The Architecture Foundation of Oregon hosted a networking event this week at 1320 Broadway, the former Oregonian newspaper building designed by Pietro Belluschi. Fortis Construction is putting the finishing touches on a $15 million core and shell renovation, designed by Allied Works Architecture, for Seattle-based owner Urban Renaissance Group.

Work on the project has included removing drop ceilings and acoustic ceiling tiles to reveal 28-foot ceilings in the building’s lobby and former printing and broadcast spaces, exposing of original concrete structural elements, addition of a ramp to the basement for parking, and new entrances, windows, bathrooms , locker rooms and shower facilities.

The building contains 165,000 square feet of open creative office space, most of which has been leased. Elemental Technologies has leased around 101,000 square feet, D+H Financial Technologies will occupy another 45,000 square feet, and Ristretto Roasters will operate in the building’s lobby. The former printing press space at street level on Southwest Sixth Avenue and a ground-level space on the south side of the main entrance on Southwest Broadway remain open. Tenant improvement work is slated to begin in the coming weeks.

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Fortis Construction, founded in 2003, in the garage of David Aaroe – now executive vice president – has grown from a certified Emerging Small Business to one of Oregon’s largest general contractors. It has a staff of around 190 and the resources to handle jobs ranging from $100,000 to more than $300 million. Projects include commercial offices, data centers, health care facilities and higher education buildings.

Facebook, Prineville mission-critical campus

Fortis has worked with Facebook in Prineville since 2009. In that time the contractor has built more than 1.28 million square feet of “mission-critical” facilities and is still at work at the site today, according to marketing manager Shane Kucera. When the first phase began in early 2011, the facility was one of the most energy-efficient in the world, featuring a cooling system created for the unique climate characteristics of Central Oregon.

Oregon State University, Learning Innovation Center

The $56 million, 135,000-square-foot OSU was completed on schedule for fall 2015 classes. It contains 20 percent of all classroom space on campus – 2,300 classroom seats in 14 unique settings plus 640 seats of informal learning space distributed around the building. It serves every department in the university, and is home to the Honors College.

Legacy Mount Hood Medical Center, Medical Office Building 4

Fortis recently completed the $22.5 million, 75,000-square-foot and outpatient services center at the Legacy Mount Hood Medical Center. The three-story facility features an endoscopy center, outpatient surgery suites and outpatient lab services. The third level was originally shell space, which is now being built out by Fortis. Legacy Health has described the facility as “a modern healing environment that promotes well-being.”

Oregon Zoo, education center

Fortis is constructing two new buildings that will compose the 20,000-square-foot education center, a major piece of the zoo’s 20-year master plan. It will serve the 200,000 children who take part in zoo camps and classes each year, and feature an insect zoo, an outdoor plaza and café and a 150-seat auditorium/event space.

Ex-Oregonian Building renovation

The building at 1320 S.W. Broadway in Portland was designed by renowned architect Pietro Belluschi and constructed in 1948 for The Oregonian newspaper. Fortis Construction is completing a $15 million upgrade to deliver desirable work space for firms handling tech, creative and professional services. The overhaul has so far opened up towering, 28-foot ceilings, 20-foot glass walls and architectural accents long buried beneath drop ceilings and acoustic ceiling tiles. When work finishes, the building will offer 165,000 square feet of open offices and hospitality spaces over five floors, including retail on the ground floor.

Builder’s Choice is a new 91��Ƶ feature offering a look at the projects being tackled by local architecture, engineering and construction firms. To have your firm’s projects considered, contact 91��Ƶ construction reporter Garrett Andrews at 503-802-7226 or garrett.andrews@djcOregon.com.

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The former headquarters of The Oregonian, now being renovated, has its first tenant signed. Ristretto Roasters will operate in the lobby of the downtown Portland building at 1320 S.W. Broadway.

The 67-year-old structure, designed by Pietro Belluschi, last year was purchased by Urban Renaissance Group and Clarion Partners for $14.2 million. They are spending more to renovate the building and restore it more closely to its original design.

One of those efforts is returning the lobby’s high ceilings, Urban Renaissance Group project manager Tom Kilbane said.

“It was really a grand, quasi-public space with 28-foot ceilings and a big expanse of floor space,” he said. “Over the years it got closed in with drop ceilings involved and office space that encroached.”

Ristretto Roasters’ space will be relatively small, at 400 square feet, but it won’t be walled off and will be a primary feature of the lobby, Kilbane said.

Allied Works Architecture, architect of record for the project, worked closely with Ristretto Roasters’ director of operations, Brian Cross, to come up with a design for the café, Kilbane said.

“They had to install plumbing and a water line into the space, but decided to leave it open and make it feel like it’s part of the lobby,” he said.

Ristretto Roasters’ café will open next spring, Kilbane said, when the building is expected to reopen.

“They are a great coffee provider and we’re happy to have them come into the building,” he said.

Once renovations are complete, the building will have 40,000-square-foot floor plates and six floors of office space totaling 165,000 square feet. Also, 6,000 square feet of ground-level space will be available for retail businesses.

Renovation plans also call for creating an outdoor terrace and event space with a catering kitchen and restrooms, secure ride-in/ride-out bike parking for 200 bicycles, locker rooms connected to private showers and bathrooms, and an on-site concierge and event space able to accommodate up to 300 people in the lobby.

This will be Ristretto Roasters’ fourth Portland location. The company, which handcrafts its coffees in small batches, was founded in 2005 by Din Johnson in the Beaumont neighborhood.

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Over the past 67 years, renovations to The Oregonian‘s former headquarters in downtown Portland have masked the original design by renowned architect Pietro Belluschi.

The latest project led by the building’s new owners seeks to turn back the clock. Drop ceilings will be removed and long-lost details of Belluschi’s mid-century modern aesthetic will be exposed.

“A lot of what we’re doing is undoing,” said Chris Bixby, associate principal with Portland-based Allied Works Architecture. “We’re trying to bring some unique elements of the building back to life … There are some big cavities that we’re planning to open up. We’re really peeling back some of those unfortunate renovations over the years.”

Allied Works Architecture is designing the renovation project for Seattle-based Urban Renaissance Group and New York-based Clarion Partners. The real estate companies recently purchased the Oregonian Building at 1320 S.W. Broadway for $14.5 million. The Oregonian moved out this past summer, and the new owners will spend nearly the same amount as the purchase price to renovate the five-story, 165,000-square-foot building to accommodate office tenants and ground-floor retailers, said Tom Kilbane, head of Urban Renaissance Group’s Portland office.

Urban Renaissance Group officials were attracted to the building because its design will easily lend to creating offices with open floor plans and lots of natural light, Kilbane said.

“It was the opportunity that those high ceilings created and the potential to create the office space that everyone is interested in right now,” he said. “We really like the location. Enlivening this building is going to have a great impact on that neighborhood.”

Renovation plans call for exposing the building lobby’s original 28-foot-high ceiling, restoring a cafeteria on the fourth floor, and adding both a private rooftop terrace for the fifth-floor tenant and a common-area terrace to the mezzanine level between the fourth and fifth floors. A new entrance and storefronts will be installed along Broadway, and windows will be cut into a truck tunnel that runs through the building to provide visual connections from the lobby to Southwest Sixth Avenue.

“One of the critiques of the building is that it has very little street presence,” Bixby said. “People are realizing the importance of reconnecting the building to the street.”

The project also involves conversion of the basement into an 80-space parking garage with an entrance on Southwest Columbia Street as well as the addition of a 100-stall bike parking area, showers and locker rooms to the lower level.

When the Oregonian Building was constructed for the newspaper in 1947, prominent features included large windows facing Sixth Avenue that allowed passersby to see the press in operation as well as an expansive lobby on the building’s Broadway side, Bixby said.

“The building was really designed to be a machine for making newspapers,” he said. “It was really lauded as an exemplary building for the newspaper industry at the time.”

One of the challenges of the renovation has been navigation of the unusual layout designed to accommodate newspaper printing and distribution operations, Bixby said. Many of the floors do not extend through the building, and the Allied Works Architecture team was tasked with finding a way to open the truck tunnel and repurpose it as a pedestrian access point.

“It’s a pretty complicated series of levels and planning stuff; it’s a bit hard to get our head around it,” he said. “Because of that, it has some interesting spaces, so that’s what we’re trying to reveal.”

An especially meaningful part of the renovation will be restoration of the building lobby’s original volume, Bixby said.

“I imagine this civic feeling,” he said. “It was a public place. It had this sort of connection to Broadway. The intent is to recreate that connection to Broadway.”

To ensure that the renovation respects the era of the building and Belluschi’s design, Allied Works staffers consulted the original building plans. Project team members also reached out to Belluschi’s son, Portland architect Anthony Belluschi, to get his feedback on renovation plans.

“To work on a Pietro Belluschi building is fascinating,” Bixby said. “It’s a building with a story in the city and it’s fascinating because of that.”

Urban Renaissance Group crews have already performed some light demolition to remove drop ceilings, but a general contractor will be hired to start major transformative work early next year, Kilbane said. The project is scheduled to finish by late 2015.

The Oregonian Building renovation

Location: 1320 S.W. Broadway, Portland

Cost: approximately $14 million

Anticipated construction start date: early 2015

Anticipated construction completion date: late 2015

Owners: Urban Renaissance Group, Clarion Partners

Architect: Allied Works Architecture

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For the new owners of The Oregonian‘s former headquarters in downtown Portland, moving the structure into the future will mean returning it, in part, to its past.

Clarion Partners and Urban Renaissance Group spent $14.2 million to purchase the building on Southwest Sixth Street. The partners will spend more money to renovate the building in a manner that will pay tribute to its place in the history of Portland architecture.

Designed by Pietro Belluschi and constructed in 1947, the building in its heyday was “a gentle, shimmering mass of glass, marble and granite” that stood as a tribute to the architect’s design finesse, according to an article in the New York Times written when Belluschi died in 1994.

With an eye toward restoring some of that original glory, Clarion Partners, which has headquarters in New York, and Seattle-based Urban Renaissance Group plan a multimillion-dollar renovation for the building under the design direction of Allied Works Architecture.

The lobby ceiling is slated to return to its original 28-foot height, which will allow natural light to enter the space from clerestory windows on the side of the building bordering Southwest Broadway.

Additions and revisions to the building over the years will be removed to reveal long-hidden details of Belluschi’s design.

A tunnel that was used by trucks will be revamped with windows to create a connection between the street and the interior lobby area.

The building also will receive a new entrance, and basement space will be converted to car and bicycle parking.

The building boasts more than 165,000 square feet spread across six floors, which the owners say could be attractive to tenants with large-scale operations.

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