Prosper Portland is asking for help as it seeks to redevelop a fire station built in 1913.

The agency sees the 6,692-square-foot building at the foot of the Steel Bridge as a future home for creative offices. But the unreinforced masonry structure has deteriorated badly and is uninhabitable.

Prosper Portland has issued two requests for proposals: one for a historic preservation and tax credit consultant, and another for a general contractor to evaluate the scope of work needed. A pre-project meeting, including a tour of the building, is scheduled for Thursday at 9 a.m.

“We’re hoping we have interest from contractors to participate in this project,” Prosper Portland spokesman Shawn Uhlman said.

The RFP for a historic preservation and tax credit consultant closes Sept. 26. The RFP for a general contractor closes Oct. 10.

Lift Development was selected as development partner after a 2015 request for interest, and the firm remains on board.

Any rehabilitation of the 104-year-old building would be substantial. The firehouse has large cracks, deteriorated mortar, missing and broken bricks, spalled concrete and water damage, according to a Prosper Portland staff report.

The firehouse is built atop unstable soil that is prone to liquefaction in an earthquake.

In 1987, Prosper Portland, then known as the Portland Development Commission, acquired the property at 510 N.W. Third Ave. as part of the Union Station acquisition. The parcel is bounded by Glisan Street, Third Avenue, railroad tracks and Naito Parkway.

To further complicate matters, two fires have occurred in the building this summer; one was sparked and quickly extinguished Thursday. But with a thorough renovation planned, interior fire damage is a minor concern.

“It doesn’t sound like there was significant additional damage,” Prosper Portland senior project manager Eric Jacobson said.

“There’s very little inside that could be used,” he added.

Investigators after the fire last week found evidence of habitation, Jacobson said. That suggests someone had been squatting in the condemned building.

The building was secured against intrusion, Uhlman said.

“It wasn’t like the building was open,” he said. “If anyone got in, they forced their way in.”

The agency will work to make the building more secure, Uhlman said.

Despite many challenges, Prosper Portland officials continue to believe the building is worth saving.

“It’s a local historic landmark, and as owners of that building, we feel in order to be good stewards of it, we should make a good effort to renovate the building and put it into productive use,” Jacobson said.

Prosper Portland plans to turn the building into creative offices. Portland has had one of the nation’s hottest office markets this year.

“We feel there is a path to success,” Jacobson said. “It’s long and complicated and expensive.”

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The design for a new fire station in east Multnomah County takes prominent cues from its rural setting.

“What we landed on in terms of design was the agricultural feel,” Hennebery Eddy Architects principal Michelle Vo said. “It made sense as something to guide the design.”

Multnomah County Rural Fire Protection District No. 10 a little over a year ago hired the Portland-based firm to design the replacement of Fire Station 76 near the intersection of Southeast 302nd Avenue and Dodge Park Boulevard in Gresham. Crews with Portland-based general contractor Bremik Construction last week started building the project estimated to cost between $4 million and $5 million.

Last fall, the fire station’s understated design – inspired by nearby barns, greenhouses and other agricultural structures – garnered an Unbuilt Citation Award from the American Institute of Architects’ Portland chapter.

The Hennebery Eddy design team took a minimalist approach to the 9,570-square-foot building in reverence to the natural beauty surrounding it, including views of Mount Hood, Vo said. This appealed to the AIA Portland Design Awards jury, she said.

“The jury did mention the super clean floor plan,” she said. “It’s just so simple. There are some really simple material choices and the opportunity to open up to Mount Hood.”

Fire district officials have long sought to replace the existing Fire Station 76 built in the 1960s, said Michael McKeel, chairman of the district’s board. The approximately 2,400-square-foot station is susceptible to mold, has a failing septic system and is inadequate to meet today’s standards for emergency response services, he said.

Because the existing station’s location is constrained, the district purchased a 5-acre site across the street to house the new station and training grounds, McKeel said. The project is scheduled to finish in spring 2015.

During initial design stages, Hennebery Eddy staffers took photos of agricultural buildings in the surrounding area for inspiration and shared them with fire district officials. The design scheme made perfect sense for the rural district, McKeel said.

“Farms need fire and emergency services too,” he said. “It needs to reflect the architecture of the area. We made it look like a lot of the barns out there.”

The station’s dual functions will be reflected in the design, Vo said. A corrugated-steel-clad, barn-like structure with bays will hold trucks and other firefighting equipment, and a shorter attached building will house firefighters’ living quarters, a board room and offices.

“We have the low living quarters that’s trying to recede into the landscape, but also bringing it to the public in a way that is inviting,” Vo said.

For the living quarters’ siding, Hennebery Eddy staffers chose to use reclaimed wood – from a Troutdale barn – that will be charred by Salem-based Barnwood Naturals via a Japanese technique. Fire district officials initially were taken aback by the approach, but quickly warmed up to the idea, McKeel said.

“When Hennebery Eddy ran that by us we said, ‘That’s kind of odd,’ ” he said. “Because it’s a fire station it’s kind of interesting because it’s treated with fire.”

Many of the design considerations also involved optimization of emergency response times, Vo said. The station will be oriented so that bays are closest to the nearest intersection and living quarters are closely connected to the garage so firefighters can quickly suit up and get on the road. When a call comes in, the kitchen stove will turn off automatically and red lights will turn on in the bunk rooms to give firefighters’ eyes time to adjust.

Scott Lewis, division chief with the Gresham Fire Department, which staffs the fire station, emphasized response times during the design process.

“It’s about getting the firefighters to the (equipment) and out the door quickly, so the flow of the building is key,” he said.

Fire Station 76 replacement

Location: Southeast 302nd Avenue and Dodge Park Boulevard, Gresham

Cost: $4 million to $5 million

Construction start date: August 2014

Anticipated completion date: spring 2015

Owner: Multnomah County Rural Fire Protection District No. 10

General contractor: Bremik Construction

Architect: Hennebery Eddy Architects

Landscape architect: Otten Landscape Architects

Engineers: Nishkian Dean, KPFF Consulting Engineers, Interface Engineering

Other associates: Architectural Cost Consultants, Barnwood Naturals

The post Agricultural accents in architecture appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

The seismically deficient, 1960s-era Fire Station No. 2 in Ashland will be torn down and replaced next year, thanks to a $3 million bond approved by voters.

The new, two-story, 10,500-square-foot facility will be designed to fit in with other civic buildings in Ashland, said Hans Ettlin, a principal with .

“They are trying to make their stations look similar; people can readily identify a civic building,” he said.

The new station will be along a major avenue of transportation: Ashland Road. The building will have a front entry and improved street presence, Ettlin said.

Though the team had initially planned a brick building, a budget reduction resulted in stucco being chosen. The building also will have large windows to add verticality, Ettlin said.

The interior will include a training facility, offices and traditional elements such as a fire pole. The apparatus bay will hold up to six fire engines.

A Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design rating won’t be pursued; however, green elements are planned. These include a photovoltaic system and a solar hot-water system. Also, 75 percent of the old fire station will be reused, mostly as fill material.

In addition, the design calls for an automated “tap-out” system that senses what is happening in the building. For example, when a company leaves suddenly, the system will regulate heat and lighting to conserve energy.

Ettlin, Jay Fesler, Jeff Bringenberg and Diony Lopez are part of Peck Smiley Ettlin Architects’ design team. Other project team members include , electrical and mechanical engineering; , structural engineering; , civil engineering; and , landscape architecture.

Ettlin expects the project to open to bids from contractors in late January 2012.

“On the Boards” is a weekly feature that spotlights local firms’ best design work. Submissions from architectural and engineering firms are encouraged. Please email ontheboards@djcoregon.com or call 503-802-7240.

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Tualatin Valley Fire and Rescue got bang for its buck from a $77.7 million capital construction bond approved by voters in 2006. Bundled construction projects and multiple purchases of fire equipment and materials provided significant cost savings.

Then the fire district enlisted to design new, relocated buildings for stations 65 and 68 – using the same design.

Peck Smiley Ettlin project manager Jeff Bringenberg said that designing one building for two locations was “actually fairly simple.” One advantage was that neighborhood residents around one station, No. 68, were more vocal than their counterparts.

“We were designing basically for one group, though we had done the site work so we knew the building would fit in both locations,” Bringenberg said.

The neighbors wanted a building that would fit well into their residential setting. Peck Smiley Ettlin presented a variety of options to the group, ranging from commercial-style brick buildings to more modern options, Bringenberg said. In the end, the neighbors picked a structure with a lot of wood materials.

“We used residential materials that fit into that neighborhood, as much as we could for a building that’s over 10,000 square feet.” Bringenberg said. “We would have used shingles if we could.”

Shingles would have disrupted the design balance of a residential building with easy maintenance, which was a priority for the fire district.

Both stations will be upgrades from those they will replace: More space will be created for staffers and equipment, and community rooms will be added to accommodate nonprofits or other groups.

Tualatin Valley Fire and Rescue is not seeking Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design ratings for the buildings, but it requested sustainable features, district spokeswoman Cassandra Ulven said.

“Certification is expensive, but the buildings will be built to LEED standards,” she said.

Materials will be recycled during construction, solar power will be used to heat water, swales will manage water quantity and quality, and overhangs will shade large windows.

Demolition work on the site for Fire Station No. 65 has already begun, and construction will continue into November before pausing in winter months. Fire Station No. 68 is in a state appeals process, and construction will be dependent upon results of a hearing scheduled for later this month, Ulven said. LCG Pence Construction is the contractor for both projects.

In addition to Bringenberg, the Peck Smiley Ettlin team includes Hans Ettlin, partner; Diony Lopez, technical staffer; and Tai Magionos, administrator.

Consultants include: Lewis and Van Vleet, structural engineering; AKS Engineering and Forestry, civil engineering; R&W Engineering, mechanical engineering; Otten Landscape Architects, landscape architecture; and Interface Engineering, electrical engineering. 

“On the Boards” is a weekly feature that spotlights local firms’ best design work. Submissions from architectural and engineering firms are encouraged. Please email ontheboards@djcorprod.wpengine.com or call 503-802-7240.

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General contractor began work on the Jones Farm Fire Station in Hillsboro in April, with an anticipated turnover in December.

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A five-month search by the city of Portland for a firm to design Fire Station 21 appears to be over. The city last week said it intends to negotiate a contract with Whelton Architecture to handle architecture and engineering for the project.

This is the second contract award for Whelton to design Fire Station 21. The city’s procurement services department in the Office of Management and Finance admits that the facilities department, which managed the first award, made some mistakes. The procurement services department says it addressed the errors by restarting the evaluation process. However, a competing firm’s owner, who brought to light the problems with the first award, says he still is concerned.

Fire Station 21 consulting team

Whelton Architecture will negotiate a contract for the design of Fire Station 21. Its proposed contract amount for the project was $607,075. The architecture team will be Aaron Whelton of Whelton Architecture, and architect David Suttle. The consulting team includes:
• TCA Architecture & Planning, consulting architecture
• KPFF, structural and civil engineering
• Interface Engineering: mechanical, electrical and plumbing engineering, and lighting design
• Flowing Solutions, waterfront planning and permitting
• Green Building Services, LEED project management, energy modeling and building analysis, and commissioning
• 2.ink Studio, landscape architecture
• JMB Consulting Group, cost estimation
• Evergreen Engineering, code analysis

“It wasn’t a transparent process,” Carleton Hart Architecture‘s William Hart said.

In April, 10 architecture firms submitted proposals to design a new fire station to replace an aging building near the Hawthorne Bridge. The existing station is the last in Portland not seismically upgraded – when a bond was passed to upgrade all city stations, Fire Station 21 was out of commission. It was brought online recently to replace a station in a different location that will be taken out of commission because of nearby Portland-Milwaukie light-rail construction nearby.

The Office of Management and Finance’s facilities department, which managed the request for proposals process, decided that of the 10 firms that applied, those with the four highest scores would qualify for oral interviews. The winner would then be selected based on the results of the oral interviews.

In a protest letter to the city, Hart wrote that the facilities department did not follow that outlined RFP process. The overall scores used to calculate the winning firm consisted of scores from the evaluation of written proposals and from the oral interviews. But not all firms were asked the same questions, according to Hart, which caused led some firms to score higher than others.

Hart pointed out that a representative of the city’s facilities department told firms during a mandatory pre-application conference that short-listed firms would “start from zero” during the interview process. According to Hart’s calculations, if the city had indeed “started from zero” and excluded the issues not discussed in their oral interviews, Carleton Hart would have won the contract.

Procurement Supervisor Barb Gibson called the problem a “process issue.”

“The Chief Procurement Officer agreed … that Carleton Hart had a point that there was a ‘process problem,’ ” Gibson said.

So the city rescinded Whelton’s award from the original RFP round, and the process was moved from the facilities department to the procurement services department. In a June 15 interview with the Daily Journal of Commerce, OMF management analyst Abby Coppick said that the city would re-interview the shortlisted firms.

On July 17, Gibson told the 91��Ƶ that the city would return to evaluations of the original 10 written proposals and convene an entirely new evaluation committee. It was the first time in memory that the clock had been turned back so far on the process, Gibson said in that interview.

“As we started working, it became clear that we needed to back it up one more step,” Gibson said. “We really wanted it to be a clean process.”

The new committee evaluated the 10 written proposals, and Whelton Architecture came out on top. On Aug. 12, the city once again issued a notice that Whelton Architecture would get the contract.

Aaron Whelton, owner of the winning architecture firm, said he believes procurement services took the right action. “I think it was the right decision to take a step back,” Whelton said. “By going back in the process, it strengthens the decision and removes it from potential scrutiny.”

But Hart doesn’t believe the time for scrutiny has passed. He said his main question at this point is why the city didn’t call firms back in for oral interviews for the second process.

“The interviews were important the first time around; I don’t see why they were excluded this time,” Hart said. “Usually things are more transparent. Given as much scrutiny that this (process) has had, it would seem that (the city) would have at least had oral interviews.”

Gibson said her office had the option of conducting oral interviews in the second process, but decided that doing so was unlikely to change the outcome because of the disparity in points between the top two firms.

In the first round, the top two candidates were separated by a distance of 10 points out of 500; in the second round, the distance was 13 points out of 600. Both of those represent a margin of about 2 percent.

“A lot of times, we use the orals when there’s just one or two points between. But when there’s a larger gap it’s not normal that we go to (interviews),” Gibson said.

Hart did not submit a protest letter after Whelton was awarded the contract in the second round. Even if the process had gone to oral interviews in the second round, his firm would not have made the cut. In the second round, Whelton Architecture was a front-runner with 502 points, and Carleton Hart had the second lowest score at 428. The firms received the same score when their written proposals were scored in the first round – and both were in third place.

The five-member committee for the first process and the six-member committee for the second process both included representatives from the city fire bureau and from the committee that oversees the bond that will pay for construction. Community members, one city staffer and one Multnomah County staffer also participated.

The scores were created by the evaluation committees assigning numerical values to subjective areas, like “project approach and understanding” and “proposer’s capabilities.”

Portland Fire & Rescue’s new Deputy Chief of Logistics Marco Benetti was a member of the committee for the second process. He said it was “pretty straightforward.”

“Everyone has their own subjectivity about how their scores are,” Benetti said. “But (the scores) all seemed to come out pretty close among all the scoring people.

“I’m looking forward to the project going forward,” he added.

The post After much turmoil, Fire Station 21 design decision finalized appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

The city of Portland’s procurement services has issued an intent to award notice for a contract for the design of Fire Station 21 to Whelton Architecture — for the second time.

Whelton Architecture’s Aaron Whelton won the contract initially in May, but that award was revoked after Carleton Hart Architecture filed a protest. Abby Coppock, management analyst for the city’s Office of Management and Finance, said in June that the city had not correctly followed the procurement process for the project.

William Hart, who filed the protest letter for Carleton Hart, wrote in that letter that he believed his firm would have been awarded the contract if the process had been followed correctly.

The city initially said it would turn back the clock to the interview phase and correct the process from that point by re-interviewing the shortlisted firms, but it later decided to turn the clock back even further to convene a new evaluation committee to look at all 10 initially submitted proposals.

The city issued the new intent to award — this time a “notice of intent to negotiate and award contract” to Whelton on Friday after 5 p.m.

Protests of the current award must be filed by this Friday, Aug. 19. Whelton has declined to comment until the protest period is over. Hart said he had no comment and that he had not yet had the chance to review the scores for the second selection process.

The post Whelton Architecture again awarded Fire Station 21 contract after it was revoked appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

The city of Portland wants to find an architect to design a new Fire Station 21 to replace an aging facility near the Hawthorne Bridge. In May the city was on its way, and issued an intent to award a $700,000 architecture contract to up-and-coming local firm Whelton Architecture.

Less than a month later, the award was rescinded in response to a letter of protest submitted by one of the four firms shortlisted for the project. The protest, filed by Carleton Hart Architecture, focused on concerns about the solicitation process used to select the firm that won the final contract.

The city took a step back in the evaluation process, and said that the four shortlisted firms would be brought in to re-interview. Now chief procurement services manager Barbara Gibson says the city is taking yet another step back, replacing the evaluation committee altogether and re-considering all 10 of the proposals initially submitted in response to the project’s RFP in April.

The situation with Fire Station 21 is part of a trend, albeit an extreme example, Gibson said. In the past two years, the city’s procurement services staff has seen firms in the architecture, engineering and construction industries file more protests than they did in better economic times.

“Over the last year or two we have seen more protests, mainly in construction proposals,” Gibson said. “Because of the economy, people have chosen to do that.”

“There hasn’t been a case like (Fire Station 21) for a long time,” said Patti Mertz, a marketing and business development consultant for architecture firms. Mertz said that in better economic times, firms might be more likely to walk away from an RFP process they think is unfair because they have other jobs opportunities.

“You can move ever-forward when the phone keeps ringing,” Mertz said. “A few years ago, firms didn’t know if they needed a marketing person because they had so much work. Now, they’re fighting over every RFP that shows up.”

Gibson said dealing with appeals does take up a good chunk of time—when a protest is filed, the solicitation process is essentially put on hold until the issue is resolved. However, though city departments and bureaus that deal with procurement have faced staff cutbacks in recent years, Gibson won’t complain about the workload.

“It really doesn’t matter how much time it takes,” Gibson said. “It matters that the protest is reviewed. We take them very seriously.”

The situation with Fire Station 21 has been a particularly serious situation for the city. After interviewing the project’s shortlisted firms, the evaluation committee named the winning firm as Whelton Architecture, a small firm that also recently won a design competition for a firefighter’s memorial, which will be located adjacent to the new station.

On May 24, William Hart, a principal at Carleton Hart Architecture, sent a letter of protest questioning the process and calculations that led to the award for Fire Station 21.

During a pre-proposal meeting for the project, city staff told firms that once a short list had been selected for the project, the shortlisted firms would “start from zero” at the interview phase. The staff said that points assigned during the proposal phase were to be kept separate from interview considerations.

In his protest, Hart alleged that documents from the selection process showed proposal-phase scores relating to diversity and cost were carried through to the interview phase and adjusted for some firms. Hart said the evaluation committee asked no questions about diversity and cost during the Carleton Hart interview and the issues were not discussed.

Gibson said the “starting from zero” answer at the pre-application meeting was not consistent with the process laid out in the RFP, which states that points will carry over from proposal to interview phases.

To clear up the process, Gibson said that the process will be backtracked all the way to the initial evaluation process. The seats on the five-member evaluation committee will be filled with all new members.

“We try really hard to be clean and fair,” Gibson said. “To bring in a new evaluation committee and (re-evaluate) starting with the written proposals, seemed cleaner.”

The new committee will independently score written proposals. If there is no single frontrunner after the proposals are scored, the committee will bring in a short list of candidates for interviews.

Gibson said this is the first time she’s seen the city go so far back to reappoint an evaluation committee.

The RFP process is subjective and different evaluators will quantify firms’ qualifications in different ways. In the case of Fire Station 21, the issues with fairness in the proposal process went beyond subjectivity, however.

“I really admire the architect that steps up,” Mertz said. “It’s a public agency run by tax dollars. It should be fair.”

William Hart and Whelton Architecture’s Aaron Whelton both declined to comment for this story.

The post Fire Station 21 project the latest target in trend of RFP protests appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

The city of Portland will have to take a few steps back on a project to rebuild Fire Station 21 near the Hawthorne Bridge on the east bank of the Willamette River.

After a competitive proposal process, the city issued an intent to award a $700,00 design contract to Whelton Architecture, one of four architecture firms short-listed for the project. On Tuesday, the city issued a notice that it was rescinding that award and stepping back in the process to once again conduct interviews with the short-listed candidates.

That notice was in response to a letter of protest sent by William Hart, a principal at Carleton Hart Architecture. Carleton Hart was among the shortlisted architecture firms. In his letter, Hart said the selection process did not follow the one outlined in the city’s request for proposals.

In his letter, Hart pointed out that the city had expressed in the RFP and pre-proposal meeting that once a short list had been selected, those firms would “start from zero” at the interview phase. Points given during the proposal phase were to be kept separate from interview considerations. However, documents from the selection process showed that proposal-phase scores relating to diversity and cost were carried through to the interview phase and adjusted for some firms, though those issues were not even discussed in Carleton Hart’s interview.

If the math were re-calculated to fit the correct process, Hart believed his firm would have been awarded the contract.

The city acknowledged its mistake by rescinding the award.

“We’re going back to where (the process) deviated from the process outlined in the RFP,” said Abby Coppock, management analyst for the city’s Office and Management and Finance.

Hart declined to comment for this story.

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Red “U” signs are posted on 32 Portland buildings. The “U” stands for “unsafe”; however, the designation isn’t intended to alert tenants or patrons, but rather warn firefighters that they should be particularly careful when fighting fires in these buildings.

For preservation advocates, however, each “U” is a reminder of a problem facing Portland’s historic buildings: unreinforced masonry.

Related

List of ‘unsafe’ buildings in Portland

By itself, unreinforced masonry isn’t enough to draw a “U.” But its presence may indicate the age of the building and contribute to other problems. A building could have unprotected wood framing that could be compromised, or a building could have contents that absorb a lot of water and create downward pressure. These buildings need upgrades, preservationists say. And they want the city to help.

“You won’t be able to preserve these buildings if owners can’t afford to keep them,” said Anne Naito-Campbell, whose family owns a number of historic buildings in the city. She called for creation of an incentive program to “fund renovation of ‘U’ buildings.”

On Friday, the city convened a symposium of historic preservationists and other stakeholders, including Naito-Campbell, to discuss the issues surrounding historic resources in the central city as part of the Central City 2035 Plan. Overwhelmingly, that group asked the city to consider establishing incentive programs for seismic upgrades of historic buildings with unreinforced masonry.

“There’s no question that any public subsidy available to help offset high cost of seismic rehabilitation is an incentive,” Venerable Properties President Art DeMuro said. His company specializes in historic redevelopment, but the economic downturn has created challenges, he said.

DeMuro attributes the success of his company’s previous historic renovations to a seismic loan program through the Portland Development Commission. Venerable Properties upgraded the White Stag Block, the Mason-Ehrman Building in Old Town and the Telegram Building at 11th Avenue and Washington Street – all with help from a low-interest seismic loan from the PDC.

“PDC has gone a different direction in the past five years,” DeMuro said. “The urban renewable money that used to fund these loans is going toward fewer, larger projects that PDC considers ‘catalytic.’

“PDC is not project-driven anymore, as much as job-driven.”

It’s a sign of the economic times, but it’s slowing some historic preservation projects that might otherwise happen, DeMuro said.

One of Venerable Properties’ buildings, at Northwest Fifth Avenue and Flanders Street, could use a lot of work, DeMuro said. The unreinforced masonry building needs a seismic upgrade – and a new roof, an elevator and mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems.

“If the building needs $200 per square foot of investment, about $40 of that is seismic,” DeMuro said.

However, if the city were able to provide a subsidy for the seismic portion of the project, that would be an incentive for his company to consider, he said.

“Personally, I would love to see a PDC program,” said architect Fredrick Zal, who performs historic preservation work. Zal said he has reached out to the city and offered his services at a discount for work on historic preservation projects.

“There are a number of buildings that are really beautiful,” Zal said. “Over time, property owners will restore these buildings. I would love to see them do the work, but it’s not cost-effective.”

One of the reasons that such projects could use incentives is that the cost of steel – the primary material used in seismic framing – keeps going up, Zal said.

Another problem is that a seismic upgrade lacks a payoff for the owner – unless the work is able to prevent a building from collapsing in an earthquake, the financial payoff is difficult to quantify.

“You can redo an interior, add finishes, or petition a space such that it lends itself to more occupancy, and you can upgrade mechanical, electrical or plumbing systems – all those things will justify higher rents. Seismic upgrades will certainly make a building safer, but tenants won’t pay higher rents because of that upgrade,” DeMuro said. “It’s a conundrum.”

With the earthquake that devastated Japan still in the public consciousness, Bosco-Milligan Foundation Executive Director Cathy Galbraith told planners at Friday’s seminar that now is the time to ask people to invest in seismic upgrades.

“If we can’t do it now, we’ll never be able to do it,” she said.

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