KPFF, founded in 1960, has established itself as a leader in civil, structural, and transportation engineering, serving a wide range of industries, including commercial, residential, and public infrastructure projects. The firm’s collaborative approach ensures that designs meet both functional and aesthetic needs. Notable projects include the PAE Living Building in Portland, the largest commercial Living Building, which features mass timber construction and operates with net-zero energy, water, and waste. KPFF provided civil and structural engineering services, ensuring sustainability and resilience.

KPFF’s commitment to sustainability is demonstrated in more than 800 LEED-certified projects, including the first LEED Platinum public housing project, Bud Clark Commons in Portland. The firm also pioneered Portland’s first integrated green street neighborhood, New Columbia. Additionally, in 2024, KPFF updated its Embodied Carbon Action Plan, committing to reducing embodied carbon in structural engineering projects by 2050.

With a focus on sustainable development and a strong presence in Portland, where its office has become one of the largest civil and structural engineering firms, KPFF continues to shape the built environment. The firm’s work supports the growth of sustainable, thriving communities across the Pacific Northwest, with a strong emphasis on collaboration and innovation.

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It’s simple enough for a contractor to complete a project, turn the keys over to the owner and move on. But Portland-based Walsh Construction takes pride not just in its professional work, but also how it impacts the community.

For instance, Walsh Construction in 2011 finished building the seven-story Bud Clark Commons transitional housing facility in Old Town. Company employees have since spent substantial time serving numerous people who have stayed at the facility operated by Transition Projects.

“It’s a mentality that you either live by or you don’t,” said Martin Houston, Walsh’s quality director. “Supporting our clients is a lifestyle as well, and you look for the opportunities to contribute to the mission because that’s ultimately what it’s all about.”

Walsh employees just served their 42nd dinner to people staying at Doreen’s Place – a short-term 90-bed emergency shelter for men at Bud Clark Commons.

The dinners started shortly after the building opened and now take place on the first Wednesday of every other month.

“It started with our partnership with Home Forward,” said Walsh Project Administrator Linda Woolery, who runs the company’s volunteer efforts at Doreen’s Place. “When we were under construction, Julie Livingston with Home Forward had been doing shelter dinners at the old shelter on Hoyt Street, so we got involved as a team. We started to pick up some of the costs of the meals and it started there. After we turned over the keys, I went to (Walsh Construction President) Matt Leeding and said, ‘We need to continue this; it’s a good cause.’”

Woolery receives from Walsh Construction a budgeted amount, which she uses to purchase food for the meals. The focus is on providing as much fresh and seasonal produce as possible. She also coordinates a team of company volunteers – typically six to seven cooks and seven to nine servers for each meal. Spots are often filled within minutes of Woolery’s email being sent out, she said, and any money left over is donated to Transition Projects.

“Usually by 10 that morning it’s full, if it hasn’t already been full,” Woolery said.

The latest dinner served by Walsh volunteers took place Dec. 5. And, as is the norm, once dinner was served, volunteers fanned out in the surrounding neighborhood to seek out people needing shelter but unable to secure it. And when volunteers offer these individuals boxed meals, they are often gone within minutes.

“We try to feed 30 to 50 people on the street who are not in the shelter,” Woolery said. “And they are in the immediate vicinity; you don’t have to go find them.”

These efforts have left a lasting impression on both the people receiving the aid and those providing it.

“The first one I did two years ago, at the end of it I was doing a debrief and all I could do was walk over to Linda and give her a great big hug for including the opportunity to be included and to give back to the community we’re making a living in,” said Mike Sloop, Walsh Construction’s director of health care and a senior project manager. “That night was cold and windy, a November or December, so we brought some food to not just the people inside the shelter – we went around the block and the most vivid image in my mind was coming to a tent and saying, ‘Would you like a meal?’ And they wouldn’t respond until someone next door said, ‘It’s OK. They’re bringing you food.’”

The conditions outside were “palpable,” Sloop said.

“I’ve done it twice since,” he said. “And when Linda sends out the email you better be on your toes because it fills up.”

Roma Peyser, director of development for Transition Projects, said her organization could not serve as many people as it does without the help of the hundreds of volunteers who spend time at Bud Clark Commons and other facilities.

“It’s been over eight years that they’ve been doing this, and it is incredibly thoughtful and generous on the part of the company,” she said. “They also have my angel, Linda Woolery. She’s the one that heads up the meals and she’s just built it into this wonderful opportunity for her colleagues to come and participate, and I’m just blown away by all she does to make it happen. We are just so thankful to Walsh, but also really to Linda and her leadership around meal-providing and rallying her colleagues to do the same.”

Woolery most appreciates the chance to simply talk to the people she’s serving.

“I think the thing that gets me the most is the people in the shelter don’t get the one-on-one as much; they’re out on the streets and people don’t talk to them,” she said. “But there they want to talk. And they’ll come and ask, ‘What are you fixing? Can I help?’ You just start a conversation with them and that’s the most meaningful part of this whole thing. That’s why you’re there, is to help.”

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Multnomah County and city of Portland officials are eyeing a long-vacant warehouse near the Steel Bridge as a potential site for a 200-bed permanent homeless shelter.

Converting the warehouse, at 320 N.W. Hoyt St., into a shelter could exacerbate tensions with property owners and business operators in the Old Town Chinatown neighborhood, but it also would offer public officials a long-term alternative to the temporary-shelter hopscotch they’ve engaged in recently.

“We haven’t had a big permanent shelter in the downtown core, and we still see that need,” said Denis Theriault, spokesman for Multnomah County and the Joint Office of Homeless Services.

Negotiations with the property owner, Alco Investment Co. of Seattle, are under way, Theriault said. The Joint Office is seeking a long-term lease for the shelter.

“There isn’t a lease yet,” he said.

The Joint Office has applied for an early assistance meeting with the Bureau of Development Services to determine whether the property could host a shelter.

The warehouse, built in 1925, needs significant renovations before it can function as a shelter, Theriault said. Carleton Hart Architecture and project management consultant Shiels Obletz Johnsen are at work on the project. Transition Projects, a Portland nonprofit, would operate the shelter.

Some neighbors are fighting the drive to establish another center for homeless service in Old Town Chinatown. The Old Town Chinatown Community Association has held public forums on the topic, and met with Mayor Ted Wheeler and Multnomah County Chairwoman Deborah Kafoury.

“It’s just not the right time to add any additional social services to the neighborhood,” said Helen Ying, chairwoman of the neighborhood association.

The group has sent a letter to Wheeler and Kafoury protesting the proposal.

Guardian Real Estate Services President Tom Brenneke said adding a shelter would not conform to a years-old agreement with the neighborhood that there would be no net gain in shelter beds. Guardian owns two properties nearby – Block 33 and the Tuck Lung property.

“I am opposed to it,” Brenneke said. “The area’s overburdened with that type of social service. We already have a significant facility in Bud Clark Commons, and adding 200 more beds doesn’t seem to be in keeping with the agreement.”

Theriault said the shelter could make a positive contribution to the neighborhood.

“We understand there are livability concerns in Old Town Chinatown,” he said. “This shelter is a way to help.”

Public officials continue to receive complaints of homeless individuals lining up to wait for a bed in Portland’s few available shelters. Part of the strategy to address those complaints is to offer a 24-hour, low-barrier shelter with in-house services, Theriault said.

The Joint Office is evaluating the possibility of closing other facilities in Old Town Chinatown if and when the Hoyt Street shelter opens to lessen the burden on the neighborhood.

Wheeler supports the Joint Office’s strategy, spokesman Michael Cox said.

A large shelter would also lessen the city’s and county’s reliance on short-term, temporary shelters hosted by developers. In recent winters, the Menashes, Malsins and others have agreed to host short-term shelters.

The Portland Business Alliance supports using the Hoyt Street site, president and CEO Sandra McDonough said.

Neighbors have legitimate livability concerns, she said, but those are being addressed by measures such as increased police patrols on foot.

“There’s not a lot of sites,” McDonough said. “So this represents a good, long-term site that will work.”

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The Portland City Council on Wednesday heard nothing but support for plans to double the height of the proposed Multnomah County Health Department building.

A half dozen people, including Multnomah County Chairwoman Deborah Kafoury, told City Council that original plans for a new 75-foot building would not provide enough space and that a 150-foot building is needed.

The first reading of an ordinance that would allow the height increase took place Wednesday. The height allowance would apply only to the new building’s site, Block U of the Couch Addition.

“We will see you in a week for the second reading, (when) I think City Council will approve,” Mayor Charlie Hales said.

The health department needs a new home, Kafoury said, because its present one – the McCoy Building on Southwest Stark Street – was built in 1923 to suit a department store and not to house medical professionals.

“This is the largest department in Multnomah County and touches the lives of everyone who lives in or visits Multnomah County,” she said.

Consolidating many offices scattered throughout the county will bring hundreds of health care professionals to work in the new building planned for a vacant lot bounded by Northwest Hoyt and Irving streets, Sixth Avenue and Broadway. The lot is next to Bud Clark Commons, a transitional shelter and day center for people experiencing homelessness.

“Those 350 health care professionals will add to the Old Town Chinatown economic vitality,” Kafoury said.

Douglas Obletz, consultant for the county and president of Portland-based Shiels Obletz Johnsen Inc., said the new building is a “technically challenging” project and that the original proposal for a six-story building was insufficient.

Plans previously called for the building to have 105,000 square feet, according to the proposed ordinance, but the county has determined it needs between 120,000 and 150,000 square feet.

The ordinance would increase the base height of the building to 105 feet and make Block U eligible for up to 45 additional feet in height bonuses. Detailed information on the draft ordinance is available at www.portlandoregon.gov/bps/mchdhq.

City planner Nicholas Starin said floor area ratio (FAR) allowances could be used to add building height by incorporating features like day care, rooftop gardens and eco-roof features, housing, historic features and other elements.

“It would still be subject to design review,” Starin said of the project. “The building would be quite near Union Station, which is historic.”

One point of contention in the past has been the view corridor to the iconic clock tower at Union Station, but Starin showed several slides indicating that the view corridor would be open from four different locations, including the Steel Bridge and the Broadway Bridge.

The city has also been working with the Old Town Chinatown Community Association, the Pearl District Neighborhood Association and Transition Projects, which operates Bud Clark Commons, to meet their concerns.

“We’re working on a good neighbor agreement between stakeholders that will be in place before design review,” Starin said.

In addition to the McCoy Building, the health department also leases space in the Lincoln Building on Southwest Oak Street, where most administrative functions take place, according to the draft ordinance.

“Initially, the county considered dispersing some functions into various other facilities,” it reads. “However, as the estimates of construction costs have risen, in part due to the upswing in the economy, the rationale for a single facility to centralize its activities has become increasingly apparent. The growing cost of continued occupation of the largely obsolete McCoy Building has especially contributed to a sense of urgency to relocate MCHD (Multnomah County Health Department) into a more energy-efficient facility built to contemporary seismic and safety standards.”

The draft ordinance states that the new building will allow the health department to consolidate most of its administrative functions and provide three direct-service clinics.

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Multnomah County Health Department officials are seeking city of Portland approval and neighborhood support for construction of a taller building in Old Town Chinatown than zoning allows.

Initial plans for the health department’s new headquarters called for a six-story building that would not exceed the 75-foot height limit on a vacant lot east of Bud Clark Commons. But the proposed $46 million building would not be able to provide the approximately 120,000 to 150,000 square feet of office space the county anticipates it needing. The only way that the constrained half-block site could provide that much space would be in a building nine or 10 stories, county spokeswoman Julie Sullivan-Springhetti said.

“We have learned a six-story building is not enough space,” she said. “It’s critical that when we invest this type of money in public funds that we have the capacity, and that’s what we’re coming up against with the height limit.”

The revelation has led county officials to put on hold plans to break ground next month on a six-story building that would replace the department’s current downtown Portland headquarters, Sullivan-Springhetti said.

“We paused on that six-story (concept) and we are working with the city of Portland and the Portland Development Commission to look at what we can do to try and utilize the site,” she said.

Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability staffers are reviewing the county’s revised plans and are developing a proposal to change the height allowance on that block, bounded by Northwest Hoyt and Irving streets and Broadway and Sixth Avenue, city planner Nicholas Starin said. A city staff report on a proposed amendment to the height limit is expected to be released by the end of this week, he said.

“They need a fairly large building that wouldn’t fit within the 75 feet,” he said. “The number we’re working off is to get the height to 150 (feet).”

To achieve this, city planners propose increasing the base height allowed on the planned site to 120 feet and offering the county height bonuses in exchange for including building features that are considered a public benefit, such as an eco-roof. Currently, the site is not eligible for such floor-to-area-ratio bonuses.

The proposed height allowance and FAR bonuses require approval of the Portland Planning and Sustainability Commission and Portland City Council, Starin said. A Planning and Sustainability Commission public hearing for the proposal is scheduled for April 28. If the commission were to approve the height allowance, a City Council hearing would likely take place in June, he said. The project would then have to enter the city design review process.

County and city officials earlier this month met with neighbors of the site to discuss plans to construct a taller headquarters building. This includes seeking the support of the Old Town Chinatown Community Association and Pearl District Neighborhood Association.

When county officials last week presented the proposed height increase to the OTCCA’s Land Use and Design Review Committee, members expressed concerns about the taller building blocking views of the Union Station clock tower as well as inconsistency with the shorter surrounding structures. The neighborhood association’s board is scheduled to review the proposal on April 1.

Health department officials more than a decade ago began looking for options for relocation from the Gladys McCoy Building in downtown Portland. The 12-story building, constructed as a department store in 1923, had outlived its usefulness as the hub for one of Oregon’s largest federally qualified health centers. The new headquarters will allow the county to consolidate health department functions currently spread out across multiple buildings. It will house the department’s leadership, public health emergency services, a communicable disease program, specialty clinics, a pharmacy and electronic health records. About 350 health professionals would work out of the building.

In 2013, health department officials brought on Home Forward, ZGF Architects and JE Dunn Construction to formalize a building plan for developing the half-block site owned by the Portland Housing Bureau west of Northwest Sixth Avenue, between Irvington and Hoyt streets.

The department has since undergone a leadership transition. Former department head Lillian Shirley left in fall 2013 to lead the Oregon Public Health Division. The county’s former chief operating officer, Joanne Fuller, took over as interim director of the health department. The Multnomah County Board of Commissioners this past June appointed her health department director.

Sullivan-Springhetti said county officials still believe the Old Town site is a prime location for the health department’s new headquarters and hope to make the proposed project pencil out there.

“We have this great site (but) because it was limited to the 75-foot height for the investment we would not be able to fit the professionals and services in that for the cost,” she said. “This was the option we were hoping to go with and now we’re in the process to see how we make this work.”

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Plans for the new Multnomah County Health Department headquarters in Old Town Chinatown will go before the Portland Design Commission later this summer.

ZGF Architects is wrapping up design development for the $46 million project, and has submitted materials to the city for approval, project designer Jonah Gamblin said. The firm expects a hearing for the project to take place in mid-September.

The building is designed to have six stories and 96,000 square feet, and occupy a lot east of Bud Clark Commons. Approximately 300 health department employees are expected to work in the building. It will contain administrative offices, three clinics, a pharmacy and an incident command center.

Plans call for many sustainable features, such as a green roof and efficient mechanical equipment, ZGF principal Peter van der Meulen said. The building will be constructed with locally sourced, nontoxic materials.

The understated design responds to surrounding Old Town buildings, Gamblin said.

“The simple massing and the open structural frame I think … contextualizes the building in the neighborhood,” he said.

ZGF designers also considered how the new building would contribute to the neighborhood, Gamblin said.

“It’s a neighborhood that is very much in transition, and I think the county moving to this neighborhood will be a positive thing,” he said.

The new building will provide a vastly improved space over the one the department occupies in the Gladys McCoy Building currently, Multnomah County spokeswoman Julie Sullivan-Springhetti said.

“They’ve been working in this 1920s former department store,” she said.

General contractor JE Dunn Construction is scheduled to start work on the project early next year and wrap up in time for employees to move into the building in fall 2016.

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When Portland nonprofit PHC Northwest hired Home First Development to build an affordable housing complex, it included a serious demand: stick to the budget or eat the project.

The plan called for construction of 27 units for just $1.89 million.

“We said, ‘We’ll put up the money,’ ” said John Murphy, president of PHC Northwest, which provides employment opportunities for disabled individuals. ” ‘You build it, and you have to meet these targets of cost and quality, and if you meet them we’ll buy it from you. If you don’t, it’s yours and you pay us back.’ So they had a real strong incentive. They were out on a limb if they couldn’t perform.”

Slightly more than a year ago, Home First delivered the 27-unit Snowberry apartments, on Southeast 151st Avenue near East Burnside Street, in six months – on time and on budget. Now, Home First and PHC are using their nontraditional business model to build two more affordable housing complexes totaling 107 units. More may follow.

Rob Justus, co-owner of Home First and the founder of JOIN – an organization that helps the homeless find permanent housing – said those projects started out of frustration over the cost of new construction.

Consider that the 85-unit Shaver Green workforce housing complex in Northeast Portland cost approximately $16 million in 2009; the 32-unit Beech Street affordable housing complex under construction in Northeast Portland will cost close to $18 million; and the 130-unit Bud Clark Commons transitional housing building in downtown cost $46.9 million in 2011. All of those developments accommodate more uses than only housing, but for a substantial cost.

Justus believes affordable housing can be built for much less money. For the Snowberry – a typical, garden-style apartment complex – Home First reduced its construction costs, in large part, by eliminating unintended incentives for cost increases. The development team receives a flat fee regardless of how the scope evolves, and change orders receive no markups. The contractor also figured out how to cut its construction schedule in half, in part via efficient scheduling.

“I was really frustrated with watching publicly subsidized housing and every year the costs going up dramatically,” Justus said. “All the energy and politics was all going toward funding this very expensive housing that was deemed ‘affordable.’ ”

Instead of designing a project and then seeking city, state and federal money to pay for it, Home First starts by identifying how much housing its tenants can afford. For example, entry-level workers making approximately $24,000 a year can afford to pay $660 a month in rent without spending more than one-third of their income on housing. With that basis, Home First determined it would need to set aside $275 for maintenance and $100 more toward reserves – leaving $285 per unit for monthly mortgage payments.

That income projection allowed the company to borrow $50,000 per unit at a 5 percent interest rate, with a one-third down payment. With the cost of land at $10,000 per unit, and soft costs totaling $10,000 per unit, the final total came to roughly $70,000 each.

At a 5 to 6 percent rate of return, Home First co-owner Dave Carboneau said the Snowberry yields slightly less than what investors typically like, but more than what a bank would pay. Plus, demand for affordable housing is anticipated to remain high.

“I question sometimes … the jobs that can support the high-end rents,” said Carboneau, a former Portland General Electric vice president. “But I have no doubt in my mind that there will always be jobs that pay $10 to $12 per hour. From a pure business standpoint there will be a good market for this product.”

This year, Home First and PHC Northwest are partnering to build an 80-unit complex at Southeast Division Street and 171st Avenue, and a 27-unit complex at East Burnside and 141st Avenue. Beyond those affordable housing projects, PHC has plans to build 400 additional units over the next five years.

Carboneau said that with an estimated 20,000-unit affordable housing deficit in the region, a big opportunity exists to meet that demand.

“At $70,000 a unit, that’s $1.4 billion,” he said. “That’s a lot of stimulus. We employ about 20 people on average during a six-month period of construction. The math works out to about 1,000 people employed on a full-time basis for 10 years.”

The post Building affordable units for less appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

Josh Lighthipe proved in his backyard that kinetic stormwater sculptures could work for a Southwest Portland affordable housing project.

Lighthipe, a KPFF Consulting Engineers associate, hooked a hose up to his home rain gutter and attached it to a jerry-rigged fountain made from PVC pipe, a used cottage cheese container, a plastic bottle and a garbage can. A float with a Papa Smurf toy on top assessed the water level.

He then used his cellphone to shoot video of the contraption in action during a downpour. The video helped convince officials with Home Forward, a Portland-based government agency, to add art to the stormwater planter system at the 6-acre, 122-unit Stephens Creek Crossing development in the Hillsdale neighborhood.

“I had to convince them to give me more leeway to make these more than your normal pit planters,” Lighthipe said.

His push for a sculptural element in the Stephens Creek Crossing stormwater planters led to Home Forward hiring Portland artist Brian Gualtieri to create five kinetic sculptures for the development. The sculptures, which will be installed in about two weeks, consist of aluminum pipes that tip and tilt as they fill with rainwater.

“The harder it rains, the more activity will happen,” Lighthipe said.

Gualtieri worked closely with Lighthipe on the project and learned a lot in the process, especially about how water could be pushed up into the sculpture.

“They had engineered this big spectacular feat with the stormwater system,” Gualtieri said. “To me, it was really mind-boggling how the water could come up to a 4-foot height.”

Home Forward officials were equally impressed by Lighthipe’s efforts to demonstrate the sculptures’ feasibility, said Julie Livingston, Home Forward senior project manager.

“Josh has been so creative in solving the problem,” she said. “He did that (backyard test) in large part to show that it works and that it was a really simple system.”

Stormwater treatment is required by the city, but Lighthipe figured that he may as well make it an attractive feature of the $52.8 million housing project designed by MWA Architects and being built by R&H Colas Construction.

“You’re going to have to put all this money into treatment,” he said. “It’s a lot of money that nobody gets to appreciate.”

Stormwater planters too often end up becoming muddy pits, Lighthipe said.

“They serve a purpose, but they’re not as attractive when they’re a pit,” he said. “If you go through that much trouble, you might as well make a sculpture.”

The backyard model he created was inspired by deer scarers – Japanese bamboo garden fountains that tip when filled with water to startle grazing animals. Other inspirations for what could be done at Stephens Creek Crossing included KPFF’s stormwater planter work at Bud Clark Commons and an umbrella-shaped stormwater fountain at Providence Portland Medical Center.

“You kind of get an idea of how hard it’s raining,” Lighthipe said. “Most people don’t see stormwater because it goes into a pipe and it’s never seen again. That’s what we’ve been doing for 100-plus years is putting it into pipes and (forgetting) about it.”

This was part of the inspiration for the Stephens Creek Crossing sculptures, Gualtieri said.

“In addition to the sound of the rain, I wanted there to be different cues to understand how much rain was happening,” he said. “My original goal was that hope that there would be this interest and this curiosity that would be intrigued by these sculptures.”

Stormwater sculptures, however, require some tricky engineering, Lighthipe said. The beta test in his backyard came in handy to test the pressure needed to push the water up into the sculpture and figure out a way to prevent clogs of leaves, sediment and other debris.

“I could look out my (bedroom) window and see if it was still working,” he said. “The backyard model is actually spot-on in a lot of ways for what we needed.”

The Papa Smurf toy helped Lighthipe determine if water was being flushed out of the system. If Papa Smurf didn’t drop from sight into one of the pipes, a water escape valve needed to be opened wider.

“I was worried about water staying in there permanently,” he said. “It has to be flushed out.”

Lighthipe also used the mock-up to test a sediment trap used in the final product. The trap collects debris before water travels through the sculpture.

Gualtieri’s sculptures are a great outcome from the backyard experiment, Lighthipe said.

“They’re much grander than I’d imagined,” he said. “This test made it possible.”

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Bud Clark Commons and the Edith Green-Wendell Wyatt Federal Building modernization were named by the American Institute of Architects as exceptional examples of sustainable design.

The two buildings were selected for this year’s AIA Committee on the Environment Top Ten Awards. The annual awards recognize sustainable design excellence.

Bud Clark Commons, a transitional housing facility, was designed by Portland-based Holst Architecture and completed in 2011. Walsh Construction was the contractor.

The Edith Green-Wendell Wyatt Federal Building project was designed by Portland-based SERA Architects and Bainbridge Island, Wash.-based Cutler Anderson Architects and completed last fall. Howard S. Wright, a Balfour Beatty company was the contractor.

The federal building’s sustainable features include a rooftop canopy supporting an array of solar panels that provide between 3 and 5 percent of the building’s energy, said Lisa Petterson, a SERA associate principal. A former shooting range was converted into a rain collection tank that helps reduces building water use, and many of the materials and fixtures torn out during the renovation were salvaged or recycled, she said.

Bud Clark Commons’ focus on providing a space that helps homeless individuals transition to stable permanent housing is among its sustainable features, said Dave Otte, who served as lead architect on the project for Holst Architecture.

“The social equity part of the building is just as important as the solar panels on the roof or the gray water facility in the basement,” he said.

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A Portland homeless shelter and low income housing building has received some high accolades from the nation’s architectural community.

The Bud Clark Commons – a 130-unit apartment/90-bed shelter for homeless and low income people in Portland’s Old Town – has received a national award from the American Institute of Architects and the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development. The “Creating Community Connections” award spotlights the eight-story building’s continuum of health, shelter and counseling services along with its modern design by Dave Otte at .

Located at 655 N.W. Hoyt Street, (formerly the Housing Authority of Portland) developed the building last year for $46.9 million. The boxy, rectangular building features a brick façade with neon greenish accents around the windows.

I have to admit, when I first read the news about a homeless shelter being lauded for its design, the first thing that jumped into my head was . Fortunately, our architectural community has much more class.

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