Demolition of a downtown Portland building formerly home to the U.S. Postal Service is under way.

St. Mary’s Academy on Monday announced that crews have begun razing the former University Station post office building on the block bordered by Southwest Sixth Avenue and Broadway and Market and Clay streets.

The school in 2013 purchased the property, which is northwest of and adjacent to the school, for $7.6 million. The addition will double the school’s footprint, according to St. Mary’s Academy Communications Director Sarah Fridovich.

“Our vision for campus expansion is the creation of a dynamic, state-of-the-art facility to continue to develop young women as leaders, thinkers and creators,” St. Mary’s Academy President Christina Friedhoff said. “We are incredibly fortunate that this city block came available when it did.”

Plans for the expansion will focus on creating flexible classroom spaces that support collaboration, adding technology labs, constructing “premier” athletic facilities and developing spaces for performing and fine arts exhibitions.

St. Mary’s Academy hired Northwest firms GBD Architects and Shiels Obletz Johnsen to assess the school’s needs and determine how to best develop the space, which may include a living history center outlining the school’s heritage, according to Fridovich.

“The additional capacity presented by the purchased property also offers the opportunity to pursue creative development partnerships,” she said. “A wide range of development options are being considered.”

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While New York-based architect Jonathan Dreyfous was in Portland to judge the Design Awards for American Institute of Architects’ Portland chapter, a “Keep Portland Weird” sign reminded him what was lacking in this year’s entries.

“I was looking for some weirdness, some idiosyncratic-ness,” he said Friday during an awards presentation at the Gerding Theater.

Dreyfous, a partner with New York-based CDR Studio Architects, wasn’t the only member of the judging panel who admitted to greater expectations for the projects that Portland-area architecture firms submitted for design awards. Judges Gladys Ly-Au Young, a principal with Seattle-based Sundberg Kennedy Ly-Au Young Architects, and Los Angeles Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne said they had hoped to see more innovation, attention to urbanism and high-level design for both exteriors and interiors.

“We were looking for projects that showed tremendous social transformation – something that was more forward-thinking for Portland,” Young said.

Judges chose not to give out any awards in the unbuilt category because they wanted to see more creativity among the entries. They lamented the glut of private multifamily projects and longed for more public ones.

“We thought that side of the ledger was underwhelming,” Hawthorne said of the unbuilt category. “We were ready for projects that had a different idea for the interior. I think because so many of the projects were developer-driven they were a bit safe.”

A “tidal wave” of private multifamily development in Portland led to worries among the panel that architects were spending too much energy on projects’ exteriors to the detriment of their interiors, Dreyfous said.

“The exterior becomes the billboard for the building and we are concerned about the interior living up to the facade,” he said.

The panel’s response wasn’t all negative. One project that garnered significant praise from the judges was the Edith Green-Wendell Wyatt Federal Building renovation designed by Portland-based SERA Architects and Cutler Anderson Architects. The project received a merit award for what the judges considered a thoughtful transformation that incorporated many sustainable elements.

“We felt the designers worked really well to break up the massiveness of the building,” Young said. “You see the old and the new work really well together.”

Hawthorne said he has been following closely the debate on the future of the Portland Building, which suffers from structural issues and leaks. He noted that it could benefit from a renovation similar to the one for the Edith Green-Wendell Wyatt building.

“This was the same exercise of remaking a building,” he said. “All of those questions are being tested and examined in this project.”

The judges were impressed by several projects designed by Works Partnership Architecture. The Portland-based firm earned a merit award for the Bowstring Truss House and citations for the 33rd & Division Apartments and Overton 19 multifamily projects, all in Portland.

The judges said they were particularly blown away by the Bowstring Truss House after touring it. A former industrial building in Northwest Portland was renovated into a living space.

“A lot of the details that we were impressed with in photographs came through when we walked the space,” Hawthorne said. “It was one of the strongest projects we looked at.”

THA Architecture received a merit award for Discovery Hall – a science and academic building at the University of Washington’s Bothell campus. The judges said that consideration given to surroundings came through in the design.

“There’s not really a front side or a back side,” Young said. “All sides are well thought through.”

ZGF Architects received a citation award for Pearl Izumi‘s North American headquarters in Louisville, Colo. Young said she appreciated the unified approach.

“The interior and exterior are by the same firm so they really feel like the same hand,” she said.

The panel awarded two citation awards specifically for interiors-focused projects. The first went to Architecture Building Culture for the Lubavitch Center of British Columbia in Vancouver, B.C. They praised the understated design of the center for a Jewish organization.

“I’d like to commend the clarity of what it’s doing for the space,” Dreyfous said. “It’s very simple.”

Hennebery Eddy Architects took home the same honor for a renovation of the Shute Park library branch in Hillsboro.

“Rather than tearing down the building, it uncovered the strength of the building,” Dreyfous said.

Also at Friday’s event, Portland Mayor Charlie Hales praised the work of the city’s architecture community.

“It’s a great privilege to be mayor of a city where people appreciate excellence in urban design and architecture,” he said.

Hales then revealed the winner of the Mayor’s Award for Design Excellence: the Stephens Creek Crossing affordable housing complex in Southwest Portland, designed by MWA Architects.

“It is inviting to the people that live there and the people that will visit,” he said. “More importantly, they created a neighborhood there. This, to me, is one of the best examples of how you can create community in new projects.”

Honorable mentions for the Mayor’s Award went to SERA Architects’ Marriott Residence Inn, the Reed College Performing Arts Building designed by Opsis Architecture, The Emory apartments designed by ZGF Architects and the A Dialogue Street Seat by Scott | Edwards Architecture.

This year’s AIA Portland Citizens’ Medal for Design Excellence, selected through a public vote, went to Architecture Building Culture for the Roberts Creek Cabin single-family residence in Roberts Creek, British Columbia.

Also announced Friday were the recipients of AIA Portland’s 2030 Challenge Design Awards. They recognize sustainable design and honor a challenge from nonprofit organization Architecture 2030 for all new buildings and major renovations to be carbon neutral by 2030.

Hennebery Eddy Architects’ Ash + Ash won in the single-family category. The Kiln Apartments, designed by GBD Architects to meet passive house standards, earned the honor in the multifamily category. The Edith Green-Wendell Wyatt building renovation won the office category and the Central Oregon Community College Health Careers Center, designed by Yost Grube Hall Architecture, earned the institutional honor.

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Northwest Portland in spring 2015 may say goodbye to the Portland Police Association and hello to more apartments.

Jill Sherman, vice president of Portland development firm Gerding Edlen, said NW 19th LLC in July purchased Block 265 at 1313 N.W. 19th Ave. in the Nob Hill neighborhood for $1.65 million. She said the company plans to demolish the existing 5,000-square-foot, 58-year-old structure at the corner of Overton Street and 19th Avenue, and replace it with a six-story apartment complex.

The building’s current tenant – the Portland Police Association – expressed interest in staying until demolition starts, Sherman said.

Portland-based GBD Architects has drawn up plans for a six-story building with 58 apartments and 33 underground, mechanized parking spaces, according to information submitted to the Portland Bureau of Development Services. The architecture firm in September participated in a pre-application conference with the BDS to discuss preliminary designs.

Sherman said she expects the final design review hearing to take place in December or January.

“There will be a couple studios, but mostly it will be a mix of one- and two-bedrooms,” she said. “We met with the neighborhood association, got feedback from them and made some tweaks to the design.”

City records indicate that the Portland Police Association in August purchased a building at 1868 N. Lombard St. for $625,000. In October, the city approved a building permit to reconfigure inner walls to create meeting rooms.

Calls to the police association were not returned by press time.

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Restore Oregon last week honored five preservation projects and named seven historic properties at risk of being lost. The 2014 DeMuro Award winners and properties on the 2015 list of Oregon’s Most Endangered Places were revealed during the nonprofit’s Restoration Celebration event in Portland.

The DeMuro Awards, named in honor of late Portland developer and preservationist Art DeMuro, recognize commercial, residential and public projects in Oregon that serve as extraordinary examples of historic preservation, adaptive reuse and community revitalization. This year’s winners include four projects in Portland: Fire Station No. 7, the Galleria Building, the Irvington Tennis Club and the Meier & Frank Delivery Depot. The Whiteside Theatre in Corvallis also received a DeMuro Award.

Developer Venerable Properties rehabilitated the decommissioned Fire Station No. 7, constructed in 1927, for office use while retaining its original character, including the fire pole. The project was designed by Emerick Architects and constructed by Bremik Construction.

The 104-year-old Galleria Building was restored by Bill Naito Co. and renovated to house a Target store. The project was designed by FFA Architecture and Interiors and constructed by Lease Crutcher Lewis.

An addition to the Irvington Tennis Club designed by Scott | Edwards Architecture to respect the original 102-year-old building and surrounding historic neighborhood also earned recognition. P & C Construction was the contractor.

Developer Gerding Edlen led a transformation of the 1927 Meier & Frank Delivery Depot in Portland’s Pearl District into Vestas‘ North American headquarters. The project was designed by GBD Architects and Ankrom Moisan Architects (interiors), and constructed by Skanska.

The Whiteside Theatre Foundation organized a restoration and structural rehab of the 1950s marquee on the downtown Corvallis building. The project architect was Andrew Pearson and Bob Grant Construction was the contractor.

Properties deemed Oregon’s Most Endangered Places are: the First Congregational Church in Portland, the Eastern Oregon University Grand Staircase in La Grande, the Gray Building in Portland, the Mildred Kanipe House in Oakland, the Shipley-Cook Barn in Lake Oswego, the Smith Barn in Cave Junction and the Wong Laundry Building in Portland.

Each property was nominated for inclusion on the list. A committee reviewed the nominations and compiled the list based on urgency of preservation, historic significance, community support and long-term viability. Listed properties will receive assistance from Restore Oregon.

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Developers seeking to add 1 million additional square feet of apartments to a Northeast Portland superblock have applied for an early assistance meeting with the Portland Bureau of Development Services.

The applicant, San Diego-based American Assets Trust, on Nov. 25 will meet with city officials to discuss plans for development of a four-tower complex on the superblock bordered by Northeast Holladay and Oregon streets and Northeast Seventh and Ninth avenues, slightly south of the Hassalo on Eighth project now under construction, according to BDS spokesman Ross Caron.

“The four-block redevelopment of what is currently referred to as Oregon Square is now in the initial planning stages,” American Assets Trust CEO John Chamberlain said during a Wednesday morning conference call with investors. “The timing of this phase will follow the completion and stabilization of Hassalo on Eighth. Our preliminary estimate is that we’ll be putting shovels in the ground in the third quarter of 2016.”

Currently, the superblock has four office buildings and an open-air plaza.

Plans drawn up by Portland-based GBD Architects and submitted to BDS last month show two 10-story towers, a 20-story tower and a 32-story tower. The four buildings would hold 1,030 market-rate apartments, approximately 36,000 square feet of retail space and about 800 underground parking stalls.

An open plaza in the center of the four buildings would include water features, stormwater and wastewater treatment facilities and pavilions, and be ringed by retail spaces that spill into the plaza, according to a project summary submitted to the BDS.

Chamberlain said the proposed project at Oregon Square is the second phase of “what will likely be several phases to be built out as the market demands and dictates over the years ahead.” The first phase – the $192 million Hassalo on Eighth – is “on track and on budget,” he said.

Upon completion, scheduled for summer 2015, Hassalo on Eighth will add 1 million square feet of apartments and retail space in one 21-story building, one six-story building and one five-story building. The three buildings combined will hold 657 residential units, 58,000 square feet of retail space and 1,200 underground parking spaces.

As of Wednesday’s conference call, Chamberlain reported that, after 350,000 man-hours of work, the two shorter buildings were roofed and the third had 15 floors finished. Also, the subterranean garage is complete, he said.

Chamberlain expressed confidence on Wednesday that Portland’s multifamily rental market has the capacity to absorb the nearly 1,700 units that American Assets Trust will introduce through these two superblock developments.

“The apartment occupancies and rent growth for the Lloyd District continue to tighten, as does the greater Portland Metropolitan Statistical Area,” he said. “Vacancy of 1.2 percent in the East Portland submarket as of the end of the third quarter is the lowest in the Portland M.S.A.”

In addition to Hassalo on Eighth and the proposed superblock redevelopment, American Assets Trust owns six city blocks directly north of Multnomah Street between Seventh and Ninth avenues.

In 2011, American Assets Trust purchased its entire 16-acre portfolio of Lloyd District property for $92 million, according to company records. The portfolio extends south from Northeast Halsey Street to Oregon Street, between Seventh and Ninth avenues, according to Rick Williams, executive director of Go Lloyd.

Information on the American Assets Trust website indicates that its Lloyd District portfolio “has been designated for additional development rights to include a high-density, transit-oriented, mixed-use urban village, anticipated to be in excess of 1.5 (million) square feet.”

Calls to Wade Lange, vice president and regional manager of American Assets Trust’s Portland office were not returned by press time.

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The Brewery Blocks redevelopment in Portland’s Pearl District last week was honored by the Urban Land Institute during its 2014 Global Awards for Excellence. The project was one of 13 from around the world that received an award.

The ULI, an international nonprofit that promotes responsible use of land, hosts the annual awards to honor real estate projects that achieve a high standard of excellence in design, construction, economics, planning and management. Projects nominated for the awards are judged by a panel of ULI members hailing from the real estate, development, architecture and planning professions.

The ULI award for the Brewery Blocks jointly recognized its developer, Portland-based Gerding Edlen, and its designer, GBD Architects.

The project on the former site of the Blitz-Weinhard Brewery was completed in 2006 and includes seven buildings on five contiguous blocks. The development contains 1.5 million square feet of retail, office and residential space over three levels of underground parking.

Along with renovations to the brewery complex, work included redevelopment of the former Portland Armory building into the Gerding Theater.

The Brewery Blocks project was well suited for the ULI award that honors the full development process along with design, GBD Architects President Phil Beyl said. The project helped reshape the Pearl District, he said.

“The most important thing (is) it has triggered millions of dollars of auxiliary development,” he said. “Most people in the development business have heard about it in some capacity or another. It has been such a successful urban development.”

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They’re a common sight in architectural renderings.

Perhaps it’s a woman strolling while talking on a cellphone, a businessman carrying a briefcase, or a bicyclist. All are real people who appear in photographic form to populate a scene that doesn’t yet exist.

This rendering “entourage” lends scale, provides a human connection to the viewer and tells the story of who might use or interact with the proposed building. It’s a mighty weight on the shoulders of these cutout people, so they are chosen carefully.

“Say a rendering takes 40 hours to produce – at least 20 of those are spent on the entourage,” said Walker Templeton, a senior project designer with SERA Architects. “You want the people in the image to portray the mood, the style, the lifestyle of the building you’re producing.”

Portland-area architecture firms gather the people photos from a variety of sources, and store them in portfolios of images that can be used in a variety of settings. Some websites offer free downloadable cutout people images taken using models and organized into categories like “summer,” “guitar,” “coffee” and “happy.” Others offer a combination of free images and downloadable packages for a fee.

Designers also often perform simple web image searches and crop people out, or take their own pictures using firm staffers as models. There’s also an element of playfulness involved, such as the subtle insertion of Clint Eastwood or David Bowie into a rendering.

Certain renderings by GBD Architects of the Hassalo on Eighth project in Portland’s Lloyd District feature Darth Vader riding a Segway, said Taylor Bailey, a GBD designer.

“We kind of hid him in the scene,” he said. “If you look closer, you can find gems.”

Age, diversity and clothing are among the most important factors when choosing an entourage, Portland designers say. Out-of-style clothing could make a rendering look dated instead of contemporary. Architects also pay close attention to the age demographic that a project is targeting and choose images of people that match that.

Although the most common entourage members are people with simple clothing who don’t draw much attention to themselves, a more flamboyant person can be used to pull the viewer into a particular element of the building design.

“Sometimes you need those distracting elements, like a kid with balloons or a guy breakdancing,” Bailey said. “It gives the scheme a narrative.”

In the early stages of design, Templeton said he prefers to use shadowy silhouettes or transparent figures because photographs of actual people have a strong impact on clients.

“They will zoom in on the people in the image,” he said. “They will not make a single comment on the architecture. They will only talk about the people in the image, so I’ve learned to be very careful about how I choose people.”

Remembering who will use the space is important, said Dmitriy Molla, a designer with the Portland office of SRG Partnership. When he was working on renderings for the Hillsboro Hops stadium project, a simple observation led to considerable revisions.

“I wasn’t really paying attention to the kind of people I put in there,” Molla said. “Somebody pointed out Hillsboro is actually quite a diverse place and I’d placed mostly white people in there, so I went back and put more Hispanic people in there.”

One client critique of early renderings SERA created for a renovation of the University of Oregon’s Erb Memorial Union in Eugene was that no one was wearing a backpack, Templeton said. So the firm bought a package of cutout images of people wearing backpacks. There was just one problem. All of the images were of schoolchildren.

“We needed a 20-year-old with a backpack, so we had to look online and find images,” Templeton said.

When SERA staffers decided to include the Oregon Duck mascot in a few of the EMU renderings, university officials wavered on whether that was an appropriate addition, Templeton said.

“That was a big discussion point,” he said.

He remembers another time when he created a rendering for the interior of a building and inadvertently included a person with a cigarette.

“That was a big deal because you weren’t supposed to be smoking in the building,” he said.

Because most renderings contain a composite of people images pulled from a variety of sources, one of the trickiest parts is making them fit the scene, said Nathan Katten, an associate with landscape architecture and urban design firm Walker Macy. This includes ensuring that the figures are shaded similarly.

“That can be really challenging to try and gather an entourage that’s all downloaded from different places and make them all look like they belong in the same image,” he said.

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On Southeast McLoughlin Boulevard, builders and designers are being challenged to transform an abandoned used car lot into a transit facility that looks like an urban forest.

The $13.1 million Southeast Park Avenue Park & Ride in unincorporated Oak Grove south of Milwaukie will resemble a natural habitat with a building dropped in the middle, TriMet project manager Jebediah Doran said.

Natural elements spawned from a lengthy design-build process with significant community input. They include 320 25-foot-tall, reed-like columns at the front of the building facing McLoughlin Boulevard as well as four “green screens” that provide a backdrop for a runnel system designed to channel stormwater into a large retention pond.

“The idea is moving from an urban (environment) to a natural environment, and allowing the building to be part of that transition,” Doran said.

The process is providing new challenges. Skanska USA Building encountered one excavating at the site, which had significant basalt rock common in the Oak Grove area, project manager Ryan Richards said. Skanska spent three months chipping out rock as it dug as deep as 15 feet to accommodate the garage.

The contractor then erected retaining walls on the building’s eastern side to allow a setback sufficient to let air move through all sides. That eliminated the need for a heating, ventilation and air conditioning system, Richards said.

“A lot of garages have exhaust fans,” he said. “This building doesn’t need it. It’s all open air.”

One tough task was setting 320 pipe sleeve columns tilted in different directions. On Skanska’s first attempt, grout would not hold the corrugated pipe footings in place, Richards said.

“The fact is that each one is its own animal,” he said. “It’s quite the detailing effort to get each one in its place.”

Skanska decided to use a rat slab base plate – a long concrete footing – below the actual footing so that it had something to work from. The fabrication shop, meanwhile, provided quality control.

“They were able to mount things at a specific angle, so when it comes out, it’s all set and the pipe is mounted to the base plate with the correct angle,” Richards said.

The precision required use of building information modeling, he said.

“You have to see these in three dimensions, to see how they turn and pitch,” he said. “Each one has to be turned away from the building. Each one turns either parallel to the building or perpendicular. It is random. I’ve never seen anything like this.”

For the runnel system, which takes about one-third of the water from the roof and channels it into a swale system, GBD Architects and PLACE STUDIO mocked up a design. It works essentially like a “mousetrap game,” said Paul Wroblewski, project manager for Portland-based PLACE STUDIO.

When water reaches the end of a channel, it spills over into the next. Perforations were cut into the channels to allow some water to drop straight into a stormwater swale at the bottom, for a cascading effect.

Designers identified channel angles allowing greatest efficiency for water to move through the system. They also had to measure perforation patterns so drops would not blow back into the garage, Wroblewski said.

“We want this to tumble over gracefully,” he said.

Photovoltaic panels and green roof elements also will help the three-level, 400-space parking garage achieve net-zero energy usage, Doran said. The building comprises only about 30 percent of the 2.5-acre property’s footprint; seven different habitats – including grassland, a riparian forest and an alder grove – are in the works.

“This whole area will provide the patch in a corridor of habitat linking the Willamette River and Kellogg Creek,” he said. “It will blend into the landscape’s ecology more than anything we’ve ever done.”

Southeast Park Avenue Park & Ride

Location: Oak Grove

Project cost: $13.1 million

Construction start date: January 2014

Anticipated completion date: November 2014

Owner: TriMet

Design-build contractor: Skanska USA

Architect: GBD Architects

Landscape architect: PLACE STUDIO LLC

Structural engineer: KPFF Consulting Engineers

Civil engineer: WHPacific

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Helping design a 121-story skyscraper was a daunting task for Marinn Longenecker.

“It was a very big lesson in perspective, in how big a skyscraper is,” the recent Clackamas High School graduate said.

Longenecker served as the lead architect of a team of North Clackamas Schools district students who last month placed second (among 25 teams) in a in Chicago.

The high school seniors were part of an advanced computer-aided design class offered at the district’s Sabin-Schellenberg Professional Technical Center in Milwaukie. For the sixth annual International Mock Firms Competition held by Chicago Architecture Today, the students created a model of a skyscraper and sought advice from professionals at ZGF Architects, GBD Architects and KPFF Consulting Engineers.

Nancy Merchant, a CAD instructor at the Sabin-Schellenberg center, knew from attendance last year how strong the competition would be. She advised this year’s 11 student participants to ramp up their efforts.

“I said, ‘You’re really going to have to work hard to compete in this.’ ”

So, students contacted design professionals and members of the American Institute of Architecture Students‘ Portland State University chapter.

“That, to me, was the real value to it,” Merchant said. “I want to get the kids out there and see how people really do it … They knew their stuff because of all the mentoring.”

Working closely with Portland-area design professionals was one of the most rewarding parts of the process for Longenecker, who plans to study engineering at Clackamas Community College.

“We ran into several problems as we were going through the design process,” she said. “That was a very good experience to hear what they thought of our designs and give us tips.”

The students raised $8,000 in donations to pay for a four-day trip to Chicago. They participated in the competition, but also studied Chicago architecture and wrote reports about the city’s most famous high-rise buildings.

Two teams of five students each created mock “firms” for the competition. Each student was assigned a different position in the firm, and then they created business cards, a website and other marketing materials. Another student built models of the two teams’ designs.

The students were tasked with creating a mixed-use skyscraper in Dallas, Texas, with space for retail, offices, apartments and sports facilities. The design also had to have sustainable features and elements that support a healthy lifestyle.

ZGF staffers helped the students refine their talking points for a 10-minute presentation to sell their concept to the judges. The students also took advantage of the firm’s laser cutter to create 4-foot-high models of their skyscrapers.

“If you’re in a competition, not only do you have to do the required model, but you have to tell a good story,” ZGF senior designer David Staczek said. “It’s a really important thing that you have to craft. Getting (the students) to think about the big idea was one of the things we talked a lot about.”

The team that placed second called itself “Architects of Rebellious Innovation,” or ARI. features a building broken into two towers connected by a sky bridge and a distinctive fin-shaped element.

Longenecker said she learned a lot through the design process, especially about fitting in all the required elements.

“Doing elevators in the building – that was also a very challenging thing,” she said. “You have to accommodate for how much space they take and then the space you have to have for all the mechanical pieces for the building. That was eye-opening.”

GBD principal Craig Davis volunteered to review the students’ designs. He said ARI’s concept stood out.

“Their model was pretty impressive,” he said. “These are huge buildings, and they had a nice scheme that had a good look. In the long run, I did nothing except nudge them in the right direction. They worked super hard. Having them come out in second place in the nation, that’s pretty amazing.”

The competition proved to be an ideal opportunity to expose the high school students to what it’s like to work as an architect, Staczek said.

“I think this is a really great springboard for them to think about the construction industry and architecture,” he said.

Brett Sonflieth, a recent Rex Putnam High School graduate, built the models for the competition. The experience helped solidify his decision to study construction engineering management at Oregon State University beginning this fall.

Sonflieth learned firsthand how much dedication it takes to design a building.

“I had to quit baseball, but it was totally worth it,” he said. “What it takes to complete a project like this is not just the time you schedule, but more.”

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Hilton Worldwide today launched a new brand, “Curio – a Collection by Hilton,” with plans to develop one of those four- and five-star hotels in downtown Portland.

Three existing hotels in Las Vegas, Houston and Rapid City, S.D., will be converted into Curio properties; new developments are on tap in Chapel Hill, N.C. and Portland. Hilton is partnering with Syracuse, N.Y.-based development company Widewaters Group for the Portland project; ground is slated to be broken in early 2015.

The project — planned for the former Pendleton Building property — is expected to include approximately 300 rooms, a themed ground-floor restaurant, a rooftop restaurant and lounge, event space and a fitness facility with an indoor pool and spa. Widewaters Group in November bought the Pendleton Building property, at 202-218 S.W. Jefferson St., via Portland Hotel Ownership LLC for $4.5 million. Prior to the purchase, GBD Architects submitted to the city conceptual drawings for a 23-story tower on the site.

“We’re targeting major cities, as well as leading resort destinations around the world,” Hilton Worldwide spokeswoman Christine Miller said. “Portland is one of the markets we felt had a strong tourism demand, and that it would be a great market for us to build in.”

Hilton officials are hoping to open the Portland hotel by late 2016.

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