The construction site has become a seeming fixture, but crews are clearly making progress on the massive Hyatt Regency Portland at the Oregon Convention Center.

The hotel will be 14 stories and hold 440,000 square feet. Inside, there will be 600 rooms, a pair of ballrooms and meeting space. Metro is spearheading the project to serve its convention center across Northeast Holladay Street.

General contractor Mortenson Construction has completed roughly 75 percent of the work on the project, which was designed by ESG Architects of Minneapolis. The project is on schedule, according to senior project manager Pat Clemons and market director Mike Clifford.

“It’s in a prominent position right there by the freeway,” Clifford said. “It’s nice putting a development like this into an area like this, where it sorely needed it. It was a missing link between all of these things. So instead of having a negative there, which were the parking lots and derelict buildings, to be putting in something that actually generates people and creates energy, I think it fits well.”

The building is now roughed in, Clifford said. Glazing is virtually done while roofing has been completed on all structures except the 14-story tower, where mechanical, electrical and plumbing infrastructure work continues.

“There’s quite a bit of work still up in the penthouses and with our mechanical systems,” Clifford said. “And while we get those going, our elevators are in progress. And with our enclosure system we’re dried in, essentially, and now it’s putting on the insulation and skin on the outside.”

Inside, drywall crews have completed eight stories of hotel rooms and are set to start the ninth. Electricians, plumbers, framers, carpenters and other tradespeople, meanwhile, are busy on virtually all floors.

Mortenson is preparing to finish by the end of the year, with the hotel expected to open in early 2020.

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It’s one of the most visible construction projects currently under way anywhere in the Portland metro area – and one of the largest of its kind.

Located at the junction of Northeast Martin Luther King Boulevard and Holladay Street, the Hyatt Regency Portland at the Oregon Convention Center is the tri-county Metro government’s long-awaited hospitality addition to the inner eastside of Portland. The 600-room hotel will be 14 stories and have substantial meeting space of its own, including a pair of ballrooms. When it’s finished at the end of 2019, it will have helped to dramatically redraw the city’s eastside skyline.

Right now, however, that vision remains an architectural rendering as roughly 100 to 150 trades workers swarm daily over the post-tensioned concrete skeleton of the building. With seven concrete decks now in place, the project’s superstructure is now about half finished.

“It’s about good communication,” said Dan Sizemore, construction superintendent for Mortenson Construction.  “We’re coordinating everything from deliveries to where we’re going to be each and every day, probably to a level of detail a lot of folks aren’t used to, but that’s what it takes to get a big project like this pulled together.”

Mortenson is both the developer and general contractor for the $240 million project. ESG Architects, Mayer/Reed, Hyatt and Metro round out the project team.

Construction of the hotel started last year. Now, the concrete decks are rapidly stacking up inside a pork chop-shaped piece of land just east of Interstate 5 and Trimet‘s Rose Quarter MAX Station. The light-rail line hems in the job site on the south side and makes logistics for the project a substantial challenge, Sizemore said.

“The balance of the site, everybody has a designated area where they can lay down their space, and nobody ever has as much as they wish they could, right?” he said.

It takes daily meetings with subcontractors to confirm delivery schedules, as well as newer technology such as the mobile app Teamup to ensure that the entire construction crew remains on the same page and on time with their work.

“It sounds like a clichĂ©, but its communication,” Sizemore said. “Everybody has to be continuously talking to each other, and as soon as that’s not happening, the problems are pretty evident.”

For Mortenson construction executive Mike Clifford, the biggest project challenge so far has been managing communications between myriad project team members and stakeholders, as well as businesses and property owners located around or near the job site.

“It’s been known about for a long time, and there are a lot of people who have interest in the project,” Clifford said. “And trying to get alignment among those interests is probably where the biggest challenge lays.”

In conjunction with the hotel, a 175,000-square-foot parking garage is being built at the west end of the property. It will feature 447 automobile parking spaces and 130 bicycle spaces, and14,000 square feet will be dedicated to commercial lease space.

“We’ve got lots of bike parking in the project,” Clifford said. “We had to connect to a lot of different users, so it makes for an interesting program for the hotel. But it works out well for how it works in an urban context.”

Currently, concrete is being poured on the structure’s seventh deck. Meanwhile, ironworkers are piecing together the building’s steel-framed ballroom on the project’s north side.

On the interior, the first pre-fabricated wall panels are being put in place, with drywall work about to commence.

“Once we get the building to a dryer state on some of the lower floors we’ll cut drywall loose,” Sizemore said. “You’ll see on levels one, two, three, we’re starting to frame walls and get the overhead roughed in, and you’ll see a lot of the interior spaces are starting to take shape and define themselves. We’re really starting to touch on most of the scopes of work, with the exception of the finish trades.”

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Foundation work is complete on the Hyatt Regency Portland at the Oregon Convention Center, a 600-room hotel in the Lloyd District. Officials expect the structure to generate additional conventions and draw more tourists to the area. Mortenson is the developer and design-builder of the $240 million project, which was designed by ESG Architects of Minneapolis. The 14-story building will have a bar, a restaurant and a ground-floor retail market, as well as 32,000 square feet of ballroom and meeting space.

Crews are setting and pouring columns, and deck forming began this week. The first elevated slab pours are expected to start in about three weeks. The 14-story tower will consist of post-tensioned concrete, while a two-story podium will be steel-framed. Work is beginning in earnest this week on the parking garage portion, which will reach six stories and have 425 stalls. The project is slated for completion in 2019.

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After more than three decades, a is coming near the Oregon Convention Center.

Arrangements for bond funding are expected to close Aug. 8, with demolition and other prep work on the site north of the convention center set to commence shortly after, said Tom Lander, executive vice president for Mortenson.

Mortenson closed on its $165 million construction loan. Regional government body Metro, which operates the convention center, is in the process of selling $60 million in bonds.

Lander expects Mortenson to hand over the property to Hyatt at the end of 2019. The hotel is scheduled to open to the public one month later.

He’s confident the firm will be able to weather the labor shortage gripping the construction industry during this period of unprecedented growth.

“Mortenson has had an office in the Northwest for more than 30 years,” he said, referring to the design-builder’s Seattle office. Mortenson opened a Portland office around six years ago.

“We have a strong presence in the Portland market. We have a strong relationship with the local unions, and we have identified our subcontractors and we feel that we are in a good position to advance the project. But it is a challenging market and it’ll be a fun build.”

The $240 million building will have 600 rooms, a market, a bar and a restaurant. The 14-story hotel will be located on two blocks just north of the Oregon Convention Center in the Lloyd District. A parking garage with 419 spaces is being developed with the help of Prosper Portland.

TriMet‘s MAX light-rail train already has a station that will be between the convention center and the 440,000-square-foot hotel.

Of the total project cost, around $170 million will be covered by Hyatt, $60 million by Metro bonds, $10 million by the Oregon Lottery and $4 million by Metro grants.

Economic development interests in the area have tried since the late 1970s to recruit a large-capacity hotel to the convention center Urban Renewal Area. The most recent effort to delay the project was a set of legal challenges by a rival developer. The matter was settled when Metro agreed to allow that developer, Gordon Sondland, to control a nearby parking structure.

Hyatt Regency Hotel

Size: 440,000 square feet

Cost: $240 million

Contractor: Mortenson

Design: ESG Architects, Mayer/Reed Landscape Architecture, Hyatt

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In 2017, Portland is poised to be the city that works on parking garages.

The city is preparing to spend tens of millions of dollars on parking even as it pursues goals to fight climate change and promote dense, walkable neighborhoods.

The moves by the Portland Development Commission and the Portland Bureau of Transportation are prompting new criticism from a coalition of activists and armchair urban planners who are pushing a future for central Portland that is less reliant on cars.

The PDC is working with Mortenson Development to build a $20 million, 425-stall parking garage adjacent to the Hyatt Regency hotel, which crews are expected to start building near the Oregon Convention Center in June. Meanwhile, in a previously unreported move, the PDC is in discussions with Guardian Real Estate Services to buy the parking portion of the proposed Block 33 mixed-use building in Old Town Chinatown for an as-yet-undisclosed sum, and then lease it back to the developer.

Also, the Portland Bureau of Transportation and the PDC are moving forward on plans to renovate the city’s towering parking garage between Southwest Ninth and 10th avenues and Morrison and Yamhill streets.

Taken together, the plans indicate the city wants to grow central Portland’s parking stock alongside the extensive parking construction planned by private developers.

The public parking garage spending comes as the city promotes other initiatives, from the streetcar to Biketown to the $135 million vehicle-free Tilikum Crossing, to get residents and visitors out of their cars and on their feet or into public transit vehicles or onto bikes.

The largest parking project on the boards is Mortenson‘s $25.9 million deal with the PDC to build the parking garage at the Hyatt Regency hotel near the Oregon Convention Center. Critics of new parking say it’s a risky long-term deal.

PDC documents show the hotel would use 375 stalls, with the other 50 stalls to eventually be sold to TriMet. The garage would bring in approximately $1.8 million in annual net operating income, according to the agency.

Tony Jordan, a Portland activist who founded the anti-parking group PDX Shoupistas, said he’s skeptical that the garage will meet projections given the rise of ride-share platforms such as Uber and the proliferation of do-it-yourself lodging like Airbnb.

“If this garage next to the Hyatt is such a good deal, why isn’t Hyatt doing it?” said Jordan, whose group is named for Donald Shoup, an influential urban planner.

“You have a building that’s going to be around for a long time, that PDC is going to pay for for a long time, that’s going to exist in a very different transportation environment,” he said. “All of these factors conspire to say that this garage is not going to be full in 2025.”

A PDC spokesman said that without the garage, the Hyatt Regency hotel – a long-planned anchor for the Lloyd District – would not be built.

“The project doesn’t move forward without the garage,” PDC spokesman Shawn Uhlman said. “Fundamentally, this is part and parcel to that.”

The garage is to be constructed with further development of the site in mind. A 100,000-square-foot office building on top of the garage would help increase density and activity, including along the MAX light-rail line, and increase property tax revenues, according to the agency.

The Hyatt Regency is expected to bring in $600 million in tourism spending each year and millions of dollars more in tax revenue. The hotel could also give Portland enough capacity to host big events such as an NBA All-Star game.

“It’s a 600-room hotel,” Uhlman said. “That’s a really big number of guests. It’s pretty difficult to imagine a hotel of that size without a parking operation.”

The PDC has already given Mortenson $1.2 million to design and plan for the parking garage, all of which has been spent, according to a report from the agency.

Ground is anticipated to be broken in June, and the PDC is holding ongoing meetings for interested subcontractors.

The PDC has taken note of the criticism regarding its focus on parking garage construction. The agency even posted a lengthy explanation on the frequently asked questions section of its website.

Ethan Seltzer, a Portland State University professor of urban studies and planning, said it makes sense for the city to incorporate motor vehicle parking into its plans.

“As long as there are cars in the road, there’s going to be a need to have somewhere to put them,” he said.

Yet there’s a risk that driver behavior could change so quickly in coming years that large parking garages will become relics. Urban residents are driving less, and the advent of driverless cars could dramatically change demand for parking.

“What seemed like total science fiction a few years ago is seeming like an inevitability in the next five,” Seltzer said. “If you have driverless cars, you don’t need parking structures. You don’t need parking.”

Developers are broadly supportive of more parking in Portland’s urban center.

“Parking is not a highly profitable component,” said Tom Brenneke, president of Guardian Real Estate Services. “It drives many deals forward or not. “The idea of having more parking rather than less, if the city would partner it’s just going to increase the development potential in the city.

“You need people in the core to have a successful development.”

Guardian’s development plans for Block 33 include two levels of underground parking with 200-plus spots. The site has the potential for more, Brenneke said.

“We have potential to do a third (level) and are considering that,” he said. “We would probably need a PDC-type partner if we were going to do that.”

Guardian sent a letter of intent to sell the parking to the PDC, according to the Feb. 8 document. Jordan obtained the letter via a public records request.

The deal has not been finalized, Brenneke said.

“We have no deal with PDC, but we’ve had some dialogue,” he said.

The full-block project also has to clear the Historic Landmarks Commission, which questioned the proposed height in an initial hearing.

“We’re trying to get our height issue figured out,” Brenneke said. “Our deal works at 125 feet; it doesn’t work at anything less.”

Additional parking would increase the project’s cost.

The city is also working to extend the life of existing parking garages. In February, the city submitted a design advice request to make improvements to the seven-story Smart Park garage at Southwest 10th Avenue and Yamhill Street.

The city wants to remove stairs and elevators from two corners in favor of additional retail space. Existing retail tenants have received 18 months’ eviction notice, but will be welcome to reapply for space in the building later, according to the agency.

The plan also calls for mechanical upgrades, access improvements and new canopies and solar panels. The number of parking stalls will not change.

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The Portland Development Commission has amended its development agreement with Mortenson Development for a planned parking garage to serve the new hotel near the Oregon Convention Center.

The project to build the 442-stall parking garage is now expected to cost approximately $32.2 million, up from an earlier estimate of about $25.9 million.

The garage is considered a key support project for the 600-room Hyatt Regency hotel, and will not only provide needed parking, but also serve as a steady source of revenue for the PDC. The agency estimates the garage will generate $1.85 million annually.

Construction of the hotel is expected to commence once financing is in place in June 2017. The garage project will follow.

The PDC pointed to several reasons for the 24 percent cost increase.

• Additional foundation superstructure adds $1.6 million to the building’s cost. The superstructure changes are necessary to support future development of an office building atop the parking garage, according to a PDC staff report.

Overall, the PDC is spending $3 million so that an office building can be built on the parking garage.

The design also allows TriMet to operate a ground-floor police precinct without disruption of its operations.

• TriMet’s design specifications were responsible for an estimated $2.1 million cost increase. The transit agency has asked for 19,000 square feet of commercial space and 47 secured parking spaces.

The change requires deeper excavation and more shoring than first anticipated, PDC project manager Eric Jacobson said.

The agency had earlier indicated it would need only 14,000 to 15,000 square feet. The cost increase will be passed on to TriMet.

• Changes to gain the Portland Design Commission‘s approval will add $2.3 million in development costs. These changes include adding ground-floor retail space and bicycle parking, and modifying exterior design and materials.
• Costs are projected to increase by $320,000 because of the state’s 1.5 Percent for Green Technology in Public Buildings program. PDC staff had not initially realized the garage would be subject to the program.

“We hadn’t budgeted for that in part because we don’t build and own too many buildings,” Jacobson said.

Mortenson Development is expected to deliver the hotel in mid-2019, and then the garage. Mortenson Construction is the general contractor. Both companies are part of M.A. Mortenson Co. of Minneapolis.

The parking garage would add to the PDC’s portfolio an asset that could generate revenues for other programs. Currently, the PDC owns two parking structures: Station Place Garage at Union Station and parking at the Strand condominiums in Southwest Portland, near the Willamette River.

The PDC’s board approved an amended development agreement by a unanimous vote Dec. 14.

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The long-planned project to build a massive hotel near the Oregon Convention Center is close to gaining approval. But the Portland Design Commission last week had some lingering details to discuss with the design team during a two-hour meeting.

ESG Architects of Minneapolis is designing the project, which calls for a 600-room hotel and a six-story parking garage with more than 400 spaces. The development is planned for property bounded by Northeast First Avenue and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, and Northeast Holladay and Multnomah streets.

The design team has been very responsive to many areas of concern, city planner Tim Heron said. He plans to meet with team members several times to refine project details before the next hearing on Oct. 20, when he expects the Design Commission to give its approval.

Heron mentioned three major areas of concern: architectural coherency in response to the Lloyd District; street-level activation for both the hotel and garage along Northeast Holladay Street; and frontage and corner activation along Northeast Second Avenue.

Staffers took issue with the dark appearance of the hotel tower and need for more glazing along storefronts. They also had questions about proposed screening of the garage and street-level pedestrian coverage, as well as use of open slatting over entrances that allow for landscaping but provide no rain protection for people walking by.

Trace Jacques, a principal at ESG Architects, went over each point and explained that the color of the tower would be lightened, as requested by the Design Commission. The metal panels and glass tower will be in three shades of gray, with the darkest shade only for accents.

The metal skin will also be very bright, Jacques said, with a “very silvery, bright finish” and be made of Galvalume, a carbon steel sheet coated with aluminum-zinc alloy.

“That skin is meant to change with different atmospheric and lighting conditions, and it literally does change moment by moment,” he said. “The colors are the same, but the distribution and use are very different than it was before. The metallic finish catches light differently than just painted surfaces.”

Also, in following commissioners’ advice, Jacques said, a prominent stairwell has been moved from the garage corner so that elevator lobbies instead offer views at the corner.

The updated design also includes a new ornamental screening system for the garage and in front of the hotel’s restaurant, with more glazing added, increased retail space at the corners and intimate wood accents at entrances and portals.

One big change in the design to reflect advice of commissioners and staffers was to introduce retail space at the hotel’s southwest corner, Jacques said. The open trellis design could be closed, he added.

“It would allow for some planting below it but is at odds with this desire to have more shelter,” he said. “But it could be just clean hardscape and glazing.”

Retail space was also expanded at the northeast corner, and open bike parking was changed to a fully-enclosed retail space while the street-level generator room was dropped down one level.

The project has been through three design advice hearings and two design reviews since 2014.

Architect Paddy Tillet, a board member of the Portland chapter of the American Institute of Architects, said he has now seen the design three times and believes it has come a long way.

“The greatest challenge in working with a big building of this sort is to find an engagement between the building and the folks on the street,” he said. “The challenge of making scale work at such extremes is a great one, but what we’ve seen is a progression toward what we think is a very good solution.”

Stephanie Soden, chief of staff for Metro Council President Tom Hughes, told the commission that many public agencies – including the city, the state, Multnomah County and Metro – have invested “significant resources” to see the hotel built. It will create thousands of jobs and bring millions of tourist dollars into Portland, she said. Prompt approval is vital, she added.

“The project has experienced delays, which have increased costs,” Soden said. “Any further delays will put the project at risk, and final approval is needed as soon as possible.”

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Two significant projects planned in Portland, vastly different in scale, are on track to move forward soon.

The Portland Design Commission on Thursday spent about an hour discussing plans for the 11-story Framework tower, which is expected to be the tallest building in the country constructed with cross-laminated timber – a product popular in Europe, but relatively new as a building material in the U.S.

Then for the next several hours, commissioners discussed design details for the long-awaited Hyatt Regency hotel near the Oregon Convention Center. The two-block development will include a 600-room hotel next to a seven-story parking garage.

Framework tower

Although a few citizens on Thursday objected that the Framework tower planned at 430 N.W. 10th Ave. will not reflect the Pearl District’s industrial past, commissioners unanimously praised its design and assured approval at its next review set for Sept. 8.

During the public comment period, Pearl District resident Curt Jennewine said he had 78 signatures on a petition complaining that the building would not meet design guidelines for the former historic warehouse district.

“It will set precedence and erode the character,” he said.

But Kate Washington and Nolan Lienhart of the Pearl District Neighborhood Association praised the project because it will include affordable housing and increase neighborhood diversity.

Washington said the association’s planning committee voted to support the design, and she doesn’t believe that all new buildings in the Pearl District must reflect the history of the neighborhood. Lienhart agreed.

“I don’t agree with the notion that all buildings should reflect the warehouse design, which can be pretty dark and heavy,” he said.

This was the second design review for the Framework tower, and only a few issues remained to be resolved, city planner Grace Jeffreys said. They included location and depth of canopies, a lighting change on the second-floor terrace, covering of the generator exhaust and the design of the service area on Northwest Glisan Street.

After brief discussions about each issue, all were resolved and commissioners indicated that final approval would be granted at the next hearing.

Although CLT is relatively new to the building industry in the U.S. and called unsafe by the concrete industry, design commissioners have praised it as a welcome building product.

“I think it’s an extraordinary design and I could care less that it’s timber,” Commissioner Tad Savinar said. “The structure is exposed with a wonderful feeling of modern and old-timeyness and is a fantastic addition to the neighborhood.”

The Framework tower, designed by a Lever Architecture team led by Thomas Robinson, won a competition to receive half of a $3 million prize from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to use CLT “to construct lighter-weight, more energy-efficient, tall buildings.”

The developer is Project^ and the building will include street-level retail space, office space, workforce housing and community space.

Hyatt Regency hotel

The commission’s discussion of problem areas with for the Hyatt Regency hotel near the Oregon Convention Center was more lengthy and in-depth.

Prior to Thursday, the project had received three design advice hearings dating back to September 2014. The first application was submitted in December 2015 and a revised application was submitted in June.

The project site, immediately north of the Oregon Convention Center, is bounded by Northeast Holladay Street, First Avenue, Multnomah Boulevard and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

The hotel will be 14 stories with 600 rooms atop a three-story podium with a 32,000-square-foot ballroom and meeting space, a 24-hour market and a fitness center.

The parking garage will house 419 spaces for guests and 25 for retail use. The building will also hold bike parking – including rental, storage and repair space. Plans call for future development of the garage to include adding floors for office space.

Located in the Central City commercial district with design overlay designation, the hotel will be 180 feet, six inches tall with a floor area ratio of 12:1 with a 3:1 bonus allowed. Mortenson Construction‘s Portland office is working with Hyatt Hotels Corp. as developer for the Metro-owned project. ESG Architects of Minneapolis is designing the hotel and garage.

City planner Tim Heron initially outlined 13 different issues that city staff identified for the hotel and garage within three areas where design guidelines had not yet been met: architectural coherency and contextual response to the Lloyd District, active floor use on Northeast Holladay Street and corner activation at Northeast Second Avenue.

Scott Cruickshank, executive director of the Oregon Convention Center, told commissioners the $240 million project is being funded by between $165 million and $170 million from the Hyatt Regency Corp., $60 million from Metro bonds, $10 million from the Oregon Lottery and $4 million in Metro grants.

Ideally, construction should start in early 2017, Cruickshank said, with Design Commission approval being granted before the end of the year.

“The only thing that could stop (the project) now is delays,” he said.

After a lengthy discussion of all the issues by commissioners, Heron suggested that the project come back for a “soft” hearing on Sept. 29 to accelerate the process.

“It would be more of a work session,” he said, suggesting that Design Commission approval come in the following design review meeting.

“One more hearing and we’re done,” he said.

Although every month that approval is delayed costs about $1 million, said Trace Jacques, vice president and design principal at ESG Architects, he agreed with the timeline.

“I think that’s a wise course,” he said. “Time is of the essence, but we want to make the best use of it we can.”

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Ankrom Moisan Architects will not work on the remainder of the $212 million Hyatt Regency hotel project planned near the Oregon Convention Center.

The Portland firm had served as Mortenson Development‘s local design partner on the project, performing urban planning, land use services and other preliminary work. It leaves remaining design work to Minnesota-based ESG Architects.

The news was confirmed in an email Thursday by Ankrom spokeswoman Erin Stutesman.

“Mortenson Construction and Ankrom Moisan decided as a team that having one architecture firm (ESG Architects) lead would streamline the project,” she wrote.

Mortenson has submitted a packet to the Portland Design Commission and anticipates a hearing next month.

“If all goes well we’ll be tying up financing by the end of the year with construction starting in the first quarter of next year,” Tom Lander, Mortenson vice president of development, told the 91ĘÓƵ.

The hotel project has had a rocky development path to this stage. Metro proposed a plan to publicly finance the project and fielded appeals from rival developer Gordon Sondland. Earlier this year Willamette Week the conditions of an unusual legal settlement to move the project forward: Sondland agreed to drop several lawsuits tying up the project in exchange for a parking lot near the convention center.

Mortenson, headquartered in Minneapolis, has had a Portland office for six years. Aside from the Hyatt hotel, it has three projects now in development, including the Marriott AC Hotel in downtown.

Lander disagreed that Ankrom was added to the team to help the project win approval, then jettisoned, saying the firm was brought on to perform preliminary work only – work that’s now complete.

“Their big contribution as the local entity was helping us understand the urban setting of the project and that that was their role,” he said.

Lander provided a list of 16 local companies he said have all worked on the project.

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Metro officials and a group opposing the proposed 600-room Hyatt hotel at the Oregon Convention Center said Friday they have reached a legal settlement.

Gordon Sondland of Aspen Lodging Group had challenged the project, including Metro‘s plan to issue $60 million in bonds to help pay for construction of the $212 million hotel.

The two sides reached agreement to dismiss ongoing lawsuits and avoid future legal challenges.

The agreement clears the way for the Hyatt Regency, which is slated to begin construction later this year. It will be located north of the Convention Center and is expected to open in late 2018.

Minneapolis-based M.A. Mortenson Co. is the builder on the project.

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