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With work on the latest bond-funded project at the Oregon Zoo proceeding smoothly despite a glaring shortage of carpenters, the long-term focus will soon shift to construction of a new polar bear habitat.

The $17 million education center project is about half finished, with substantial completion on schedule for November, project manager Brent Shelby said Monday on a walk-through of the jobsite.

Expected to open to the public in spring 2017, the education center is the fifth of eight projects being paid for by a $125 million bond approved by voters in 2008. Designed by Opsis Architecture, the center will house a variety of features, including a large exhibit center, an auditorium, an insect zoo, a turtle pond and spaces for summer camps and teen programs.

The zoo’s main drag and narrow-gauge sightseeing train both originate outside the center, at the under-construction Discovery Plaza. It will function as a central meeting space with an outdoor cafe, a learning garden and a nature playground.

鈥淭his will all be a pretty active hub,鈥� Shelby said.

Crews on Monday installed some of the 700 solar panels being supplied by Solar World of Hillsboro. The panels are part of an effort to achieve net zero energy use at the education center. A Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design gold rating is being targeted (under the bond measure ballot language, a minimum LEED silver rating must be pursued for all projects).

Next up is the $22 million polar bear habitat, which will mark a considerable upgrade in accommodations for the zoo’s two polar bears. Presently, twins Conrad, a male, and Tasul, a female, occupy a 2/5-acre space, said the zoo’s head of construction, Jim Mitchell.

Pre-schematic designs of the 83,000-square-foot habitat have been submitted by project designer CLR Design of Philadelphia. They show a sumptuous, two-tiered site layout with a deep-water cove, shallow pools, a ridge and a beach.

鈥淚t will be a huge improvement for the bears,鈥� Mitchell said.

Lease Crutcher Lewis, builder of the new Elephant Lands exhibit, won the bid; project completion is expected in 2018.

After the polar bear habitat project, upgrades are planned for habitats serving primates and rhinoceroses. They’ll likely be rolled into one project, in part because the rhino habitat project is small.

One challenge faced by the education center project team headed by general contractor Fortis Construction has been the many underground layers of construction work dating to the 1950s, when a bond measure provided money for a new zoo facility near the top of Washington Park. Excavation work has turned up many surprises, Shelby said, and the construction documents that exist aren’t much help.

Mitchell said a greater challenge has been a lack of carpenters 鈥� a direct and stark effect of the current labor shortage. The project is on schedule through the efforts of the contractor, he said, but some employees will have to start working Saturdays.

Mitchell noted during the walk-through that the plaza should be noisier.

鈥淟ook at that,鈥� he said, gesturing at under-construction classrooms with no workers nearby. 鈥淚t’s desolation.鈥�