Over its 70 years in business, Chambers Construction has developed a rich history of building medical facilities, affordable housing, schools and other projects that benefit the community throughout the Eugene/Springfield region.

Among them is Eugene’s Civic Park. The historic Civic Stadium was built in 1938 and hosted everything from Eugene Emeralds baseball games to concerts, rodeos, weddings and high school graduations. About 10 years ago, fire claimed the grandstand and the loss was a community tragedy, said Joy Pendowski, Chambers’ director of marketing and business development.

Civic Park is now the new home for Kidsports, which provides recreation and sports programs for kids regardless of ability to pay. It features a multipurpose turf and a second phase of construction includes a concourse and a 2,500-seat grandstand.

“We brought new life to Civic Park and it’s a new gem where Civic Stadium once stood,” Pendowski said, adding the project sits in the heart of Eugene and has been personally rewarding for the company.

In 2017, Chambers initiated a paid internship program for journeyman carpenters and several participants have graduated and stayed with the company. As interns, they gain hands-on experience in construction by building homes for Habitat for Humanity.

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Portland-based Myhre Group Architects has earned a national award for its design of a Eugene senior housing complex.

The Waterford Grand project, recently completed on Goodpasture Island, won the Best Assisted Living category in Senior Housing News‘ 2014 Architecture & Design Awards. The annual competition recognizes cutting-edge design, excellence and innovation in senior housing.

A jury of design professionals with senior living expertise selected the Waterford Grand for the award. Jurors praised all the winning entries for making a difference in senior residents’ lives through innovative space planning and design.

The $24 million Waterford Grand project, led by Portland-based developer BPM Senior Living, encountered a number of challenges, according to the Myhre Group design team. At several points, land use appeals were filed; the eight-acre site’s proximity to the Willamette River raised environmental concerns. Also, the design became a moving target as the economy faltered and demands for senior housing shifted.

Myhre Group staffers in 2007 started designing the 120,000-square-foot complex with 64 memory care units, 64 assisted living units and 22 independent living units. Crews with Eugene-based Chambers Construction broke ground on the project this past June. A grand opening was held in late October.

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Eugene developers have secured a deal with Hyatt Hotels for it to occupy part of a new mixed-use building planned at Oakway Center.

Steve Korth, owner of McKay Investment Co. LLC, on Friday applied to the Eugene Planning and Development Department for a permit to begin site work at 100 Oakway Center. The parcel currently is a parking lot.

Oakway Center, slightly northwest of Autzen Stadium and near downtown Eugene, is a shopping center anchored by national chains such as Old Navy, Trader Joe’s and P.F. Chang’s. It’s also home to local boutiques and restaurants.

“We wanted to bring in the Hyatt brand because we think it will be an attractive brand complement to the niche we are trying to fill,” Korth said. “Our location is conducive to people visiting the downtown area or attending University of Oregon functions, so it’s a strategic opportunity for this type of hotel.”

The builder, Chambers Construction, in January will break ground on the seven-story mixed-use building with one level of underground parking. The tentative plan is for 124 hotel rooms and about 350 parking spaces. Korth said the team is hoping to open by summer 2016.

The design calls for one ground-level floor of commercial space, with three levels of parking above. Floors five through seven will be hotel rooms, Korth said.

“It’s a design we’ve seen in other markets that fits a lot of uses together,” he said. “We’re in retail, so we wanted to be able to add more retail, but needed to create more parking for the hotel and for the center as a whole.”

The 21,000-square-foot ground floor will have room for approximately seven retail or restaurant spaces and a drop-off lobby. From there, hotel guests will take a private elevator to the main lobby on the fifth floor.

The hotel will be in a horseshoe shape, allowing for an open plaza area on the fifth floor. Korth said the hotel will have an indoor pool that will open entirely to the plaza area.

Designs for a hotel on the site were drawn up about six years ago, but Korth shelved development plans in the face of the economic downturn. He said a recent market study suggested that the area was ready for a hotel and more retail space.

“We have a greater comfort in the economy,” he said. “And we’ve been full at Oakway for years, so we saw a need for more retail and more parking.”

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Eugene-based grocer is moving its main operations into a new building being designed to minimally impact the natural surroundings.

The 50,000-square-foot facility off West 11th Avenue will include a distribution center and a central kitchen, including catering services. All of the stormwater will be treated on-site and fed into detention systems, and the heat generated from equipment will be reused to help heat the building, according to Dave Bakke, project manager for general contractor .

The $5.5 million project also includes energy-efficient lighting and daylighting in the kitchen and office spaces.

Because the project is near wetlands, a “quieter building” presence is planned, according to Eric Hall, president of

“The owner didn’t want a building that jumped up and yelled its name, so to speak,” Hall said. “So we took some measurements of the glide paths of the wildlife as they go into that wetland and tried to translate that into the shapes of several of the tilt panels at the entry. That created a little bit of interest and contrast, while still allowing the building to be quiet and elegant but also understated.”

Market of Choice has eight stores – four in Eugene, and one each in Corvallis, Ashland, Portland and West Linn.

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Lane County officials saw an expansion opportunity in an unremarkable parking garage in Eugene, and now that facility is undergoing a unique transformation into sustainable office space.

The project team – , and Lane County – at first targeted a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design silver rating, though it now may settle for basic LEED certification for the future home of the county’s Public Works Customer Service Center.

The 30,000-square-foot building at 3050 N. Delta Road was built in the early 1970s to accommodate a communications company’s trucks. After storing heavy equipment for more than 30 years, the building has presented several environmental and design challenges.

“We went through a lot of efforts to figure out ways to make what was basically a low, squat, flat building into a place that’s agreeable to people,” said Toby Barwood, principal in charge at PIVOT.

The original floor was sloped so that petroleum and other chemicals dripping from trucks would trickle down to a drainage system. While the tilted concrete floor obviously had to go, the solution was not immediately evident.

“Heavy equipment had parked on it for years and there was no way to really seal it with all of those leakages,” said Tanya Heaton, administrative services manager for Lane County Public Works, and project manager for the renovation. “We didn’t really know what all had poured onto that cement.”

The project team devised a plan to build a raised floor system, which would have allowed installation of mechanical systems in the interstitial space. An under-floor air distribution system could have helped the project earn some LEED points, but ultimately the expense didn’t make financial sense.

“We were up at about $7 million in costs,” said Dave Suchart, director of management services for the county. “But it was a CM/GC project, so we all met and met and met until we got the numbers to come within our budget.”

The final construction budget is approximately $4.6 million.

“The program was put on a diet,” Barwood said. “All of the original program elements brought value, but we had to look at which systems were not bringing value to the project that was equal to its cost.”

Instead of building a raised floor, the team decided to demolish the fuel-impregnated concrete and pour a new slab.

Half of the existing building will remain warehouse space. The county is planning to use the space for vehicle storage unless it encounters a need for further expansion in the future, so the costs to insulate that space or make any other changes did not ultimately make sense.

The facility will house land management administration, planning, surveying and parks departments, making it easier for Lane County residents to access several services at one site. The county already houses several other offices in a complex nearby, which led officials to purchase the parking garage when it became available approximately 10 years ago, according to Heaton.

Even though the project team may not meet its original LEED silver goal, the new center will include rain gardens, photovoltaic panels and a great deal of daylighting.

“We’re doing our standard construction points like waste stream mitigation, and we’re also using certified lumber and reusing lots of materials,” said Rob Braziel, project manager for Chambers Construction.

Crews are installing drywall and starting to paint the interior. They are expecting to be substantially done in April, Braziel said.

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