The Oregon Zoo is seeking feedback on how Pacific Northwest residents connect with nature to help shape the design of a planned conservation education center.

An launched recently centers around the question: “What can the zoo do to encourage and equip visitors to get outdoors more?” the zoo’s education curator, Grant Spickelmier, said. “That will influence the design and programming of the building.”

The project team is in the early stages of design; the facility is slated to open in spring 2017. It will likely be divided into several buildings housing classrooms, an auditorium and visitor center surrounding a plaza and learning garden, Spickelmier said. Plans also call for an insect zoo and interactive conservation lab where visitors can learn about how zoo scientists care for endangered animals.

Portland-based Opsis Architecture and Seattle-based Jones and Jones Architecture and Landscape Architecture are designing the project. Early designs by these firms will be on display at the zoo this week.

“We’re trying to give some early ideas of how the center might look,” Spickelmier said.

Portland-based Fortis Construction will be the project’s general contractor.

Initial concepts for the center call for various sustainable features, and a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design gold rating is targeted, Spickelmier said. These elements will be exposed and explained to building visitors, he said.

“Most importantly, we want it to be a building that teaches,” Spickelmier said.

Zoo officials are also investigating ways to make the center wildlife friendly, such as designing windows to discourage bird strikes, he said.

The center is the fifth of eight major zoo projects to receive funding from a Metro bond passed by voters in 2008.

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Nearly two years after buying a 15-acre site in northeast Hillsboro, an Atlanta-based company has submitted plans to build a $21.8 million tech facility for an undisclosed tenant.

The 217,138-square-foot project, proposed by T5@Portland LLC, calls for two data center buildings being constructed over three phases off of Northwest Evergreen Road, according to a development review application filed July 8.

T5, which could not be reached for comment, owns data centers across the country. The company typically builds to suit for clients and had been waiting for a key tenant to sign before moving ahead with the project, said Mark Clemons, economic development director for the city. He added that he does not know the tenant’s identity.

“They had to find their user,” he said. “Now, they’re going ahead with the project.”

Fortis Construction, which could not comment, will build the data center, according to the plans. Bellevue, Wash.-based PacLand will provide civil engineering services and Dallas, Texas-based Corgan will provide architectural services.

T5’s project follows others in Hillsboro for NetApp, Fortune Data Centers and Adobe Systems, Clemons said. Hillsboro has strong fiber-optic connections and Portland General Electric is investing in additional substations that will provide more power to the area down the road, he said.

“We’ve got a few of them – they add value to the cluster by providing data storage to companies both regionally and locally,” he said. “It keeps Hillsboro as a major center for technology and investment.”

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Projects on college campuses commonly come with logistical challenges, but the University of Oregon currently has a handful.

In a heavily trafficked area through the heart of campus, three contractors are tackling four projects. Howard S. Wright, a Balfour Beatty Co., is handling the Student Recreation Center renovation and expansion as well as an emergency water pipe project; Fortis Construction is building a renovation and expansion of Straub Hall; and Lease Crutcher Lewis is leading a renovation and expansion of the Erb Memorial Union.

Lease Crutcher Lewis was tapped to coordinate the logistics between the three building projects, but it had to adjust to a delay related to funding.

“Originally, we were going to be driving this whole coordination and the other two (projects) starting after us,” senior project manager Mark Butler said. “When we got on board, we had to make sure all our assumptions were still valid.”

That prompted an informal meeting in the EMU, where contractors’ project managers and supervisors joined university officials and gave overviews of their respective projects. Regularly scheduled “superblock coordination meetings” then let project managers lay out scope and sequencing and how they could work without interfering with students or athletic events.

“Everybody said what they were going to do,” Howard S. Wright project executive Chris Hartson said. “We put together a logistics plan that made everything work.”

From the meetings came a map with an overlay highlighting critical choke points. Howard S. Wright gained access to its work site by building a road from a staging area off of 18th Avenue, parallel to athletic fields. That ensured no disruptions of student activities, Hartson said.

For Fortis, a tight construction space at Straub Hall became even tighter because of the utility work being done by Howard S. Wright along 15th Avenue, project manager Matt Norman said. Some of the work overlapped.

“It was already fully designed, but we had to make the determination that it made more sense for HSW to do the work that was in our scope,” he said. “We credited it out and they picked it up. It worked out well.”

Fortis is working on a site touched by projects on three sides – the utility work to the south of Straub Hall, the Student Recreation Center to the west and the EMU to the east, Norman said. Construction cranes for the Student Recreation Center actually overlap those for Straub Hall.

“We’ve worked in close proximity before, but this amount of work on university projects is pretty intense,” he said. “There are regularly guys coming into our trailer who may not even work for us.”

Lease Crutcher Lewis, which is demolishing part of the EMU, must deal with the physical boundary with the Straub Hall site, Butler said.

“Just looking at the perimeter of fences between Straub and the EMU – our fences are touching,” he said. “There is no area between them.”

Plus, a new access point for Lease Crutcher Lewis trucks had to be identified. The 15th Avenue access point was clogged, so trucks were directed to enter from 13th Avenue and exit onto University Street. That kept truck traffic away from Straub Hall and the Student Recreation Center.

Communication has become critical among the contractors and university officials, but also with students and the general public, Butler said. Lease Crutcher Lewis has set up electronic kiosks at the EMU to direct people through the work site. The university, meanwhile, has coordinated communication in student dorms.

“Usually on a construction site, you keep to yourself, put your fences up and that’s where your focus is,” Butler said. “But because of the three projects on campus, we’ve had to look beyond that. It’s pretty unique to see this much work going on at a campus at one time.”

After a few scheduled meetings, it became apparent that they were no longer necessary, UO project manager Janet Lobue said, because the contractors were talking to each other regularly.

“You have to make sure that you have the right team of people on the projects,” she said. “They have to be willing to compromise and work together. For the most part, the contractors have done an excellent job.”

Erb Memorial Union renovation and expansion

Date started: December 2013

Expected completion: spring 2016

Project cost: $95 million

General contractor: Lease Crutcher Lewis

Architect: SERA Architects

Student Recreation Center renovation and expansion

Date started: July 2013

Expected completion: January 2015

Project cost: $52.5 million

General contractor: Howard S. Wright

Architect: Robertson Sherwood Architects

Straub Hall renovation and expansion

Date started: July 2013

Expected completion: December 2015

Project cost: $43.5 million

General contractor: Fortis Construction

Architect: Rowell Brokaw Architects

15th Street water line repair

Date started: mid-June

Expected completion: early September

Construction cost: $100,000

General contractor: Howard S. Wright

Architect: Eugene Water & Electric Board

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Portland-based Fortis Construction Inc. has landed a $13.4 million contract to provide construction manager-general contractor services for the new OSU-Cascades campus in Bend. The contract includes preconstruction and construction for site development, including utilities, roads, grading, parking and landscaping, as well as a 45,000-square-foot academic building, said Jane Barker, senior project manager for OSU-Cascades.

Four other bids came from Andersen Construction, Lease Crutcher Lewis, Howard S. Wright – a Balfour Beatty company, and a partnership between Skanska USA Building and Walsh Construction Co., according to Barker.

Fortis benefited from experience that includes construction at Oregon State University‘s Corvallis campus and for Facebook in Prineville, Barker said.

“All the contractors were at a very high level,” she said. “(Fortis) has higher education construction experience and recent OSU experience at the campus in Corvallis. They also have a presence in Central Oregon and really spoke to the importance of supporting the Central Oregon subcontracting community.”

As CM-GC, Fortis will join a project team that includes Portland-based Boora Architects and Walker Macy, and Bend-based BBT Architects.

The project is on hold for a 120-day site plan review, Barker said. Fortis in the next two to four weeks will begin preconstruction work, including cost estimation and evaluation of schematic designs; however, it will hold off on design development and construction documents until review is completed.

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Fortis Construction is looking for Sub Contractors for the Blanchet House of Hospitality. The bid date is June 10 at 1:00pm. Please see today’s 91��Ƶ for more details on this job – it is prevailing wage and also has a DMWESB Participation goal of 20%.

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