Lincoln Hall was constructed in 1911 as a high school.

Nearly 100 years later, Portland State University’s oldest campus building is on the verge of graduating to Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design platinum status.

The university had $29.1 million in state money to perform deferred maintenance projects. But workers soon discovered that the old wall partitions, made of gypsum rock, needed major repairs.

“We would try to take down a portion of a wall and the whole wall would end up crumbling,” said Doug Greenwalt, project manager for Howard S. Wright Constructors. “We ended up having to (demolish) a lot more than we originally thought.”

The crumbling walls led to the team essentially gutting the entire building, said Scott Gallagher, director of communications for PSU.

Additional construction threatened to increase project costs, so the team looked for ways to stay under budget.

Designers made a conscious decision to incorporate new plumbing and electrical parts into the design of the building instead of trying to conceal it in the walls. This reduced costs significantly, Greenwalt said.

“We had so many creative ideas from our team that helped us stretch the dollars and keep the historic feel of the building intact,” said Barbara Sestak, dean of fine and performing arts at PSU. Sestak, who is also an architect, was one of the PSU faculty members who contributed to project design.

Howard S. Wright suggested supporting old stairwells from above and installing new shear walls and footings for support. This allowed original stairways to be upgraded to current seismic codes, and avoided costly replacement work.

The project also required the addition of several 68-foot steel beams to reinforce the structure. In order to insert the steel beams into the building, the roof above two old light wells had to be torn up. The light wells, which were included in the original design to provide natural light, had been covered with brick and used as storage space.

“Once the roof was removed and everybody saw how much natural light was coming into the building, nobody wanted to cover it back up,” Gallagher said.

The decision was made to tear out makeshift storage spaces and reopen the space. The space was then capped with large skylights. The steel beams were left exposed, as a cost-saving measure, and attached to the existing frame.

“We were able to use those things we had to do to meet code and do them in a way that would allow us to enhance the entire building,” said Michael Tingley, principal in charge for Boora Architects.

Restoration of the light wells opened the building to natural light, which will help score LEED points. The building also had 324 windows replaced.

“The windows were custom-made for the building by JELD-WEN. The glass was made in Bend and the frames were made outside of Medford,” Gallagher said.

The new windows increased the thermal envelope of the building so much that the university decided to replace aging HVAC systems, Greenwalt said. A heating unit in the basement was removed, and the space was converted into an actor’s studio. The cooling system on the fourth floor was also removed and that space was turned into a music studio. An energy efficient HVAC system was installed on the building’s roof.

The project originally was designed to achieve LEED gold certification, but when the university calculated efficiency, it discovered that the building was near the platinum level, Gallagher said. The university shared this information with a donor, who pitched in $400,000 to add solar panels designed to provide 2 percent of the electricity needs for the entire building.

“The building got a completely new mechanical, electrical and hydronic heating and cooling system. We went from 1911 technology to a state-of-the-art, energy efficient system.” Greenwalt said.

Gallagher said the university expects to apply for LEED platinum certification next month.

The next round of construction, which is set to start in October and wrap up next spring, will create a larger entrance from Southwest Broadway. Storage space near the existing entrance will be converted into a large lobby. One level above, the university plans to build a three-floor, glass studio space.
PSU will host a grand reopening for Lincoln Hall on Thursday.

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Goals for participation by disadvantaged and minority-owned businesses for years have been added to public construction projects.

Now, R&H Construction and Colas Construction have formed a new company, R&H/Colas Construction, to focus on opening doors to the private sector.

The new company presents an opportunity for expansion for Colas, which also will be able to bring smaller, minority-owned subcontractors along to work on larger private jobs.

R&H says it will gain key contacts in the public sector and be able to develop working relationships with smaller, minority-owned subcontractors.

“It will essentially allow subs to bid on work with three different companies,” said Andrew Colas, president of 13-year-old Colas Construction.

Companies such as Walsh Construction and Hoffman Construction in the past have teamed up with smaller businesses to achieve specific goals for disadvantaged and minority business participation. But forming a new company requires time and money, said Don Geddes, spokesman for Walsh Construction. It has never had interest in forming a separate company because the process of setting up insurance and bonding is time-consuming and expensive, Geddes said.

R&H and Colas hope that the new company will be able to put minority contractors to work and help them build their businesses enough to compete for larger, private jobs. R&H and Colas believe the new company will not only provide jobs, but also help improve communities in the Portland-metro area.

Colas Construction has a longtime reputation of putting minority contractors to work on projects, R&H Vice President Dave Gunsul said. “Minority subs realize they have a real shot at winning these bigger bids. They know we really want to see them work on our projects and we want to put small companies to work.”

Maurice Rahming, president of the National Association of Minority Contractors, said the new partnership is a great example of a larger contractor partnering up with a smaller firm in order to help build up smaller, minority subs.

Traditionally, minority firms tend to stick to public work, where participation goals are advertised. With private work, goals are typically not set and so smaller companies don’t even know the work exists, let alone have time to bid on them, Colas said.

But some projects with minority participation goals may require only a “good faith effort” was made to achieve specific percentages. But R&H and Colas say these good faith efforts are not enough and that real change is needed.

Many times a good faith effort simply consists of a contractor calling a certain number of minority-owned businesses and asking them to come out and bid on a project, Colas said. But in an industry that strives on relationships, Colas said these smaller companies often don’t believe they have a real shot.

“When I make a call to a minority-owned business asking (it) to bid on an R&H/Colas project, they know me. They’ve worked with me and they know they have a legitimate shot at getting the bid,” Colas said.

Colas and Gunsul said they call small, minority-owned subs to inform them about private jobs and give them information they need to submit competitive bids.

Jean-Wildy Malary, owner of Affordable Electric, said his company has grown through its relationship with Colas. When Malary started his business six years ago, he was the sole employee. Over the years, primarily through subcontracting jobs working under Colas, he now employs six full-time workers.

“Now, because of my relationship (with) Colas, it has opened the doors for me to talk with management over at R&H,” Malary said. “Now we’re working with R&H more and we’re getting a chance to bid on bigger, private jobs.”

“R&H/Colas is making sure that minority contractors work on their projects,” said Rosa Martinez, owner of PMG Environmental Services. “They’re making a real effort, not just a good faith effort; they are putting in a real effort to reach their goals.”

Both Martinez and Malary have been called by R&H to bid on private jobs since the R&H/Colas company started.

“We’re not giving these companies the work,” Gunsul said. “We’re telling them, ‘If you do good work, we’ll help you grow your company, but you still have to compete.’ But we’re giving these companies a chance to compete on private work.”

The first major project completed by R&H/Colas was a tenant improvement to the Golden West Hotel in Northwest Portland; 47 percent minority participation was achieved. The next major bid R& H/Colas won was work on the new Portland Community College campus in Newberg. The minority participation goal is 20 percent, but Gunsul said he believes it will hit 30 percent.

“We’re going to help people achieve the minority participation goals they’ve been having problems achieving, and introduce these subs to a whole new market of work on the private side,” Colas said. “But our goal isn’t just to hit the numbers; it’s to change communities by providing jobs.”

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Regional government Metro is looking for transit-minded citizens to join its Transportation Policy Alternatives Committee.

The committee meets to discuss transportation projects funded at the regional and federal levels and then advise regional leaders on the projects. The four positions would start in January 2011.

Three of the vacancies are for a two-year term, while one of them will run from January until December 2011 to fill a vacated seat.

Applicants will be reviewed and then interview by Metro, with the final step being approved by the Metro Council. The chosen applicants will join two other citizens on the panel of 15 various elected officials.

Interested applicants will have to attend meetings that take place during the normal weekday working hours.

To submit an application go to

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The Broadway Bridge will close from Tuesday at 8 p.m. until 5 a.m. Wednesday morning.

The closure is due to the latest round of work on the $148 million Portland Streetcar Loop project.

According to Kay Dannen, spokeswoman for Portland Streetcar, the bridge will need to be raised Tuesday evening for construction crews to work on the span locks. Crews will work to finish welding the span locks of the bridge.

Dannen said the bridge will close again in the future for streetcar construction, but contractors are not sure of the exact dates.

Two lanes of traffic will reopen on Wednesday, with larger vehicles such as RVs and buses remaining banned from the bridge until 2011, when construction on the bridge is scheduled to finish. Both bike and pedestrian lanes will also reopen on Wednesday.

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The Portland Bureau of Transportation has awarded the bid for the first phase of the Portland South Auditorium Lighting project to the Elcon Corporation.

The project received five bids with the winner coming in at $558,828 under the project’s estimated cost of $4.8 million.

The project entails constructing lighting improvements along streets, walkways and park areas on the north side of Southwest Clay Street and the south side of Southwest Arthur Street. The project also includes providing new lighting to a parking lot on Naito Parkway.

This project is being funded with money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

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No guidelines exist to help contractors use pipe ramming effectively.

But that hasn’t prevented Lyle Schellenberg, owner of Armadillo Underground, a Salem utility excavation company, from using the technique off and on during the last 10 years.

“People ask me how I know what size hammer and what size pipe I need to install a pipe with pipe ramming,” Schellenberg said. “My answer is, ‘I just know.’ But there comes a time where experience has to be replaced with scientific data.”

Pipe ramming, a form of trenchless technology, is like sideways pile driving. A pipe essentially is driven through earth with a combination of force and vibration provided by a hydraulic hammer.

But the practice is not widely known or practiced, and it has generated engineering questions. To better understand pipe ramming, the Oregon Department of Transportation and Oregon State University teamed up for a 30-month, $330,000 study.

The goal of the study is to transform pipe ramming into a science, said Armin Stuedlein, an OSU professor and the study’s principal investigator.

A major advantage of using pipe ramming is that a construction crew can work without needing to disrupt street traffic. The process also fills the pipe up with dirt, providing support and preventing cave-ins that can occur when earth is cleared with an auger.

Stuedlein said ODOT wants to start using pipe ramming on jobs, but the science behind the process is not understood well.

“The contractors can make it work, but engineers need to understand process,” Stuedlein said. “In this case, the science and engineering is behind contractor innovation.”

Without being able to predict how a pipe with handle the stresses of being struck repeatedly with a hydraulic hammer, engineers cannot properly specify the size of pipe to install, or the size of hammer to use.

In order to gain data that can be used by engineers to generate a set of guidelines for pipe ramming, Stuedlein and a group of contractors gathered on a plot of land in Salem to study the process.

For 10 days in August, Stuedlein and a crew of competing contractors worked together to ram a 120-foot-long, 42-inch-diameter pipe through an embankment. The pipe was fitted with 96 gauges, two miles of wiring and multiple accelerometers. Different lubrications also were used. All of the gauges measured and gathered data on the amount of strain and stress caused to the pipe.

“The information they derive from this study will undoubtedly affect the entire industry,” said Schellenberg, who participated in the study.

Results of the study, which began in December 2009, are expected to be released in spring 2011.

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The Bureau of Labor and Industries is calling for nominees for its second annual Business Leadership Awards.

The Oregon Labor Commissioner, Brad Avakian, announced today that the submissions process has officially opened. Any Oregon-based business can be nominated for an award from now until Nov. 8.

The awards are designed to recognize businesses which support civil rights, equal employment and fairness in the work place.

Three different awards are being offered: Civil Rights Champion, Fair Workplace Champion, and Workforce Development Champion.

The awards’ presentation will take place Dec. 1 at the 26^th Annual BOLI Employment Law Conference in Portland.

Nomination forms are available at

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The project to replace the Sellwood Bridge seemed to be picture-perfect. It had public support, a filed environmental impact statement and money pledged for construction.

But now the city of Portland is claiming its taxpayers are paying for an unfair amount of the project’s $330 million cost, and it wants to be able to back out from its financial obligation if the imbalance isn’t corrected. The impasse threatens to delay the project’s 2012 construction start date.

“Portlanders are paying about 60 percent of the final costs of this project, and that is too much,” said Tom Miller, chief of staff for Mayor Sam Adams. “They only make up 17 percent of the trips over the bridge.”

In 2009 Adams said the city of Portland’s commitment to the project was $100 million, which would come from a new gas tax. Multnomah County has pledged $127 million, including $101 million from an increase in vehicle registration fees. The additional $26 million would come from the Multnomah County gas tax.

But when looking at the numbers, Miller pointed out that 80 percent of Multnomah County residents are Portland taxpayers. So Multnomah County’s $101 million portion essentially would entail Portland residents paying twice.

But Michael Pullen, spokesman for Multnomah County, said it is simply “not true” that the city of Portland is being burdened with most of the cost.

Multnomah County is counting on a total of $92 million pledged from Clackamas County, the Oregon Department of Transportation and the federal government. But that money is “far from a done deal,” Miller said.

Clackamas County, whose residents account for most trips over the bridge, according to Miller, plans to pitch in $22 million from a new $5 vehicle registration fee increase. That has yet to be approved.

“The county can beat up the city all day long, but it doesn’t fill in these funding gaps,” Miller said.

And because of these funding gaps, Adams’ office is calling for an “out clause” to be written into its agreement with Multnomah County. This would allow the city of Portland to rescind its financial obligations if other project partners were to come up short. Portland’s fear, according to Miller, is being stuck with additional costs.

The major problem with an out clause, said Jeff Cogen, Multnomah County chairman, is that Multnomah County had been banking on bonding $100 million against the city of Portland’s financial commitment to the project.

“No one will bond against that money if there’s an out clause,” Cogen said.

Cogen added that before the city of Portland signed its agreement with Multnomah County, the mayor’s office requested that the new Sellwood Bridge include streetcar tracks on its top deck, its ramps and its approaches; and the county complied. But then Adams’ office requested the new bridge include an overhead catenary system, and the county refused.

“There isn’t going to be streetcar on that bridge for years to come and it would add great costs to the project,” Cogen said.

Adams’ office also has asked Multnomah County to transfer control of its Willamette River bridges to the city of Portland. The county isn’t opposed to the action, Cogen said, but it doesn’t like the timing.

Cogen said the city wants control of the bridges before or during the process to replace the Sellwood Bridge. But that would be an extremely complicated process that would need to involve the Legislature, Cogen said. Because the Legislature isn’t set to meet until next year, Cogen said this could potentially delay the project by a year and trigger the loss of federal funding.

Miller said the city offered to take over control of the bridges so that the county could focus on its primary objectives.

“This would allow (the county) to focus on the core … which is to provide human services,” Miller said. According to Miller, the city of Portland is better suited to handle infrastructure problems.

Miller said the city is still committed to the Sellwood Bridge replacement project; however, it would like to see the county look into trimming costs, beginning with a proposed $40 million ramp on the west side.

Multnomah County has agreed to look for costs to cut throughout the project, said Dave Austin, spokesman for Cogen’s office.

“We have a letter that says the city will contribute funds (and) we have a majority of Portland City Council members saying they want to do it, but I have yet to get a signed contract from the city,” Cogen said.

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After a misunderstanding, the Oregon Department of Transportation received word that it can in fact update its 2011-2013 Disadvantaged Business Enterprise goals.

ODOT had submitted goals to the Federal Highway Administration that were based on outdated disparity numbers in the state. ODOT planned to finish a new study and update those goals, but the FHA told the agency the goals could not be changed once they were submitted. The FHA has since told ODOT this is not true and that ODOT can update its goals, said Patrick Cooney, spokesman for ODOT. ODOT’s new disparity study is under way.

The current goals for 2011-2013, which are meant to help small, disadvantaged businesses get a share of public work, award 11.5 percent of contracts to disadvantaged businesses. A hard goal was set of awarding 1 percent of that number to black and Asian American-owned businesses. In order to continue on with hard goals, ODOT must prove with its new study that a disparity still exists.

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While many people involved in the Columbia River Crossing project continue to move ahead, others question whether the current plan is even viable.

Metro councilor Robert Liberty is among those who believe a number of insurmountable financial hurdles loom for the proposed Interstate-5 bridge project. This week he and other community members called for creation of a backup plan.

The Columbia River Crossing project team over the past seven years has spent $97.8 million on planning, but Liberty said the team has no “plan B.” Liberty this week hosted a meeting to present and discuss 14 citizen-submitted alternatives to the present Columbia River Crossing project. The panel consisted of Gary Toth, senior director of transportation initiatives with the Project for Public Spaces; Mary Nolan, Oregon House Majority Leader; Chris Girard, CEO of Plaid Pantry; and Keith Lawton, a transportation consultant and former transportation planner for Metro.

The latest blow to Columbia River Crossing project funding came from the board of directors for Clark County’s transit agency, C-TRAN. The board this week voted to split a measure on a tax increase for county transportation planned for next year’s ballot.

The first measure would be for a sales-tax increase of two cents per $10 to fund future bus operations. The second ballot measure would be for a sales-tax increase of one cent per $10 to fund light-rail and bus-rapid-transit projects.

The Columbia River Crossing project, meanwhile, is counting on $850 million from the Federal Transportation Administration’s New Starts program. Under the program, projects must show local revenue is available to maintain and operate light-rail components. That funding is now in question.

To make the matter more complicated, said Scott Patterson, spokesman for C-TRAN, the transit agency must also be able to show the FTA that light rail will not interfere, from a financial standpoint, with the region’s ability to provide bus service. If the two-cent tax to fund future bus operations were to fail, Patterson said C-TRAN would have no choice but to cut bus service.

Columbia River Crossing designers were aware of the ballot issue, said Carley Francis, spokeswoman for the project.

“We’ll just have to wait and see how the measures fare,” Francis said.

But Liberty stressed that the “vast majority of the funding associated with the current plan is in question.”

Nolan expressed her concerns over the financial questions still facing the project. In an attempt to avoid an “all or nothing” project, she encouraged those involved in the process to choose a phased approach.

“I come to this process now with an interest in finding a project that can move forward quickly,” Nolan said. “We’ve already spent a lot of time and effort on this project. We need a project that will get moving and get people working.”

The goal of a phased approach, which the other panel members and the majority of submitted alternatives support, would address the Columbia River Crossing’s biggest problems first.

Nolan suggested securing money first and then building solutions to ease freight traffic. Then the project could move to the next phase.

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