has been issued for a firm to provide design-build services for a at the Salem Public Library‘s main building in downtown.

The three-story Brutalist-style building, constructed in 1972, will receive a seismic retrofit as well as upgrades to ensure compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. Also, new mechanical systems and ductwork will be installed, and additional seismic work will improve the auditorium and adjacent parking garage.

According to the city, a 2014 engineering study by Portland firm BergerABAM found the library and parking structure do not meet standards for life safety, and that users, staff and volunteers would be at risk in the event of a major earthquake. This prompted the city to pursue passage of a bond measure to pay for the work. Voters in 2017 approved an $18.6 million general obligation bond.

City officials hope to select a designer and contractor by the end of the year. Construction is set to start in early 2020 and wrap up by May 2021.

Questions about RFP specifications may be emailed to John Nibler of owner’s representative DAY CPM at john.nibler@otak.com.

Questions regarding the RFP process may be directed to Shawna Self, contracts and procurement manager for the city of Salem, at 503-588-6445 or sself@cityofsalem.net.

Bid proposals must be filed with the city before 2 p.m. on Nov. 7.

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A Boones Ferry Road improvement , planned near Tryon Creek State Natural Area, has been on a Portland Bureau of Environmental Services list of priorities since the 1990s. Now it has been delayed once again.

Plans call for replacing a metal culvert underneath Boones Ferry Road with a bridge, as well as other work. The construction phase of the $6.4 million project was supposed to begin in January 2018. However, because of drawn-out design and procurement processes, and a tight work window, construction now is not scheduled to begin until January 2019.

“We have been working on a pretty tight construction timeline,” said Lisa Moscinski, an environmental specialist with the Bureau of Environmental Services (BES). “The timing issue has to do with the water work window, which is July 15th to September 30th.”

Work is allowed only during that time in order to avoid harming fish populations in the area. The goal of the project is relatively simple: improve water flow through the area to allow better drainage of stormwater.

“It’s a priority because of the undersized and aging culvert,” Moscinski said. “When it rains, the water rises significantly.”

A lack of money has been a major source of delays over the years. The design phase started in 2013, but was first put on hold that year and then again in 2014 because of insufficient funding. Then in 2015 the city secured the final $650,000 needed to allow scheduling to begin; the money came from Metro, via its Nature in Neighborhoods program.

Also, the project’s complexity required more planning time. Decades ago, when Boones Ferry Road was built over a confluence of running water, no bridge was included; instead, fill dirt was used to cover a metal culvert allowing water to flow underneath. However, the fill dirt was contaminated with petroleum products and now must be excavated and disposed of.

Figuring out how to deal with the contamination took time. BES officials decided to build a bridge to accommodate wildlife, drivers and pedestrians, and brought BergerABAM aboard to design it. Bridge construction will require closing the road for up to seven months. That led to a study of ways to divert the approximately 18,000 motor vehicle drivers who use the stretch of road each day.

The alternate route that was chosen takes traffic west on Southwest Stephenson Street and then north on Southwest 35th Avenue. The route passes through a neighborhood with an elementary and a middle school, which led to discussions with the Portland Bureau of Transportation and neighborhood associations.

The project also will provide an opportunity to connect regional trails to those in the Tryon Creek State Natural Area. That required coordination with Oregon Parks and Recreation Department. Plus, a variety of utilities must be moved during construction, requiring even more planning time.

Currently, BES hopes to get bids from contractors in early spring 2018.

“It is a pretty significant project,” Moscinski said. “It takes a bit of time when there is this much design work involved.”

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In about a year and a half, people in Vancouver, Washington, will be able to walk out onto a 100-foot-long pier over the Columbia River, look deep into the water directly below and view Mount Hood in the distance.

What people won’t see is the complex engineering that makes such an experience possible.

The cable-stayed pier, a star attraction of the new Vancouver Waterfront Park, will be one of a kind and stay true to an artist’s design for a great pedestrian experience. It will also be environmentally sensitive to the river below and able to withstand a major earthquake.

Art merges with engineering

Shane McCormick, project manager and principal of engineering firm Martin/Martin of Lakewood, Colorado, said his firm has worked on many projects with the Studio of Larry Kirkland, the pier’s designer.

Kirkland, based in Washington, D.C., has a bachelor’s degree in environmental design from Oregon State University.

“Larry is very collaborative in working with other experts to come up with a design that makes sense from an artist’s point of view and from an engineering point of view, to come up with something that’s unique and special,” McCormick said.

Martin/Martin is handling the engineering for the above-ground portion of the pier, while BergerABAM is tackling the underground portion. Both firms have worked for months designing the various pier elements, which won’t be evident to people who walk out onto the wooden deck of the triangular-shaped, 2,500-square-foot structure.

For instance, the pier will appear to be lightweight, McCormick said, but post-tensioned concrete will be included underneath the wooden flooring.

“It’s very durable and will last a long time, but is also very stiff,” he said.

BergerABAM landscape architect David Sacamano added, “It was very important to have this very thin profile so it felt light and airy and hovered over the water.”

Pedestrians will have an unobstructed view from the north shore of the river and be able to look down through a 1,500-square-foot hole in the center. The opening serves an aesthetic viewing purpose, Sacamano said, but also makes the structure lighter and satisfies regulatory agencies such as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.

The reason, he said, is that deep shadows cast over the water give predators more places to hide and feast on young – and possibly endangered – aquatic life.

More good news for river inhabitants is that the original design won’t be used; it relied on steel pilings rather than overhead cables for support. The act of pile driving in a riverbed is bad for fish and marine mammals, according to BergerABAM senior project manager Howard Wells.

“Fish don’t have ears but are sensitive to sound waves, so the pounding on a pile causes pressure waves,” he said. “That’s harmful to young fish in particular and also to marine mammals. They don’t like it and it can alter their behavior.”

Designed to endure an earthquake

Seismic stability of the pier will be ensured by extensive underground work at the shoreline, Wells said. This will be accomplished by drilling 27 five-foot-diameter shafts of reinforced concrete that will extend more than 60 feet under the river bank, creating a “massive and very strong anchor system,” he said.

“Because the pier cantilevers 100 feet over the water and the deck is held up by cables, something has to hold everything down so it doesn’t tip over into the water,” he said. “It’s like a real big kid on end of teeter-totter and small kid on other.”

A rectangular cofferdam of corrugated steel will allow construction below the water level, he said. Most of the cofferdam will be removed, but the back portion will remain as part of the pier’s permanent infrastructure, adding to seismic stability.

Once the shafts are drilled down into the shore, a concrete pile cap will be cast to form the base of the pier’s abutment, he said, which will then have 30 ground anchors attached and drilled back into the bank of the river.

“The purpose of the anchors in one wall of the sheet pile is to resist lateral spreading and (liquefaction) that can result from an earthquake,” he said. “With structures near the water – in Japan we saw quite a bit (during an earthquake) – the ground liquefied and started to flow.”

The ground anchors and cofferdam wall will form a bulkhead to hold the ground in place during a seismic event.

“The drill shafts will keep the pier in place vertically and the ground anchors and back wall of the cofferdam will keep it from sliding into the river,” Wells said.

A prominent, unique structure

Above the deck of the pier, 16 cable stays will be attached around the opening in the middle, descending from a tapered, slightly angled 65-foot pole on the shore, McCormick said. The cable stays will in turn be attached to smaller micro piles, similar to the drills shafts that will be driven deep into the riverbank.

“The pole is of steel pipe, with four plates on the outside that taper and create this sculptural shape,” McCormick said. “The tapering was artistically driven, and though the plates act as anchors for the cable, that’s part of the art that’s also functional.”

Martin/Martin has a long history of working on cable-stayed structures, McCormick said, and has performed civil and structural engineering work for many large-scale, cable-supported structures. He believes a cable-supported pier of this size is the first of its kind, though he downplayed the complexity of engineering involved.

“The pier is pretty unique and I’m not aware of anything quite like this being done before,” he said. “But it’s just physics.”

Ground will be broken on the pier today. Construction is scheduled to finish in December 2017. When people walk out onto the completed pier, they will be able to look back toward the 7.3-acre Vancouver Waterfront Park and, eventually, 35 acres of private development – apartment buildings, hotels, restaurants and many retail businesses.

Vancouver Parks and Recreation Director Julie Hannon said she’s pretty excited about the pier, which will be the signature element of the new park.

“I think it will be spectacular to have that over-water experience, to be able to see the river through the cutout, and you can see Mount Hood from there,” she said.

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