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Western Oregon is a geologic hot spot. Even though the region hasn’t been rocked by a major quake in the modern era,experts agree there’s a serious chance one will hit in our lifetimes. Among the hazards of a large seismic event is the failure of buildings made of unreinforced masonry (URM) 鈥� brittle brick buildings of a kind demonstrated to have a high likelihood of failure in a seismic event.

The problem of what to do with Oregon’s URM buildings has vexed policy makers for nearly as long as the dangers have been known. But there’s growing sense that what’s been tried hasn’t worked and a new law will have to take a harder line to get owners to comply. To do that, it’s thought there will have to be incentives.

In Portland, stakeholders are drafting a new proposal that will likely require owners to retrofit and set deadlines for compliance.

鈥淓verybody knows what needs to be done,鈥� said Susan Steward, executive director of Building Owners and Managers Association of Oregon. 鈥淭he problem is: How do we pay for it?鈥�

No incentive

The pickle of a URM building owner is pretty straightforward: seismically upgrading a URM building is expensive 鈥� between $25 and $40 per square foot 鈥� and there’s little financial incentive to do it. That’s because the improvement is generally thought to add little 鈥渞entability鈥� to the structure.

鈥淎re tenants willing to pay more for a seismically-upgraded building? At this point, I don’t think so,鈥� said Greg Frick, partner at HFO Investment Real Estate. 鈥淭here’s a high cost involved, and I know not every owner is going to be able to write a check for 20 grand a unit to do an improvement. There’s this misconception that a lot of these apartment owners are basking in money.鈥�

HFO is involved with several downtown apartment buildings that are unreinforced. Frick said it all comes down to what’s right for each building. A seismic upgrade is in most instances a major financial burden. And costs vary from a few thousand to over $1 million.

鈥淚t’s just a question of what makes sense and what doesn’t make sense,鈥� he said.

Steward’s group, BOMA Oregon, drafted a report ahead of a release of findings by the city’s URM Seismic Retrofit Project calling for financial assistance to cover or reduce the cost of a retrofit, as well as exemptions to help keep costs for owners low.

Though many notable and historic URM buildings are publicly-owned, 95 percent of the URM stock in Portland is held privately. Not all the owners are wealthy corporations, Steward said, and few can afford to sink a huge cost. She said if the city mandates seismic upgrades, tax credits and grants above what’s currently available will be necessary.

California current

Though things move slowly in geologic time, public awareness of the earthquake danger in the Pacific Northwest has moved rapidly in recent years, according to Dan Douthit, spokesman for Portland’s Bureau of Emergency Management. Part of the reason was an article in the July 2015 issue of The New Yorker magazine 鈥� 鈥淭he Really Big One,鈥� by Kathryn Schultz.

鈥淟eading up to it there were things that helped raise awareness, but the New Yorker article really was a watershed moment in the public’s understanding of the earthquake danger in the Northwest,鈥� Douthit said. 鈥淚t’s been building for a while, this general awareness. The New Yorker article was just written in a way that captured international attention. I think these days people are aware of it 鈥� Oregon and Portland get earthquakes.鈥�

Compared with other major West Coast cities, Portland has a high number of URM buildings. This has something to do with when Portland was built, and a lot to do with the fact that Portland and Oregon have yet to be hit with a sizable quake. Laws requiring retrofits have been in place in California since the 1980s. Seattle’s URM inventory is notably smaller than Portland’s because many unreinforced brick buildings have been either upgraded by now, demolished or lost in a temblor.

Some of Portland’s approximately 1,800 URM buildings are considered significant from a historical perspective. In these cases, federal and state tax money is available. The federal government offers a 20 percent tax credit for rehabilitation of historic income-producing buildings, and a 10 percent tax credit for non-historic buildings. The Portland Development Commission offers grants through a storefront improvement program and the city waives or reduces building permit fees for certain renovations.

About 75 percent of the $1 million cost to upgrade the Montgomery Court residence hall at Portland State University was covered by a grant by the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Predisaster Mitigation Program. The building was designed by noted architect A.E. Doyle, and today still houses students during the academic year. Those factors helped preservationists win the funding, said Yumei Wang, senior engineer with the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries who worked on the project.

鈥淚n general, if you were to do a full upgrade of a URM building like that, it’d be very expensive,鈥� she said.

At hazard

San Francisco transplant Eric Cress knows he’s in the minority. His firm, Urban Development Partners, specializes in adaptive reuse of old buildings, including their current home on Northeast Sixth Avenue between Couch and Davis streets. Cress did a lot of this work in the Bay Area, where the threat of an earthquake isn’t so foreign, before relocating to Portland 10 years ago.

Cress says Urban Development Partners’ philosophy is to upgrade any building it purchases, simply to protect the investment. An old warehouse can command high rents if it’s converted into a hip creative office in a cool part of town. But Cress said Urban Development Partners won’t purchase a building if a seismic retrofit doesn’t make sense. But for other owners, particularly owners of industrial URM buildings, an upgrade doesn’t make financial sense.

鈥淭here are buildings in Portland where it just wouldn’t pencil. No matter what you do, you won’t get the rents needed to pay for the upgrades,鈥� Cress said.

Amit Kumar, senior structural engineer with the city’s Bureau of Development Services, said Urban Development Partners is the rare exception.

鈥淲hat we see from our experience is totally the opposite,鈥� he said.

The city’s Bureau of Development Services first started tracking URM data in 1994. Today’s updated count is 1,884 URM buildings, including 87 that have been upgraded. Additionally, 153 have been demolished.

鈥淓ighty-seven isn’t very high,鈥� Kumar said.

Most of the upgraded buildings were the result of the current local ordinance, which has a series of 鈥渢riggers鈥� that lead to seismic upgrades. They generally involve changing use of a building to a higher hazard level. Converting a little shop in a gentrifying neighborhood into a nightclub is an example, Kumar said. This is how most of the URM conversions have taken place. But it’s not a good plan for the future, he said.

鈥淲e’ve had these triggers for 20 years and we’ve seen very little improvement in getting rid of these hazards,鈥� he said. 鈥淲e are trying to get the ball rolling on this, because we’re at 12 percent upgraded. That means it will take another 80 to 100 years to get rid of these hazards.鈥�

To address the slow pace of retrofitting URM buildings, three city agencies were tasked last year by the City Council to come up with a law requiring seismic retrofits for URM buildings, as well as devising incentives for building owners. BDS is joined by the Bureau of Emergency Services and the Portland Development Commission, which is involved with a number of URM buildings. They’re overseeing three committees, which are developing retrofit standards, a new policy and a system of incentives for building owners.