ZGF Architects garnered little from precedents when designing a seismically resilient, six-story, 183,000-square-foot hospital expansion in Astoria’s tsunami inundation zone.

“As far as the resiliency side of it, there isn’t a precedent for this kind of facility,” project architect Michelle Checkis said. “At least in the United States, we weren’t able to find another medical facility that was doing this or had this kind of resiliency.”

Resiliency is paramount for Columbia Memorial Hospital, a federally designated Critical Access Hospital that is pinched between the Columbia River and Coxcomb Hill in Astoria. The hospital nearest to Columbia Memorial is 18 miles away in Seaside, and U.S. Route 101 between them is linked by seismically vulnerable bridges.

Now a major expansion is under way at Columbia Memorial. Crews led by general contractor Skanska are erecting steel.

“We’re getting out of the ground,” Checkis said.

And, crucially, above water.

Columbia Memorial officials issued a request for proposals in July 2020 after a 2017 report on 11 coastal hospitals from the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries reached an alarming conclusion: “Due to expected damage to pre-1995 hospital buildings including structural systems and non-structural components of hospital buildings … none of Oregon’s coastal hospitals are ready to operate immediately after a Cascadia disaster.”

Columbia Memorial was built in the 1970s and later received several expansions. Hospital officials worked with University of Washington researchers to precisely model the effects of a tsunami in the area. The results: The bottom two floors of Columbia Memorial are expected to be inundated in a worst-case earthquake and tsunami.

So ZGF — with the help of Degenkolb Engineers — went vertical. Building on lessons learned from the Gladys Valley Marine Studies Building in Newport, ZGF designed a staircase leading to a rooftop shelter. Overall, safe refuge areas at the hospital expansion will be able to protect up to 1,900 people, ZGF estimates.

Acute patient care rooms were moved to higher floors, except for the emergency department, which must remain on the ground floor for everyday access. The greatly expanded emergency department will meet a crucial need for more ER capacity on the North Coast.

Also, mechanical and electrical systems are located above the projected maximum tsunami inundation line. So is a rooftop helipad; it replaces a landing spot at ground level, only 20 feet above the grade of the Columbia River.

A swooping mass-timber entry pavilion provides an entry to the existing hospital structure and a nod to Clatsop County’s timber heritage.

Perhaps the project’s biggest hurdle came in April 2025 when Trump administration officials canceled a previously awarded $20 million resiliency grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The status of the 2023 grant remains unclear. In March, FEMA sent the state Department of Emergency Management a letter indicating it could still be funded.

Meanwhile, the hospital’s foundation has raised nearly $8 million of a $10 million goal to support completion of construction.

Hospital officials “have stayed hopeful that the grant program would be revived, while also searching for other avenues of funding, as well as cost savings in the project,” hospital spokeswoman Sarah Bello stated in an email. “There have been no major design changes, and the resiliency aspects remain part of the expansion despite the uncertainty with the BRIC grant.”

On the Boards is a 91��Ƶ feature offering a look at projects in Oregon and Southwest Washington being tackled by local architecture firms. To have your firm’s projects considered, contact the 91��Ƶ at newsroom@djcOregon.com.

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Project name: Legacy Silverton Emergency Department

Location: Silverton

Completion: March 2024

Size: 21,000 square feet

Owner: Legacy Health System

Architect: Clark/Kjos Architects

Interior Designer: Bainbridge

Engineers: KPFF, PCS Structural Solutions, PAE

General Contractor: Andersen Construction

Submitting Company: Andersen Construction

Subcontractors: Bell Hardware, Cash’s Drapery, Dallas Glass, DeaMor Associates, Empire Painting, Flynn, Green Mountain Excavation, McKinstry, Northside Electric, Paulson’s Flooring, Rexius, Salem Wood, Southland, SteelFab, WPI

Legacy Silverton Medical Center has completed the first phase of a major expansion project, fulfilling promises made when Legacy Health and Silverton Hospital joined forces in 2016.

The 20,000-square-foot addition to the hospital’s southwest corner includes a new entrance with a covered drop-off and pick-up area, expanded lobby and a modernized emergency department that increases capacity from 12 to 20 patient rooms.

The emergency department now features larger treatment bays and specialized rooms for trauma patients, cardiac care and women’s services. A new helicopter landing pad across the street enables faster transfers of critically ill patients to Portland facilities like Legacy Emanuel Medical Center and Randall Children’s Hospital.

Other improvements include a redesigned coffee shop, gift shop and volunteer greeter station in the lobby. The Family Birth Center received a new waiting room, and an All Faiths Chapel offers space for reflection and prayer. The project was made possible, in part, due to support from corporate and individual donors and the Silverton Health Foundation Board.

Andersen Construction led the project, which was completed in three phases to minimize disruption. Phase 1 involved site prep and demolition, and building a new parking lot so the existing lot could be used for construction staging. The new lot included the permanent helicopter pad. Phase 2 involved building the 20,000-square-foot addition. Phase 3 involved connecting the addition and making upgrades to the existing building.

The project employed innovative techniques including Pro-Press water pipe fittings instead of traditional copper soldering, enhancing safety by eliminating fire hazards. Building Information Modeling coordination optimized the integration of mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems.

What sets this expansion apart is the hospital’s independent board structure, separate from Legacy Health, ensuring local voices remained central in decision-making.

The expansion has increased patient capacity by 10-15 percent, improving healthcare access while creating jobs and economic growth. Project leaders prioritized hiring local contractors, including Northside Electric, Dallas Glass and Bob Fencing.

As always, safety was a top priority on the site. Life safety consultants were used to engineer temporary partitions so that proper building separation could be maintained during construction of the new addition. The consultant verified that life safety was appropriate to keep construction noise, dust and hazards separate from the active side of the hospital. This required properly rated temporary walls and proper exiting to meet fire regulations.

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