An abandoned big-box building in Portland’s Gateway area is gaining an unlikely tenant.

is preparing to relocate its operations on Southeast Division Street into a former Circuit City space at 1700 N.E. 102nd Ave. By reusing the existing shell, the health care provider is hoping to reduce construction costs; the renovation is expected to cost between $10 million and $12 million.

But the team first had to get with the programming.

“Probably the biggest challenge of the project was to actually fit everything that they wanted inside the building,” said Brad Dehle, a principal at , the project architect. “It was about 4,000 square feet smaller than what they wanted it to be, and an addition was not going to be possible without tearing it down.”

That is because the 32,186-square-foot building is inside a design overlay zone. The shell of the building was grandfathered in; however, an addition would trigger code requirements that would make the property unusable for Kaiser Permanente.

So, Soderstrom focused on making efficient use of the interior. For instance, designers placed the pharmacy near the entrance to eliminate the need for an additional hallway. Dehle likened it to piecing together a jigsaw puzzle without a picture as a guide.

But solving the puzzle generated significant savings for the health care provider.

“It’s definitely cheaper than the ground-up development option that we looked at,” said John Sullivan, senior real estate manager for Kaiser Permanente.

The hope is that 20 to 25 percent savings can be achieved by not building new. Sullivan said the move is because of a Portland Community College campus expansion planned to start in 2014 on Kaiser Permanente’s leased Division Street space.

A year and a half ago, Sullivan began scouting for possible sites to relocate. Kaiser Permanente ultimately chose the bank-owned Circuit City property – one of 567 spaces around the nation left behind by the defunct retailer – which it purchased for a discounted price of $2.8 million.

Approximately 24,000 patients receive services at the Division Street facility. Sullivan said the Gateway location – near the nexus of interstates 84 and 205 – would make transitions easy. But it also offers other advantages.

“We see ourselves as a combination of an office user but in a retail environment,” Sullivan said. “We are trying to attract new members, and get our name brand and logo out into the public for more visibility. We feel that a retail environment is more to our advantage.”

Building upon that brand was a challenge for Soderstrom as well. Dehle said that Kaiser Permanente uses a 21-point program to foster cohesion in design and patient experience. For instance, one point asks architects to consider whether the building is visible from the street and whether it is recognizable as a Kaiser Permanente facility without a sign.

For the Gateway project, Circuit City’s iconic red triangle entryway will be removed and the entire concrete masonry building will be rewrapped in a new, beige brick veneer. Also, numerous holes will be cut in the exterior to make way for window systems, and the storefront will be reconstructed with a tall, glass vestibule.

Dehle said a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design gold rating will be sought. Two exterior garden/bio-swale areas will treat all of the building’s stormwater runoff on-site.

In addition, the facility will feature a fairly new heating and cooling method called a variable volume refrigerant system. A series of heat pumps and pipes will redistribute hot and cold air throughout the building in order to maintain a steady temperature.

Another innovative technique that Kaiser is employing is a software program by tech company that syncs building information modeling data with ongoing maintenance systems.

The project is out to bid, and construction is slated to begin within the next two months. Kaiser Permanente hopes to open the facility in early 2014.

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The Broadway Recovery Center is set to open in November as a three-story mental health clinic. It was designed and constructed to hold and additional eight stories in the future so that maximum density could be achieved at the downtown site.

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Central City Concern’s Broadway Recovery Center, on schedule to open in November, will contain three stories of mental health clinic space. And those floors will be significantly structurally sound.

That’s because the center was designed and built with the future in mind: More money would let officials add eight floors to the building at Broadway and West Burnside streets. The design and construction teams planned appropriately.

Project team

General contractor: Walsh Construction Co.

Structural engineer: KPFF Consulting Engineers

Mechanical, electrical and plumbing engineer: Interface Engineering

Civil engineer: MGH Associates

Landscape architect: Atlas Landscape Architecture

Project manager: Gerding Edlen

Acoustical consultant: Listen Acoustics

Mechanical, electrical and plumbing commissioning firm: PAE Consulting Engineers

“Aesthetically, the building is designed to work as a stand-alone,” said Paul Jeffreys, senior designer for SERA Architects. “But the structure is designed to take a high-rise building above.”

Central City Concern decided to account for the 11-story contingency so that the downtown site could achieve maximum density goals.

“At three stories, the building isn’t fulfilling the full development potential of the site,” Jeffreys said.

“In the future, ideally (the building) could go up higher and achieve a density goal,” said Ed Blackburn, Central City Concern’s executive director. “At the time we got the project financed in 2009, the economy was such that attaining (the full height) was out of the question. It still is.”

The whole idea is unusual, though it has been done before, said Matt Godt, project manager for Walsh Construction.

“It’s not done too much – it’s a lot of dollars to put in up front to not know if you’re going to (expand) it later,” he said.

The addition could include office space or housing, Blackburn said, though no plans exist for either in the near future.

The foundation and supports are much larger than would be installed typically in a three-story building. Other systems, like exiting and an underground fire tank will accommodate the necessary codes for an 11-story building.

“These are things you can’t go in and add later,” Godt said.

To accommodate possible expansion, the project team placed the building’s mechanical equipment on the roof, so that lower floors could be kept open if construction were to take place above. This “fourth floor” won’t be finished as part of the final building, but will be kept as a mechanical area surrounded with bicycle parking and landscaping, Jeffreys said.

Another challenge came out of a decision to connect the new recovery center with Central City’s Old Town clinic in the adjacent Richard L. Harris Building.

“With the connection, both clinics can assist each other. It’s been shown that there are benefits for combining the two clinics,” Jeffreys said.

He designed the Richard L. Harris Building, which is one of the reasons SERA was brought on to design the recovery center. That didn’t make the connection easy, however.

“When I designed the Harris building, I absolutely didn’t know we would connect it” to an adjacent structure, Jeffreys said. In fact, the Harris building wall that will connect to the new center is actually a supporting seismic shear wall; that wall probably would have been designed differently if the connection had been a possibility when the Richard L. Harris Building was designed.

“We had to cut through the walls, and obviously make sure we didn’t affect the stability of the (existing) building,” Jeffreys said.

A federal grant is paying for $9 million of the $20 million cost, and the project moved quickly: Work from the beginning of design through the end of construction will end up lasting two years.

“We’re very excited about getting to the last lap of the construction phase,” Blackburn said. “This was quite the project to put together.”

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Construction crews work to build the third story of Central City Concern’s future mental health clinic at the corner of West Burnside Street and Northwest Broadway in Portland on Monday.

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A two-phase tenant improvement project will eventually double the space for a Wilsonville veterinary clinic. The Animal Care Clinic at 29020 Town Center Loop E. will have more than 3,800 square feet of space for a reception area, clinic rooms, a surgery room and offices. BnK Construction Inc. is the general contractor for the renovation designed by Architectural Werks of Kirkland, Wash.

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Renovation work is under way at a dentist’s office in North Portland. The brick building constructed in the 1950s at the corner of North Lombard Street and John Avenue will receive a new roof, storefront and windows. The project is being performed by general contractor Paul Davis Restoration.

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Daryl Hawking, foreman with Pacificmark Construction, applies finishing touches to an exam room at the Providence Medical Group’s new clinic in West Linn. The 3,500-square-foot space at 1899 Blankenship Road features exam rooms, doctors’ offices, a procedure room, a waiting room and a call center. General contractor Pacificmark was in charge of the tenant improvement designed by Jon R. Jurgens & Associates Inc.

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Oregon health-care projects

Columbia River Community Health Services, Boardman
Grant award: $2,370,178
Architect: Pinnacle Architecture

Virginia Garcia Memorial Health Center, Cornelius
Grant award: $12 million
Architect: Scott | Edwards Architecture

Community Health Center Inc., Medford
Grant award: $1,877,872
Architect: Kistler + Small + White Architects

La Clinica del Valle Family Health Care, Medford
Grant award: $2,965,000
Architect/Contractor: S&B James

Lane County health centers, Eugene
Grant award: $4,920,023
Architect: PIVOT Architecture

La Clinica del Carino Family Health Care, Hood River
Grant award: $5,859,886
Architect: Undetermined

Waterfall Clinic Inc., North Bend
Grant award: $1,398,625
Architect: Undetermined

Seven community health care projects are moving ahead in Oregon next year, including some that could have been stalled for years without grant awards via the Affordable Care Act.

The federal government in October awarded $250 million to support construction and renovation projects at community health centers throughout the country. Oregon received more than $31 million for seven projects.

Community Health Center Inc.’s Medford clinic has needed significant repairs for years, said Karen Elliott, CHC’s marketing director. But there are few funding opportunities for small clinics, she added.

“At a time when there is record demand for our services, we have two very old buildings that have HVAC systems that break down,” Elliott said.  “We thought we’d have to mount a $3 million campaign to redo these buildings. That (would) take years. Until the Affordable Care Act, we did not have a good resource for a grant or other funding for capital projects.”

Ray Kistler of Kistler + Small + White Architects is designing the Medford clinic and another that received federal assistance. He worked on the Medford clinic’s design for a year and a half before the project was put on hold because of a lack of money.

Southern Oregon architecture firms and contractors have been hit especially hard during the downturn, Kistler said. His design for the Medford clinic calls for rebuilding two clinics constructed in the 1950s as a uniform structure.

“If it wasn’t for these clinics, we wouldn’t have anything,” Kistler said.

Community health clinics serve low-income patients and those without access to health insurance. In some rural towns, clinic operators provide the only care for miles around. Virginia Garcia Memorial Health Center operates several facilities in the small community of Cornelius, where many farm workers and day laborers live. With a $12 million grant award, Gill Munoz, CEO of Virginia Garcia, will be able to offer health, dental, medical and behavioral health services in one new building. The award covers 88 percent of the total project cost, Munoz said.

“Without the award we’d be in a … capital campaign that would take at least five years,” Munoz said. “Now we’ll have this center up and running within two years.”

The 42,000-square-foot, three-story Virginia Garcia building will be one of the first projects to revitalize downtown Cornelius, according to Sid Scott, principal with Scott | Edwards Architecture. Scott hopes to incorporate pedestrian paths and a community garden with the new building so that it is more approachable.

“The biggest challenge is not making it come across as this great big building,” Scott said. “It’s a wellness center. It shouldn’t look like a hospital; it should be friendly.”

Though Scott said his firm has seen a steady stream of projects come in this year, smaller health-care projects have been scarce. The lack of construction and renovation projects for clinics, according to Mindy Binder, executive director of Columbia River Community Health Services in Boardman, has to do with location. Large foundations often overlook rural clinics when awarding grants, Binder said, because they serve only a limited population.

But Binder’s clinic, which consists of two adjoining manufactured homes with additions, hasn’t kept up with the growing demand for care in the area. With only 5,000 square feet of space and 25 employees, Columbia River Community Health Services served 12,000 patients last year.

“We’ve had plans to build for a while, but there was just no funding,” Binder said. “We’re the only clinic in Boardman. This grant has put us over the edge and helped make this a reality sooner than anticipated.”

With $2.3 million awarded to Binder’s clinic, Pinnacle Architecture was able to start work again on a new, 15,000-square-foot building in Boardman. Architect Peter Baer said his firm has had the contract for a year and a half, but the project had stalled because of a lack of money.

“We’ve had a lot of projects like that this year where something is sitting stagnant and then stimulus monies move it forward,” Baer said. “This building will be the only medical service between Boardman and Hermiston, 45 minutes away. Some of the people who come here, mostly a farmworker population, rarely see a doctor. We’re keeping the scale down and using lots of light and natural materials so it doesn’t feel like a big medical clinic.”

The Affordable Care Act still has $750 million to award for construction and renovation projects at community health centers over the next five years. Kistler hopes the public work keeps rolling in.

“Before, our projects were 50-50 between public and private,” Kistler said. “Now it’s 100 percent public for us. It’s the only reason the doors opened this year.”

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Additions and upgrades are being constructed at a mental health clinic campus in Tigard. Work is under way at three existing buildings at 11895 S.W. Greenburg Road. They house administrative offices and clinics for Luke-Dorf Inc., a nonprofit organization that provides mental health care to clients in parts of Multnomah and Washington counties. Eco-roofs and skylights are being installed. Site work includes the preservation of existing mature trees and the construction of storm-water retention facilities. General contractor Efrain Palomares Perez is building from a design by Scott Edwards Architecture.

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A three-story, 44,000-square-foot building will be constructed on the lot at the corner of Southeast Broadway and West Burnside Street to house the Broadway Recovery Center, an affordable health clinic. The project team includes general contractor Walsh Construction, SERA Architects, Gerding Edlen Development and Central City Concern. Work is expected to be completed by the end of 2011.

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