After being sworn to secrecy during lease negotiations, Fletcher Farr Ayotte announced it has been released today from confidentiality agreements and can publicly confirm that Target is the tenant for space that is currently under construction in downtown Portland.

Crews from Lease Crutcher Lewis last week began soft demolition inside the historic Galleria Building in Southwest Portland and will soon begin prepping the core and shell for Target, according to Amalia Mohr, project manager for the architecture team from Fletcher Farr Ayotte.

“It’s been a great experience learning what they require,” she said.

The building’s owner, the , and in May requested design advice from the city’s Historic Landmarks Commission as they moved forward with the development. Then on Oct. 10, the Historic Landmarks Commission unanimously approved alterations to the Galleria Building, which occupies the entire city block bounded by Southwest Morrison and Alder streets and Southwest Ninth and 10th avenues.

Once final building permits are issued, crews will begin work on new elevators and escalators for the building. A seismic upgrade also is planned.

Target is working with California-based MBH Architecture for its tenant improvement work; Skanska will be the contractor handling the build-out. The store is expected to open in March 2013.

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An economically distressed community in Southern Oregon now boasts a new, $6.2 million wine-making facility and education center, in large part because of local donations.

The unemployment rate in Douglas County in the third quarter of 2011 was highest in the state, at 11.6 percent. But is gearing up for the grand opening of the Danny Lang Teaching, Learning and Event Center – the first significant construction on the Roseburg campus in decades.

“As everyone knows, especially in our region, this has been one of the most difficult economic times in terms of unemployment in Southern Oregon,” said Dennis O’Neill, executive director of the UCC Foundation. “And in the face of that, we went out and did this campaign.”

For six months, O’Neill and other foundation representatives traveled throughout hard-hit southern counties seeking donations for the project, which will house UCC’s Southern Oregon Wine Institute. The group, which often opened its fundraising presentations citing the Charles Dickens line “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” brought in $2.5 million from 221 donors.

“I was very impressed,” said Eric Wilcox, an associate at architecture firm . “The economy in Roseburg really slumped compared to a lot of the state, but it’s a really hands-on community down there, and now their name is all over that building.”

Recognizing that a large portion of the construction money came from the community, Wilcox and the general contractor, , tried to economize as much as possible.

“We didn’t want to be perceived as spending money frivolously on high-end items,” said Russ Noah, owner of the Roseburg-based general contracting company. “We were buying more on value rather than the showy kind of stuff. Aesthetics did matter, but the reality is that everything they bought has good value to it.”

The team cut out horizontal precast details from the plans, rearranged electrical infrastructure and switched out some light fixtures. Those measures led to a $1.2 million reduction from the original cost estimate for construction.

One major material in the new center – wood – was chosen not because of cost savings, but because of its significance in the local economy. The 24,000-square-foot facility is a heavy timber and wood frame building, even though a steel frame would have been more efficient and possibly cost less, according to Wilcox.

“Douglas County is very close to the timber industry, and the use of wood in the architecture and construction is just magnificent,” said Bentley Gilbert, community relations director for UCC. “The public is very eager to get into the new building; people want to put their arms around it.”

Local residents closely followed the construction process, which began last September – especially because local businesses often were engaged as partners. Nearly 90 percent of the construction money was spent in Douglas County on local wood and other products, according to O’Neill.

UCC also received $4.25 million in federal stimulus bonds to pay for the center, which includes classrooms, labs, an event center and a tasting room that is open to the public.

Oregon’s wine industry is growing rapidly – grape production and wine-making has doubled over the past four years, according to O’Neill. The Southern Oregon Wine Institute offers a one-year certificate program in viticulture and enology and a two-year associate degree program in applied science.

The primary challenge during the fundraising campaign came from community members who questioned whether money should be invested in new construction amid economic strife. But O’Neill and the UCC Foundation responded with a message of hope that resonated in many Southern Oregon communities.

“If you live in rural Oregon, you know you cannot sit down and wait for someone to come and help you during these very painful economic times – that’s a hopeless place to be,” he said. “We have to do it ourselves, and that’s what we did.”

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Principal Robert Ball announced today plans for a new, 177-unit apartment building in Portland’s Pearl District. The six-story building will take up a full block bounded by Northwest 12^th and 13^th Avenues and Pettygrove and Quimby Streets. Ball is a Portland real estate investor who developed the similar , as well as historic redevelopments such as and .

Ball said that the project is a response to the tight apartment market.

“After watching the market absorb the product we had… it was apparent that we were going to run out of inventory,” he said. “I started the process when I felt that we were starting to feel a tightening in the market.”

According to Ball, the new six-story building, which will be called “The Parker,” will include a courtyard, 181 parking spaces, 180 bicycle stalls, ground floor live-work spaces and areas for dog-washing and bicycle repair. The building will be designed by and is aiming for a LEED platinum rating, Ball said.

The project team hopes to break ground on the building next summer, depending on how quickly it gets a permit, Ball said. He predicted construction would take 15 months.

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Target is finalizing its lease agreement to open a store in downtown Portland, according to sources close to the deal.

The Historic Landmarks Commission on Oct. 10 unanimously approved alterations to the Galleria Building, which occupies the entire city block bounded by Southwest Morrison and Alder streets and Southwest Ninth and 10th avenues. Because the building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, approval for the exterior alterations was the last major hurdle related to city requirements.

The 101-year-old building, initially home to the Olds, Wortman & King department store, needs several significant modifications in order to accommodate Target. Even though the building has been altered many times over the years, the addition of loading bays for supply trucks was a tough sell to some preservationists. But the building’s owner, the , and architecture firm in May requested design advice from the Historic Landmarks Commission as they moved forward with the development.

Renderings and documents submitted to the city confirm Target’s involvement, although neither the owner nor the architect could identify the incoming tenant on the record.

“The city is getting the preservation and maintenance of an important building in the downtown core, and also getting use out of it,” said Carrie Richter, chairwoman of the Historic Landmarks Commission.

The entrance of a national big-box retailer into the historic building required some compromises from both sides, but people involved with the project seem satisfied with the approved plans.

“I’m pleased that a resolution was reached,” said Art DeMuro, who was the chairman of the Historic Landmarks Commission when the request for design advice was submitted, but whose term ended last month. “I know there was a lot of excitement about accommodating that particular user and it’s great that there was a resolution not only to accommodate them, but to actually improve the historic integrity of this very significant building.”

DeMuro, who reviewed all alterations made to the building over the years in response to the request for design advice, suggested historic refurbishments that would make the next remodel a “net gain” for the building. Adherence to the commission’s design advice was critical, according to project architect Phil Chubb.

“We took the feedback to heart,” he said, “and the Naito Company was willing to do the things that would help clean up some of the conditions at the Galleria that the landmarks commission was interested in doing.”

One of the most significant changes to the historic facade will be the addition of loading dock doors so that Target trucks can enter and exit the building from Southwest Alder Street. But the design team came up with an innovative solution.

“Those doors will be one-of-a-kind – totally custom,” Chubb said. “We’re spending quite a bit of money to make the loading dock doors as invisible as we possibly can – and that was really important to the landmarks commission and to us, but it’s not an easy thing to do.”

A state-of-the-art seismic upgrade also is planned.

“Never mind the exterior improvements to the look of the building; the bones being reinforced are critical – that’s a huge step to the building’s historic integrity,” said Tim Heron, city planner for the Bureau of Development Services. “It won’t fall down if we get a shake, which we all know we’ll get sooner or later.”

The Nines Hotel and Portland State University’s Lincoln Hall are the only two buildings in Portland to feature the braced-frame technology planned for the Galleria. The so-called viscous dampers were adopted from a device used on military cannons to absorb recoil shock. Unlike a more conventional bracing system, the dampers don’t need to be stacked throughout the building or installed along its perimeter.

“The Galleria is full of existing tenants, each with peculiar needs, and this allows the flexibility to place lateral frames at positions that work for everyone instead of being this invasive thing,” Chubb said.

The design also includes a custom replica of the historic entry canopy on 10th Avenue.

Costs related to the marquee, seismic upgrade and custom loading dock made some of the other suggested improvements untenable. Some minor changes made in the 1970s, when the building was turned into the Galleria Mall, will remain as is, according to Chubb.

Target will lease approximately 100,000 square feet of the Galleria Building, which presently houses Brooks Brothers and other tenants. The retail space will be split between 40,000 square feet on each of the second and third floors; a ground-floor lobby and the loading dock facility will account for the remaining 20,000 square feet.

The main entrance to the Galleria will remain on 10th Avenue, but Target will have its own entry off of Morrison Street, near 10th Avenue, leading to its ground-floor lobby.

“It’s really just a nice return of that building to a full retail sort of facility, and it just happens to be a building that takes up a whole city block and can provide that kind of floor space for downtown retail use,” Chubb said. “It’s a nice marriage of modern retailing and a downtown site like that.”

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In 2002, Oregon State University’s Education Hall was slated for demolition. The building had suffered a fire and a series of poor renovations in its 100 years, and its fate was seemingly sealed.

That same year, Sam Stern became dean of the OSU College of Education, which was headquartered in Education Hall. Stern said the building had not aged well and had been maintained in such patchwork fashion that passing children said it looked “like a prison.” Then an effort was launched to save it.

“At the 100-year anniversary, we rededicated ourselves to that building,” Stern said.

The $17 million renovation of Education Hall presented an interesting challenge, said Troy Ainsworth, Fletcher Farr Ayotte principal in charge of the project.

“When our structural engineer looked at (Education Hall), they concluded it was really like a house of cards. Nothing was really substantively attached to anything else,” Ainsworth said. “It was amazing to people that people had worked and taught and learned in this building for so long in that condition.”

After a fire in the 1920s, the building’s wooden structure was replaced with concrete, except for the roof, which kept its wooden frame. That upgrade and others left the building with load-bearing walls modified sketchily and a sandstone exterior that absorbed water.

“Things were not particularly well attached to each other,” Ainsworth said. “Generations of construction (workers) each did their own thing.”

More issues arose as work began on a seismic upgrade. The project team planned to line the building’s basalt stone base with an 8-inch-thick concrete block wall on the inside. Preliminary coring tests determined that the basalt was about 4 inches thick, but the team soon discovered that the basalt ranged from 4 inches in some places to 2 feet in others.

“We had to come up with a new system to keep all that stone in place and to create a new seismic wall behind it,” said Shawn Homberg, Fletcher Farr Ayotte project manager.

The building ended up with a seismic frame of shotcrete – concrete or mortar sprayed through a hose.

“When you’re renovating a historic building, nothing is plumb (and) nothing is square,” said Rene Gonzalez, Fortis Construction project executive. “You have to be prepared to provide creative solutions.”

The finished product will be “a new, 50-year building,” Gonzalez said. The construction team deconstructed the sandstone exterior and stripped the building down to its basalt base and concrete frame. The updated Education Hall will have insulation and insulated windows, as well as a lighter, more seismically stable limestone exterior.

“When we first came to this project, the building was gray stone, wrapped in chain-link fence, with greenish-gray asphalt shingles. In our research we found an original photo of a white stone building with an orange-red roof: we thought that building looked a lot more fun,” Ainsworth said. “Part of our work has been restoring its historic integrity.”

“It will look very much like the original,” Stern said.

But officials looked to the future to remodel Education Hall’s interior.

“The old interior was awful. It was dark and, after a series of bad remodels, had blind hallways and nooks and crannies,” Stern said.

OSU was unsure whether it would be able to afford interior renovations, and Fortis began with only a seismic retrofit. Fletcher Farr Ayotte’s design was adaptable, so that construction crews could perform seismic work while leaving the interior space flexible for possible future upgrades.

But after Greenbrier CEO William Furman presented a $2 million gift in April, the interior renovation became feasible, Stern said.

The four-story, 40,000-square-foot building will continue to house the offices of OSU’s College of Education. Some classroom spaces will be able to accommodate as many as 100 students. A new atrium will extend through all four floors and provide daylight and shared community space.

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Education Hall’s interior will be completely renovated and include a new atrium open through all four floors.

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Built more than a century ago, Education Hall on the Oregon State University campus in Corvallis is in the early stages of phase one of an exterior stone rehabilitation, complete interior, seismic and systems renovation. The four-story, 48,000-square-foot building will be getting green upgrades by installing efficient mechanical and electrical systems, natural daylighting, low-flow plumbing, energy-efficient windows and water-efficient landscaping. When all phases are completed the building will be the home to the OSU School of Education and will also provide the university with general purpose classrooms. General Contractor Fortis Construction is in charge of the project from a design by Fletcher Farr Ayotte Inc.

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A former auditorium space in Beaverton has been renovated to become the first branch in the Beaverton City Library system. The 7,000-square-foot library at 11200 S.W. Murray Scholls Place retained its interior wood structure and ceiling, and received lighting improvements. Seabold Construction Co. was the general contractor and Fletcher Farr Ayotte Inc. was the architect for the project.

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The school and the gymnasium at St. Clare Parish in Southwest Portland are being upgraded. The exterior of the school at 8535 S.W. 19th Ave. is getting new windows, HardiePanel siding and stucco. The gym’s roof has been replaced, and much of its interior is being painted. Bremik Construction Co. is the general contractor and Fletcher Farr Ayotte Architecture is the designer of the renovation. Work is scheduled to be completed in three weeks.

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