset Porsche Audi dealership

Location: 4250 S.W. 139th Way, Beaverton

Construction start date: January 2016

Anticipated construction completion date: January 2017

Owner and developer: Sunset Porsche Audi

Architect: LRS Architects

Civil engineer: Westlake Consultants

Structural engineer: WDY Inc.

Landscape architect: Christopher Freshley Landscape Architects

Floodplain manager: Amec Foster Wheeler

General contractor: Perlo Construction