A 347,000-square-foot building designed to modernize the Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission‘s (OLCC) distilled spirits distribution system is being constructed in Canby.

Crews officially broke ground on “Project Meadowlark” at 165 S. Walnut St. on April 16. They’re expected to complete work in summer 2026. The guaranteed maximum price for the project is $87.6 million.

LRS Architects designed the project and JE Dunn Construction is the general contractor. The team also includes civil and structural engineer VLMK Engineering + Design and landscape architect Otten & Associates.

The new warehouse will replace the OLCC’s current one in Milwaukie, which has been in operation since the 1950s. The new facility, not far from Oregon Route 99E, will allow the agency to expand capacity, streamline operations and improve efficiency for businesses and consumers across the state, a press release states.

Prior to the official start date, JE Dunn Construction initiated site mobilization, including clearing and leveling land as well as installing construction fencing in preparation for full-scale work.

“Breaking ground on OLCC’s new liquor warehouse and distribution facility is a tremendous milestone not only for our project team, but also the community,” JE Dunn project executive Jeff Fisher stated in a press release. “OLCC provides many benefits to the state of Oregon beyond its core operations. This facility will only strengthen that impact.”

The modern materials handling system will include conveyors, pick modules and pallet racks, along with necessary hardware and software. The facility is designed with modular capabilities, allowing for future expansion and potentially doubling the existing capacity over the next two decades, according to OLCC.

“It was very important to us to bring a human focus to our design for the interiors of the warehouse and office space,” LRS Architects principal and senior interior designer Amalia Mohr stated in a press release. “We studied how employees would experience and move around the space to perform their work, considering how to help people in demanding jobs be productive and happy at work.”

The facility is designed as a warehouse with attached supporting offices. In addition to office space, the warehouse will feature a staff lounge, maintenance shop space, and an advanced material handling system. There will also be a large break room with an outdoor space so that staff can relax and access fresh air and daylight.

A tilt-up concrete design was chosen for cost-effectiveness and longevity. The office building will have a generous number of windows for office spaces as well as a combination of textured metal panels and fiber-cement panels to provide a varied and colorful exterior, Mohr and Paul Boundy, LRS Architects’ managing principal, shared in an email.

Construction of the warehouse is expected to finish before July 2026, allowing for full operations to take place by the end of August 2026.

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The saying “no small feat” barely encapsulates construction of the RCC Building at Portland International Airport.

The new six-story, 90,000-square-foot building (also known as the Parking Additions and Consolidated Rental Car facility, or PACR) holds the Transportation Security Administration‘s Portland headquarters, a rental car center, the port police headquarters and a central communications center.

General contractor JE Dunn Construction completed the RCC Building project on schedule in early July after three years of work. Meanwhile, the firm also is serving as the general contractor for “P3” – a seven-story, 1.65-million-square-foot parking structure adjacent to the building. That project is expected to conclude by early November.

The JE Dunn Construction crew included superintendent Jeff Byrne, project manager Stacey Flint, project engineer Sage Guttes and field engineer Kelsey Chan.

This was the first time Byrne worked on a project with a team of women, he said.

“We couldn’t have done it without any one of us,” he said.

There were 13 different design packages, six sets of project specifications, and 11 different general contracting permits for the RCC Building. Most projects just have one general contracting permit, Flint said.

Before constructing the foundation, the team spent over a year performing preliminary site work such as rerouting traffic and nearly 1,600 lineal feet of utility piping – including the main power-feed to the whole control tower.

“This project has been an absolute beast – a pleasure, but a beast of a project,” Flint said. “It’s huge. It’s complex.”

The site is near a busy airport that sees an average of 13,000 flights per month. The RCC Building sits between a runway, an airport terminal, a parking structure, the central utility plant, and a quick turnaround facility for rental car companies to clean and refuel motor vehicles.

When asked about the overarching challenges of the project, Flint said there were many.

“Really honestly, the permits, the drawing packages and the amount of preparatory enabling work we needed to do, and the complexity and the danger of the work being underground,” she said.

The underground work was for the Underground East Pedestrian Tunnel to link the Federal Aviation Administration tower, the central utility plant and “P2” (the existing parking structure). The tunnel had less than a foot of clearance on either side of it. Plus, with the weight of a parking structure, a control tower and a utility plant pressing down, the tunnel’s sides were put under immense pressure.

“We basically slipped this tunnel in there,” Flint said.

Meanwhile, both the parking structure and the RCC Building are loaded with seismic resiliency. With the latter serving as a command center for PDX operations, it was imperative that mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems be resilient. Isolated seismic floors in both the communications center and a data center will help ensure that. During a sizable earthquake, the entire building could be shaking, but each floor will remain stable – thanks to square, metal frames underneath that have wheels and are bolted down by a spring.

Also, running through the middle of the tunnel is the duct bank that holds all fiber-optic cables for PDX. Workers had to uncover the duct bank underground very carefully, Flint said. Any hard knock to the duct bank, she said, would cause all internet service at the airport to twitch.

“That’s how sensitive it is,” she said.

The work had to be done with hand tools because chipping wasn’t allowed. Once the duct bank was exposed, the crew completely encased it in steel scaffolding for support.

“We had our fingers crossed and breath held many times,” Flint said.

The duct bank had to be crossed seven times during construction, but building the tunnel around it was the hardest, Flint said.

“Thank goodness we did that almost two years ago now,” she said. “… You walk through it and are like ‘Man, this sucked,’ but we did it.”

The RCC Building was built in two phases, with 13 phases of work beforehand. More than 110 trade partners participated.

“I think that it was a great challenge – one of the most logistically complex projects that I have been a part of,” Byrne said.

Touting opportunities for women

Working on a team with mostly women wasn’t new for Flint. The first time she worked on a project full time for JE Dunn, she served as a project engineer; there was a female project manager and a male superintendent. Her next project had the same team composition.

“Honestly not uncommon for my life to have a strong … female-led project, and I’m really thankful for that,” Flint said. “I’m trying to heavily recruit women into the industry. I think they just need to know that they can do this and that this is a viable and extremely rewarding career option for them.”

Flint started in construction 10 years ago via a chance meeting, she said. There were significantly fewer females in the industry at that time, she added.

“Then the fact that my first project had a female project manager who was an absolute rock star – it was just like ‘wow,’ and this is awesome and something that we can do,” she said.

This was the first time Flint worked with Guttes and Chan.

“They are absolutely the future of construction for the JE Dunn Portland office,” Flint said. “Proud of this entire team.”

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When NBA player Rudy Gobert, a center for the Utah Jazz, last week tested positive for the COVID-19 virus, reactions to the outbreak in the U.S. ramped up dramatically. The remainder of the NBA season was suspended, and countless other organizations have since responded with similar actions.

“It’s been an avalanche since then,” said Mike Salsgiver, executive director of the Associated General Contractors’ Oregon-Columbia chapter. “I think it was the thing that broke the dam.”

But while some governments have issued guidelines on social distancing and even instituted temporary statewide closures of places such as restaurants, bars and public facilities, the construction industry in the region so far is still up and running.

“Generally, as far as the impact on construction, we’re not hearing anything conclusively that says projects are coming to a stop,” Salsgiver said Tuesday. “But we’re pulling our information together, talking to agencies – particularly on the public side – to see what they’re thinking. We’ve been in touch with governor’s office, counties and mayors to keep channels open. But so far we’re not hearing anything about an impact to construction broadly; we’re all just chugging along.”

That, however, could change if politicians here follow a move taken by Boston Mayor Marty Walsh. He called for a two-week closure of commercial construction sites in the city, beginning March 17.

A day earlier, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation suspended all construction projects for at least two weeks.

The Oregon Department of Transportation, however, has dozens of current projects running – many funded by a massive transportation bill passed by the Legislature in 2017.

“At this point we have not had any changes in our construction schedules over this,” ODOT spokesman Don Hamilton said. “But it’s safe to say we’re watching all of these things very, very carefully. This is a very fluid situation, so we’re going to be carefully monitoring the best safety practices we can both for the impact on ODOT employees and other contract workers who are out there.”

The spread of COVID-19 could impact jobsites many ways in the short term, including employee absenteeism, changes in methods of conducting business, and interrupted supply and delivery schedules.

“We’re certainly monitoring supply chain impacts and we really haven’t experienced any,” said Darin Stegemoller, senior vice president of the Portland office of national contractor JE Dunn Construction. “There are a lot of rumors floating around right now, but no impacts as far as supply chain. But we are watching it very closely and we anticipate impacts in that arena.”

JE Dunn has formed a task force to handle all the changes thrust upon the firm with virtually no notice, Stegemoller said.

“Our doors are open, and we do have some people who are working from home just with the social distancing we’re trying to do,” he said. “We’re trying to leverage that and I think everyone in the industry is. So we have made that adjustment.”

Daily head counts on the company’s project sites have taken an estimated 10 percent hit, Stegemoller added.

“We’ve noticed a small change,” he said. “It’s a little bit of an indicator that there are some people worried. There’s certainly lot of concerns out there, but we’re still placing concrete and putting work in place and we’ll keep going as long as we can.”

For some companies, the immediate impact is more focused.

“We had a project with Portland Rescue Mission that was supposed to start on Monday the 23rd, but due to their quarantine requirements we can’t be in the space, so that project is postponed indefinitely,” Yorke & Curtis Inc. President Erik Timmons stated in an email. “We completely understand that they have to do what they need to do and support them 100 percent. It’s tough, though, when you have a team assigned and geared up, then have to call it off.”

If such actions continue across the industry, major changes are inevitable, according to Timmons.

“It’s scary to think that this will last too long,” he stated. “It won’t be good for anyone. Ultimately, if it does happen and projects can’t start or, worse, get shut down, it will have a huge impact on everyone’s business. No revenue equals no jobs.”

Meanwhile, local trade unions are restricting access to training centers and offices, and moving dispatch operations online. A large red banner across the top of the IBEW Local 48 website, for instance, states “In order to minimize personal contact and trying to follow CDC recommendations to limit the spread of the Coronavirus we ask that all members needing to conduct business with Local 48 try to do so through our website, telephone, email or texting.”

The statement goes on to ask any members laid off at this time to mail, fax or email their termination slips instead of submitting them in person. Members waiting for dispatch are being asked to use an online process instead of visiting the union hall in person.

Some companies are simply taking a wait-and-see approach and choosing not to speak out. Many of the firms contacted fall into this category.

“Sorry, on this one we have no comment,” Emerick Construction President Corey Lohman stated in an email.

Another aspect of construction that has been impacted significantly by office closures is permitting services. City halls and public buildings in the region have shut down because of the pandemic, including building and planning departments. The Portland Bureau of Development Services is just one that has enacted severe measures – including suspension of walk-in service for new permit applications.

The cities of Gresham and Hillsboro have closed their city halls through at least March 31 and are only conducting building-related business over the phone or online. In Beaverton, in-person services are closed until at least March 29, but building inspection appointments are apparently still being conducted. The situation is similar for smaller jurisdictions.

The most important thing is for people to keep cool and not panic, Salsgiver said, noting the AGC does not support a job site stoppage in Oregon or anywhere else.

“This is a thing we’re dealing with and we’re going to deal with it as directly and quickly and fully as we can,” he said. “At some point this will turn a corner and we’ll move back to normal. And my biggest concern is policy makers not take precipitous action that upends the channels of commerce or the economy, because most of our businesses are small businesses and anything that impacts cash flow is going to be a serious, serious concern of ours. We’re the public too.”

The post Many contractors carrying on amid outbreak appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

The nine-story, 157,000 square foot Gladys McCoy Health Department Headquarters is currently being built on a half block parcel at Northwest Sixth and Hoyt Street. The project is adjacent to Union Station and the Bud Clark Commons apartment building run by the county’s public housing authority Home Forward.

Designed by ZGF Architects, the new Gladys McCoy building takes its name from the county’s current headquarters on Southwest Stark Street. Built in 1923, the current headquarters is too small and county officials have been looking into replacing the building for well over a decade.

Now, general contractor J.E. Dunn and an army of subcontractors are entering the final phases of construction. The building topped out last December, and those involved in the $94 million project now expect it to be substantially complete by the end of this year.

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It’s not just the private sector where construction is booming in the Portland-metro area. The public sector is just as active, especially in Multnomah County. On top of the 17-story central courthouse being built near the west end of the Hawthorne Bridge, the nine-story, 157,000-square-foot Gladys McCoy Health Department headquarters is rising on a half-block parcel at Northwest Sixth Avenue and Hoyt Street.

The health department’s existing headquarters, on Southwest Stark Street, was built in 1923 and has long been too small to meet staffing and service needs. ZGF Architects designed the $94 million replacement, named for the first African-American elected to public office in Oregon, to occupy a property near Union Station in Old Town Chinatown.

General contractor J.E. Dunn Construction and a multitude of subcontractors are entering the final phases of the project. Crews topped out the building in December and have since been working on the envelope and the interior. The team expects work to be substantially complete by the end of the year.

“It’ll definitely be an iconic building,” said Tom Heger, a J.E. Dunn vice president. “One feature I’d say is unique here is the exterior skin. With the way it’s designed for passive energy savings, it’s a very efficient building, and we have all the weather barriers up.”

Deep, masonry-punched openings, or apertures, are being positioned to take advantage of the building’s orientation, and minimize glare and heat penetration. In addition, virtually all windows are recessed to provide exceptional energy efficiency. Such features are intended to allow the building to achieve a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design gold rating.

A terrace and stormwater planters will be installed on the roof, and the apertures were designed to fit the neighborhood and its vintage warehouses.

“It complements Union Station right there,” Heger said. “The design team did a really good job of matching the neighborhood and the context of where it’s at.”

No vehicle parking will be provided, although there will be 55 bike parking spaces. A lobby and a pharmacy will be located on the ground floor, while specialty clinical services will occupy three stories. Administrative offices and work areas are planned for the upper floors.

Public art will be installed on the ground floor, Multnomah County project manager Brett Taute said, and be visible from the street through massive floor-to-ceiling windows.

An incident command center specific to the health department will be built. This area of the ground floor will have a backup generator and other mechanical services, next to the loading dock. However, allowing for change will ensure the space is useful in the long run, Taute said.

“The health department will be the major user of this building,” he said. “But as programs change, and as we move through, it just would behoove the county to allow for as much of that flexibility and adjustment without holding ourselves to the walls and elements that are there.”

Currently, Heger said, sheet metal workers, masons, carpenters, electricians and other tradespeople are working steadily to finish not only the exterior brick cladding, but the interior as well.

“We actually have carpet laid and we have ceiling grid in,” he said. “We’re getting ready to start laying ceiling tile, and the walls will be painted on the lower floors, so we’re just bringing up the building and prepping eventually for furniture later this fall.”

Extensive seismic reinforcement was designed into structure. From the massive steel buckle restraint braces in two main stairwells to a wide array of smaller seismic features intended to secure mechanical systems, the new building will be able to survive a sizable earthquake in much better condition than many of its neighbors, Taute said.

“It’s not meant as a central facility,” he said. “There’s not the full reliance that we’d be open for business the next day. But at least it wouldn’t be a complete loss and you wouldn’t have to restart the entire building. That was the design intention.”

For the full history of the project, visit .

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Scientists have long said the Pacific Northwest is overdue for a sizable earthquake, and Washington County is preparing by updating four large public buildings.

A seismic retrofit of the county’s Law Enforcement Center wrapped up in March. Currently, general contractor JE Dunn Construction is carrying out a $30 million retrofit of the adjacent Charles Cameron Public Services Building.

The latter building is also gaining a host of workspace security improvements and an overhaul of the north wing’s basement. Also, the HVAC and other mechanical systems are being updated.

“It’s not just seismic,” Washington County project manager Bassam Khalifeh said. “It’s also about solving this water intrusion issue that we’ve been dealing with since the building was constructed.”

In total, the project aims to bring the 22-year-old building up to an “immediate occupancy” seismic standard. This means the building is expected to remain standing, be safe to occupy and be repairable after a large quake. However, the standard acknowledges that mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems will likely suffer serious damage.

SERA Architects principal Becky Epstein is in charge of designing all four Washington County retrofits. Many different techniques can be used to reinforce buildings seismically, and various levels of protection can be attained, she said.

“There are concrete shear walls, steel shear walls, brace frames, buckling-restrained brace frames – a whole bunch of things you can do that, depending on your building, will work,” she said.

Engineering studies indicated that the Public Services Building’s structural frame and internal components would fail in a sizable seismic event. And because county officials wanted a retrofit that would impact the building’s exterior appearance as little as possible, Epstein said, a final design was chosen that would involve placing a formidable series of concrete shear walls on each of the building’s corners. Each shear wall would then be tied into the building’s framework with a robust series of drag struts and other steel connectors.

Not only did this type of exterior-based solution allow the building to be used during construction, it eliminated the need to drill through and possibly compromise any of the post-tensioned concrete slabs.

“It just limits the amount of mechanical systems that are disrupted and how much ceiling you have to take down,” KPFF Consulting Engineers principal Mark Tobin said. “It really minimized how much other stuff was impacted with the structural elements, and it kept the new foundation on the outside of the building, as we were digging down anyway for the water issue. It was great not to have to cut through the basement slab.”

Plus, this solution minimized any changes to the building’s appearance.

“It looks like it was part of the building originally,” Epstein said. “And that was a concern of the commissioners.”

The method also allowed the county to fix the water intrusion issue in the building’s foundation at the same time.

“By putting those concrete frames or shear walls on the outside of the building, we had to pull away the dirt to waterproof the building, so it was a two-for-one,” Epstein said.

At the job site in Hillsboro, Khalifeh explained how the project is being completed in two phases in order to allow the county to continue to use at least one of the two building wings at all times.

Currently, work on the larger north wing is approaching its final stages as contractors refurbish the interior. The new reinforced concrete shear walls are evident at each building corner.

The former front lawn is now a gaping pit on either side of the main walkway leading to the entrance. At the bottom sits a pair of new water pumps designed to remove groundwater and prevent it from infiltrating the basement as in the past.

“We wanted to get the water away from the building, so we excavated all the way down and added windows in the basement,” Khalifeh said. “So what you see outside, that’s what it’s going to be – the de-watering wells, or pumping stations, in four locations and one inside the building.”

The water intrusion issue could be addressed via the engineering solutions proposed for the seismic retrofit, Tobin said.

“There was some synergy between those two efforts,” he said. “We had to dig down, and they had to be at the basement level anyway. You can’t put a basement wall at ground level, so we had to dig down to get to the bottom of the slab to put in our footings and realized, ‘Hey, we’re getting a twofer here.’ That was a nice little bonus for the project.”

As the work progressed, Tobin added, the resulting shear walls added to the building’s aesthetic.

“I think the unique aspect on this one is they’ve left the shear walls exposed,” he said. “You see it from the outside and you can tell something was done, and it was robust and intentional. A lot of times when we do retrofits the architect’s goal is to hide it somewhere. … This was a little unique in that by placing it outside the building and making it concrete, it ties into other elements.”

Crews are expected to complete the retrofit of the Public Services Building later this year.

The post In pursuit of seismic readiness and more appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

Travelers seeking to park their motor vehicles at Portland International Airport will eventually have more spaces to choose from. They just won’t be available until 2020.

That is when a $246 million, seven-story, long-term parking garage is scheduled to open at the airport. The project is in the early design phase, with Yost Grube Hall Architecture at work.

Insufficient airport parking has become plainly apparent, according to Port of Portland spokeswoman Kama Simonds.

“In the last two to three years our long-term parking garages have been full a lot, especially on Tuesday and Thursday with business travelers,” she said.

When long-term parking spaces fill, there is a ripple effect: drivers tend to head to short-term spaces, which forces more cars into the economy parking lot.

“The short-term lot is intended for people picking up passengers or those who have business at the airport,” Simonds said.

The new garage will include approximately 2,400 public parking spaces. The facility will also include a customer service lobby and 724,000 square feet for rental cars.

“It is our goal to have 100 percent of rental cars on site,” Simonds said. “Right now, some (companies) shuttle out to remote sites. Getting them close in is something that our customers have asked for.”

Money from taxpayers won’t be used to pay for the new garage, according to Simonds. People who rent and park cars at PDX will pick up the tab.

Flexibility is something that Yost Grube Hall Architecture was told to include in its design.

“We need flexibility with regards to technology,” Simonds said. “Maybe in 20 years or even two years self-driving cars will be in use. Then there is car sharing. We want to accommodate all of the different ways that people use cars. We have to be able to produce flexibility in the facility.”

Despite the frequent parking crunch, Portland International Airport ranked as one of the top airports in the country last year. PDX in 2016 saw a 9 percent surge in traffic to nearly 18 million fliers. Port officials are seeking to better serve those travelers via the new garage.

“Our goal is to have as many spaces as possible up front where people can walk to the terminal,” Simonds said. “That is something that is important to our customers.”

PAE Engineers, KPFF Consulting Engineers and DKS Associates are providing engineering services for the project. JE Dunn Construction will build the facility.

Design work is expected to continue through the third quarter of 2018. Construction is likely to begin in the fourth quarter of 2018 and last through the second quarter of 2020.

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Drones: high-tech, brimming with promise, slightly unsettling. They’ve already changed how modern warfare is waged, and are thought to hold disruptive potential for numerous other industries – shipping, journalism, law enforcement and feature filmmaking, to name a few.

Right now, despite the hype about drones, relatively few outlets exist for legal commercial use in the U.S., in part due to regulatory dysfunction. But around Portland, insiders report that drones – legal and otherwise – are hard at work for construction companies, from preconstruction to the P.R. shot. And use of drones is expected to broaden as legal and technical barriers are smoothed over in the coming years.

Until then, with applications stunted in a choke point at the Federal Aviation Administration, companies have had to get creative with how they employ their drones when they even bother to go the “legal route.”

Manned to unmanned

“Drones” are only what people outside the Federal Aviation Administration call them, according to Todd Boyd, an aviation safety assistant for the agency. To everyone at the FAA, they’re “unmanned aerial systems” (UAS), and often called unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).

About 80 people work out of the FAA office in Portland. But the office, like others around the country, is overwhelmed with applications from drone owners to use U.S. air space. One potential drone pilot reported waiting four months before confirmation the FAA received his request. It’s thought the agency is biding its time and won’t fully commit to processing them until new regulations are enacted. That could happen as early as this summer.

The FAA Modernization and Reform Act, passed in 2012, got the ball rolling on integrating commercial UAVs into the FAA. But the agency so far hasn’t met many of the timeline goals contained in the legislation, including full integration of all nongovernmental drones by September 2015.

“Essentially, if you’re a hobbyist, you’re very unrestrained in how you may you use your UAV,” attorney Craig Russillo said.

Several years ago, Russillo, with the blessing of his bosses at Schwabe, Williamson & Wyatt, began researching laws surrounding drones and today counsels in the emerging legal area.

A “recreational” tag applies to any craft lighter than 55 pounds and flying lower than 400 feet. Each remote-controlled craft must also be registered with the FAA, which includes a $55 one-time fee.

The FAA’s current position is that federal law prohibits the commercial use of drones, Russillo said. To fly one commercially, an operator must apply for a “333 exemption,” and ask the FAA to not apply all the regulations originally written for manned aircraft.

“The FAA’s just been inundated with them,” he said. “I don’t think they have the personnel to handle it.”

The FAA does have the power to levy large fines on scofflaws. Last year it fined Chicago-based SkyPan International $1.9 million for unauthorized UAV operations.

“UAVs are becoming super-useful in the construction industry, but I don’t know how many of these people are doing it lawfully,” Russillo said.

Companies skirting the law to take progress photos expose themselves to serious liability should something go wrong, Russillo said. He advises companies to at the very least file an exemption application before working with a UAV, even though it’s unlikely the FAA would process it before a new legal framework is rolled out.

Among the FAA’s current rules, drone pilots must be licensed sport aircraft pilots, have a spotter with them at all times, maintain visual contact with the aircraft at all times, and operate only during daylight hours and at prescribed altitudes. Many of those restrictions are expected to be eased under the new rules, Russillo said.

An elevated perspective

Legal concerns proved too much for Fortis Construction, which recently looked into purchasing its own drone before deciding not to, according to secretary-treasurer Rene Gonzalez.

“We believe there are safety issues and gray areas surrounding drone usage, which present a greater risk than benefit to our projects,” he said. “As a company, we have made a decision not to use drones at this time.”

JE Dunn Construction does use drones, primarily for aerial progress photos, president Darin Stegemoller said.

Drones are being used to compose project renderings. They can capture visuals in the difficult-to-capture “low-altitude opaque” area. Mike Hopper’s Eugene-based produces renderings with an “elevated view perspective.”

For R&H Construction, the question wasn’t whether to use drones, but whether to do it legally, principal Norm Dowty said. In looking into the issue, he learned it didn’t matter if R&H used its drone only for internal use; commercial licensure was still required. So, UAV consultant was hired to walk R&H officials through the FAA’s byzantine certification process.

“One of the things we debated was whether to go legal or not, and go through the time and expense,” Dowty said. “And we did … We just like doing things right around here.”

Luckily for the company, it had a licensed pilot on staff. And senior project manager Duane Francis happened to be willing to take on the challenge of learning the ins and outs of drone technology. R&H uses its craft on a fairly regular basis, several times a month – usually for marketing purposes, though the company has also used it to document rebar placement and inspect suspected roof damage.

Chopper city

Joe Vaughn’s Skyris Imaging has a fleet of six drones of varying capacities, but he’s been exploring a different avenue for aerial photography while the rules around drones are being worked out. Vaughn regularly charters helicopters ($500 per hour) and performs “missions” around the Portland area covering up to a half dozen sites.

He performs primarily three services for construction companies, all of which could be performed with drones. First are preconstruction photos, used in project planning. Then there are progress shots, which show all responsible parties that work is actually being done on a project. (Sometimes these are required by banks or lenders.) The third is the marketing shot, or, as Vaughn calls it, the ego shot.

The ego shot isn’t just about self-esteem, he said.

“It’s important to the architects, the contractors, the subcontractors – anybody associated with the project, really,” he said. “The main reason people need a good shot of their last project is in helping them get their next project.”

Legal drone use right now is pretty limited – no flying above crowds or near airports. A pilot typically may only take up a craft vertically, and under 400 feet, and return to the same spot on the ground. But with a helicopter, Vaughn has far greater access. To stay profitable using a costly chopper, he has several strategies for saving money – Skyris’ “secret sauce” – that he asked the 91��Ƶ to not share.

Russillo said tech leaders have barely scratched the surface developing uses for UAVs: micro-UAVs that are cheaper and less intrusive and UAVs capable of autonomous flight (there’s even talk of fixed-wing “mother ships” delivering swarms of shipping drones to cities, before packing them all back in and returning home). He said America is already being passed technologically by the rest of world, and will continue to be if pathways aren’t cleared for further commercial use.

“They’re already doing some of this stuff in other countries,” he said. “It’s happening.”

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The Portland Development Commission will contribute $36.4 million to Multnomah County‘s project to build a new headquarters for the health department.

County commissioners approved preliminary project plans for the $85 million to $95 million facility at its Thursday meeting.

More than 500 health department employees will be consolidated in the planned nine-story, 157,000-square-foot building at Northwest Hoyt Street and Sixth Avenue. They are currently housed in two facilities – the current headquarters in the 10-story McCoy Building at 426 S.W. Stark St. and in leased office space in the Lincoln Building at 421 S.W. Oak St.

The project team includes ZGF Architects and JE Dunn Construction.

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Multnomah County Health Department officials are seeking city of Portland approval and neighborhood support for construction of a taller building in Old Town Chinatown than zoning allows.

Initial plans for the health department’s new headquarters called for a six-story building that would not exceed the 75-foot height limit on a vacant lot east of Bud Clark Commons. But the proposed $46 million building would not be able to provide the approximately 120,000 to 150,000 square feet of office space the county anticipates it needing. The only way that the constrained half-block site could provide that much space would be in a building nine or 10 stories, county spokeswoman Julie Sullivan-Springhetti said.

“We have learned a six-story building is not enough space,” she said. “It’s critical that when we invest this type of money in public funds that we have the capacity, and that’s what we’re coming up against with the height limit.”

The revelation has led county officials to put on hold plans to break ground next month on a six-story building that would replace the department’s current downtown Portland headquarters, Sullivan-Springhetti said.

“We paused on that six-story (concept) and we are working with the city of Portland and the Portland Development Commission to look at what we can do to try and utilize the site,” she said.

Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability staffers are reviewing the county’s revised plans and are developing a proposal to change the height allowance on that block, bounded by Northwest Hoyt and Irving streets and Broadway and Sixth Avenue, city planner Nicholas Starin said. A city staff report on a proposed amendment to the height limit is expected to be released by the end of this week, he said.

“They need a fairly large building that wouldn’t fit within the 75 feet,” he said. “The number we’re working off is to get the height to 150 (feet).”

To achieve this, city planners propose increasing the base height allowed on the planned site to 120 feet and offering the county height bonuses in exchange for including building features that are considered a public benefit, such as an eco-roof. Currently, the site is not eligible for such floor-to-area-ratio bonuses.

The proposed height allowance and FAR bonuses require approval of the Portland Planning and Sustainability Commission and Portland City Council, Starin said. A Planning and Sustainability Commission public hearing for the proposal is scheduled for April 28. If the commission were to approve the height allowance, a City Council hearing would likely take place in June, he said. The project would then have to enter the city design review process.

County and city officials earlier this month met with neighbors of the site to discuss plans to construct a taller headquarters building. This includes seeking the support of the Old Town Chinatown Community Association and Pearl District Neighborhood Association.

When county officials last week presented the proposed height increase to the OTCCA’s Land Use and Design Review Committee, members expressed concerns about the taller building blocking views of the Union Station clock tower as well as inconsistency with the shorter surrounding structures. The neighborhood association’s board is scheduled to review the proposal on April 1.

Health department officials more than a decade ago began looking for options for relocation from the Gladys McCoy Building in downtown Portland. The 12-story building, constructed as a department store in 1923, had outlived its usefulness as the hub for one of Oregon’s largest federally qualified health centers. The new headquarters will allow the county to consolidate health department functions currently spread out across multiple buildings. It will house the department’s leadership, public health emergency services, a communicable disease program, specialty clinics, a pharmacy and electronic health records. About 350 health professionals would work out of the building.

In 2013, health department officials brought on Home Forward, ZGF Architects and JE Dunn Construction to formalize a building plan for developing the half-block site owned by the Portland Housing Bureau west of Northwest Sixth Avenue, between Irvington and Hoyt streets.

The department has since undergone a leadership transition. Former department head Lillian Shirley left in fall 2013 to lead the Oregon Public Health Division. The county’s former chief operating officer, Joanne Fuller, took over as interim director of the health department. The Multnomah County Board of Commissioners this past June appointed her health department director.

Sullivan-Springhetti said county officials still believe the Old Town site is a prime location for the health department’s new headquarters and hope to make the proposed project pencil out there.

“We have this great site (but) because it was limited to the 75-foot height for the investment we would not be able to fit the professionals and services in that for the cost,” she said. “This was the option we were hoping to go with and now we’re in the process to see how we make this work.”

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