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Portland’s Bureau of Development Services is preparing to perform two remodels to its service area to better manage the high volume of customers.

The projects at 1900 S.W. Fourth Ave. will expand and reconfigure employee and customer work areas, improve the flow of customers through the permitting area and 鈥渃reate physical space that supports the different services being provided,鈥� according to BDS spokesman Ross Caron. These include answering customers’ questions, meeting with customers submitting building permit applications and reconciling the corrections made to plans.

The first project, valued around $500,000, is a remodel of the space where building permit plan sets are stored and managed: the second-floor Permitting Services area. The remodel will improve the existing space configuration and expand the customer work areas. This project is in the final stage of approval and is scheduled to begin by the middle of this month and conclude by the end of the year. Work will be done on evenings and weekends to minimize impacts on staffers and customers, Caron said.
The second project is a remodel of the first-floor Development Services Center, also known as the Permit Center. The upgrade will address long customer wait times. This project is in the early planning phase.

BDS has added more than 100 employees in the past three years to handle increased permit activity during Portland’s current building boom. Issued building permits are up around 25 percent in the same span.