Ambitions for a new parking garage and rental car center at Portland International Airport grew with a change in scope. The price tag grew along with it.

The Parking Additions and Consolidated Rental Car (PACR) project is now expected to cost $282 million, up from $246 million as conceived originally. That represents a 14.6 percent increase.

The design changes were driven by a desire to provide a single rental car facility, and eliminate the need for customers to take shuttle buses to some agencies’ locations.

“The fundamental thing is we decided to bring all of the rental car agencies on site,” said Vince Granato, the Port of Portland‘s project manager overseeing the portfolio of projects known as PDX Next. “We needed to make the facility bigger to accommodate that.”

An extra bay was added to the facility. The toll plaza was moved. And the project now includes a separate, stand-alone rental car center.

“It’s better customer service,” Granato said.

For now, five rental agencies are located on-site and three are off-site. When the rental car center is complete, 12 rental car companies plan to operate there.

JE Dunn Construction is building the 2,225-space parking garage, which was designed by YGH Architecture. Site work began in early 2018. The garage and rental car center are on track to open in fall 2021.

The COVID-19 pandemic led to additional unexpected costs, Granato said. Two positive virus tests slowed work, he said.

“There have been COVID costs that have put pressure on the budget,” he said.

The parking garage is being funded by revenues from the airport’s parking operations. The rental car building is being funded by user fees paid by rental car customers and bonds issued for the project. To provide stability for both the Port of Portland and tenants, the rental car agencies agreed to 20-year leases in the new facility that will begin when they move in.

The project team saved costs in other ways, Granato said. JE Dunn locked in a steel purchase early on. The project has also benefited from stable costs for some materials.

That’s part of a wider trend, said Mike Salsgiver, executive director of the Associated General Contractors‘ Oregon-Columbia chapter.

“We’re still seeing some uptick in basic materials, but it’s kind of flattened out, because the industry’s kind of flattened out,” Salsgiver said.

The PACR project is part of the larger PDX Next initiative to modernize Oregon’s major airport. A $1.65 billion makeover of the main terminal building has begun with a joint venture of Hoffman Construction and Skanska USA Building in the pilot’s seat. ZGF Architects is designing the terminal.

The terminal project calls for replacing the roof with a seismically sound one and radically redesigning the interior.

“The floor will be the same,” Granato said, “but that’s about it.”

The post Scope, cost grow for project at PDX appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

Upgrades totaling more than $2 billion are taking place at Portland International Airport, and work on the largest single project is ramping up.

The $1.5 billion effort to transform the main terminal is one of several ongoing and planned projects at PDX to provide flexible, state-of-the-art facilities. Together, the projects are known as PDX Next.

“It’s really designed to take us out into the future,” said Vince Granato, chief projects officer with the Port of Portland.

On Thursday, the Daily Journal of Commerce hosted a Builder Breakfast virtual panel discussion during which executives from Portland’s Hoffman Construction, national giant Skanska USA and the Port of Portland talked about upcoming work at the airport.

Led by a joint venture of Hoffman and Skanska, the main terminal project will involve installation of a nearly 8.5-acre roof designed to withstand a strong earthquake.

Bids for the roof structure and related work are due Tuesday. That will be followed by the mechanical, electrical and demolition packages, for which documents are likely to be issued in November; bids will be due in December, said Joe Schneider, senior vice president in Skanska’s Portland office.

“There are opportunities there for sub-tier participation,” he said.

Next summer, contracts related to interior finish work will go out to bid, Schneider said.

PDX Next will deliver its first major project Wednesday, when the $215 million Concourse E extension, headed up by Skanska, is scheduled to open.

The main terminal, a stitched-together structure comprising six separate buildings that were constructed at different times under different codes, hasn’t been updated in more than 20 years, Granato said. The existing structure is seismically vulnerable, he added.

“That building would not survive” a 9.5-magnitude Cascadia subduction zone earthquake, he said.

ZGF Architects‘ design for the new main terminal building focuses on extensive use of wood to “keep the warmth and feel of the airport,” Granato said.

The Port of Portland held focus groups to help guide development of the PDX Next projects. Participants said they valued the existing airport, which is regularly ranked among the best in the United States.

“They basically said don’t screw it up,” Granato said. “We want to retain the soul of the airport, but we know it needs to change.”

The main terminal will be expanded 150 feet to the west from where it is today. That will provide more room for passenger security and health screening as well as flexibility for unknown future needs, Granato said.

The joint venture partners are working in integrated teams rather than parceling out some work for Skanska and some work for Hoffman.

“Creating a joint venture team that could tackle this, and could handle and bring the experience that was relevant to not only (the) local airport but national airports, I thought was really something that was important,” said Dave Garske, vice president of Hoffman Construction.

Other PDX Next projects include the Concourse B redevelopment, slated for delivery in summer 2021 by the Hoffman-Skanska joint venture, and the parking garage addition and rental car consolidation project, a $282 million build-out led by JE Dunn Construction that is scheduled for completion in fall 2021.

The PDX team is leveraging Skanska’s work at New York’s LaGuardia Airport for peer review as well as technical and logistical help, Schneider said.

Work at the airport has encountered a number of complications. Craft workers are now parking remotely and taking buses to the project site – an arrangement that creates challenges for social distancing. As a result, buses are running at a lower capacity. Schneider said he’s in discussions with port officials whether workers may be able to use a parking garage.

“That’s our current challenge,” Schneider said. “On this project, we haven’t had any delays, which is fortunate, but just a lot of creative thinking and a can-do attitude.”

The panel discussion was moderated by Paige Spratt, a Schwabe, Williamson & Wyatt shareholder who focuses on construction and real estate law.

The post More airport work opportunities on tap appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

At roughly 1.6 million square feet, the Parking Addition and Consolidated Rental Car (PACR) facility being constructed at Portland International Airport easily has the biggest footprint of any current project in the metro area.

It’s a whole lot of structural steel.

“It’s just a really, really big structure,” said Chris Hermreck, a senior project manager with general contractor JE Dunn Construction. “We’re building this garage that’s the size of these entire two (existing) buildings.”

The 2,400-space parking garage, designed by YGH Architecture, is being constructed via a progressive design-build contract. The new, seismically resilient (category 4) structure will hold Port of Portland offices, long-term parking, rental car service and offices, and a parking toll plaza.

The latter is already up and running, which enabled demolition and clearance of the old plaza, which sat where the new parking garage is on the rise. A new garage for rental car fueling, cleaning and storage has also been constructed.

One of the most significant phases of work in the entire project is under way: Ironworkers from Phoenix, Arizona-based Schuff Steel Co. have begun structural work on the 100,000-square-foot office building and five-level parking garage. Also, Carr Construction has been contracted to perform miscellaneous steel work.

Up to 50 ironworkers could be on site at one time when steel work reaches its peak later this summer, Hermreck estimated. The first column was set April 20, he added, and completion of structural work is anticipated sometime during the fourth quarter of this year.

Along with the sheer scope of work, steel erection is also challenged by the project location inside restricted Federal Aviation Administration airspace. This meant a traditional tower crane could not be used on site. Instead, crews are using a massive crawler crane with an articulated boom arm.

“This was a specially considered crane for a lot of reasons,” Hermreck said. “For capacity, and also because of the way it lays down at night. This has the reach and capacity and also the ability to get low enough.”

PACR is part of the five-year, $2 billion-plus PDX Next program in which nearly all of Portland International Airport is receiving upgrades. Construction of a new main terminal, the so-called T-Core project, is the centerpiece.

When it comes to PACR, work involves modifications to the existing P2 parking structure as well as significant improvements to surface roadways and underground utilities. Existing parking garages will connect to the new one.

JE Dunn is self-performing the concrete work for this project, while DeWitt Construction continues excavation and pile driving to accommodate construction of the new parking structure. Other major subcontractors on the job include Oregon Electric Group and JH Kelly Mechanical.

Once the new garage is complete, a temporary exit road will be shut down and a new exit connecting the new P3 garage and exit plaza will be installed.

The entire project should wrap up in 2021, according to the Port of Portland.

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The ability to inject carbon dioxide into concrete has existed for decades. But only within the past decade have parties begun to engage in such efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and fight climate change.

Now, Vancouver, British Columbia-based CarbonCure has brought its carbon-sequestering technology to the Troutdale production plant of national concrete producer Knife River. Proprietary technology is used to inject recycled carbon dioxide into a given concrete mix, reducing the cement content correspondingly.

Following production of several test batches, the first field-grade batch of CarbonCure concrete was poured in February at Portland International Airport as part of the Port of Portland‘s Parking Additions and Consolidated Rental Car Facility (PACR) project. It’s being tackled by general contractor JE Dunn Construction.

“The Port was interested in what can we do that would be green on their project,” said Scott Thayer, project manager for Portland firm Yost Grube Hall Architecture, which designed the project. “The whole point of this is to reduce the cement content in the concrete. It’s one of the most carbon-intensive products in the world, especially in the amounts it is used and its prevalence in the world of construction. What’s beautiful about carbon is it’s a perfect substitute for the cement. It has similar strength-enhancing properties in the concrete mix.”

Yukari Kubo, a design professional with YGH and co-chair of the firm’s sustainability committee, said the key to getting a large manufacturer like Knife River to jump on board was to specify use of CarbonCure.

“It takes the architects to specify it and bring it to the attention of the client,” she said. “Out here it just didn’t exist.”

After calling concrete manufacturers on the East Coast, where CarbonCure has made more inroads, however, it was like talking to company representatives, she said.

“The only reason they don’t use it on every project is that the architects don’t specify it,” she said. “It’s a superior product.”

The technology is a little more than 10 years old, said Kevin Davis, CarbonCure’s Pacific Northwest representative. But it has begun to enter the industry only in the past several years.

“We’ve been focusing on the concrete producers for the last four years, so people like Knife River are the type of firms we deal with,” Davis said. “They supply a lot of concrete, and it makes a lot of sense.”

CarbonCure uses processed industrial carbon dioxide captured at a British Petroleum oil refinery in Blaine, Washington.

“It’s the same as is used in soft drinks and beer,” Davis said. “It’s readily available, and we’ve developed a technology that injects it into concrete, recalcifies the cement and allows use of less cement and makes it stronger. It just takes a little bit of software and technology to implement.”

Because the carbon dioxide replaces cement – the most costly ingredient of concrete – in a mix, the aggregate cost is reduced accordingly.

As climate change continues to gain attention, the technology is expected to attract interest, said Kelly Alexander, ready mix manager for Knife River’s Metro Division, which operates the Troutdale plant.

“We try and work with people like that to get the message out there,” he said. “So it’s our hope this won’t be the last Knife River plant we do, or the last in Portland. We make 3.8 million cubic yards a year, so there’s a tremendous opportunity to address most of this. We have the ability to impact production significantly across the state.”

Alexander said YGH approached Knife River last year, made its interest in CarbonCure known and got the process rolling. By the time Knife River put in a tender for the concrete on the project, CarbonCure technology had been specified for bidders.

“We tend to get the technology integrated,” he said. “Sometimes producers come to us proactively, and the other way is when someone like YGH specifies it into a project.”

So far, San Francisco is a very strong market for the new technology, as well as cities on the East Coast.

“In general, yes, the coasts are good,” Alexander said. “But we have a strong Midwest presence in Chicago, and we have pockets of business that tend to be around producers that have that sustainability message, and sometimes it doesn’t matter where they are.”

Davis was on hand in Troutdale in February to oversee installation of CarbonCure’s technology at Knife River’s plant, as well as the first pours of footings and pile caps featuring the new mixes.

“We’ll take a standard mix that Knife River has and add CO2 to that directly,” Davis said.

The company’s experience has shown the injection of carbon dioxide directly into a mix increases its strength by roughly 10 to 12 percent. But that’s only part of the equation.

“They need concrete that’s delivered to specs, not necessarily stronger, so we reduce the amount of cement to allow them to achieve their PSI figure,” Davis said. “It achieves the design strength with less cement, and that’s what gives us the carbon reduction.”

That’s the concept in a nutshell.

“The fact this hasn’t become the norm more quickly is a little bit surprising to me because it’s such a clear win,” Thayer said.

It’s a huge advance for the entire industry, Kubo added.

“All of the concrete manufacturers I spoke with on the East Coast were not charging any extra for it on any of their projects,” she said. “It is a fantastic technology and a game changer for our industry in terms of embodied carbon, which is what YGH is really focused on right now.”

The post A green concrete option arrives in Portland appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

With the COVID-19 pandemic spreading rapidly across the United States, states are restricting public movement and shutting down swaths of the business sector.

Oregon Gov. Kate Brown on Monday ordered citizens to essentially stay in their homes and leave only for work, supplies or medical necessity. However, a number of industries – including construction – were declared essential and allowed to stay open, subject to stringent social distancing and safety practices recommended by Oregon OSHA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In the Portland-metro area, builders are proceeding. But they’re taking measures to try and prevent the spread of the virus.

The big question is: Are such actions enough?

On Tuesday, Hoffman Construction Vice President Dan Drinkward confirmed that a subcontractor’s employee working on a project at Intel’s Ronler Acres campus in Hillsboro tested positive for COVID-19.

“The worker had limited contact with other employees,” Drinkward stated in the email. “He was working on the exterior of the building. The individuals he had contact with have been notified and are self-quarantining. All workers on site were notified yesterday.”

A change in routine has since taken place at the site, said Willy Myers, executive secretary and treasurer for the Columbia Pacific Building Trades Council, an organization that represents trade unions in and around the Portland-metro area.

“We’ve taken some pretty extreme actions out at Intel for social distancing measures that have been recommended by CDC and OSHA,” he said. “We’re taking those actions and encouraging the general contractors to also take those actions. We want our members to be safe and not be exposed. But we’re not going to overreact either.”

New protocols call for sanitized buses to transport workers to the site, and common areas used by workers on the site to be sanitized at least three times a day. Even the lunch tents, which normally have space for some 2,500 workers, now have spots marked with tape six feet apart for people to sit and eat.

Workers’ shifts have been staggered to prevent too many people from clustering together, while jobsite meeting sizes have been limited and the number of people allowed in man lifts and elevators has been cut.

Hoffman Construction has been implementing an increasing array of safety measures on jobsites over the past several weeks, Drinkward said.

“It’s an extremely dynamic situation,” he said. “We’ve been increasing our social distancing measures over the last 10 days and we’re constantly evaluating what we’re doing. In addition to following CDC and OSHA guidelines, we’re constantly talking about this as a company and getting feedback from people and trying to improve.”

The situation is anything but normal, Drinkward said.

“We’re taking pretty extraordinary measures, and where we’re not going to operate safely, we’re not going to do it,” he said.

Intel has done a “phenomenal job” of taking care of workers, said Jim Anderson, business manager for Operating Engineers Local 701. Its members are running several large tower cranes on the jobsite.

“They’re such a good player,” he said. “And a lot of the contractors are as well. They changed to the staggered lunches and a lot of other measures. And we said, ‘You guys do what you gotta do so we can keep people employed and have a safe jobsite.’ These are special circumstances and special times, and everybody’s coming together. The thing about it is we have to keep building. If it’s safe, we have to keep building,”

Intel’s Ronler Acres is a large jobsite, Myers added, but there’s no reason these protocols can’t be adopted on smaller sites.

“We’re getting the word out,” he said.

Many contractors are taking initiative, such as creating task forces to address the crisis and implementing their own policies. General contractor/construction manager JE Dunn Construction, for instance, has taken multiple coronavirus-related precautions at its jobsites, including adding more handwashing and sanitizing stations, and implementing social distancing for morning stretch-and-flex routines. These were already in place before Brown issued her order, according to Amy Winterowd, a JE Dunn Construction vice president for client solutions.

“Indeed, it’s true that most everything that is already in place remains in place,” she stated in an email. “Things are fluid and we are all responding as rapidly as possible.”

Nevertheless, some workers are questioning why jobsites remain open. One who provided comments on condition of anonymity said that keeping crowded jobsites safe from spread of infection isn’t feasible.

“We have many older workers, and construction is impossible for social distancing,” one electrician wrote the 91��Ƶ via email. “How is this a good idea during Covid? As long as they’re open, I’ll come get a paycheck, but it seems reckless from the perspective of greater good.”

Robert Camarillo, executive secretary of the Oregon State Building and Construction Trades Council, said jobsite culture traditionally has been for workers to ignore illness and injury and just keep working. Plus, sick days often are limited. As a result, tradespeople are more hesitant than most to blow the whistle on uncomfortable or even dangerous conditions.

“That’s the type of workforce we develop,” he said. “It’s similar to our first responders; we just power through these things. But what we’re doing is making sure our folks know they don’t have to go to work if they feel sick or don’t want to stay home. That’s why we fought so hard to makes sure unemployment benefits were expanded. With that in place it does give the workers some security to stay at home if they’re impacted by COVID-19.”

In Portland, however, there are few signs of work slowing. The largest sites in the city, including Block 216, various jobs at Portland International Airport and others are running largely as normal.

“It’s so fluid it’s changing daily,” Camarillo said. “Just when you think you have some facts, they change. Obviously these are unprecedented times for us as well, just like everyone else, and we’re doing everything we possibly can to ensure our members are not put in vulnerable places or high-risk places without safety precautions.”

Michelle Brunetto is the safety director for general contractor Bremik Construction, as well as chairwoman of the safety and health council for Associated General Contractors‘ Oregon-Columbia chapter. She told the 91��Ƶ that Bremik and other contractors are enacting many safety measures. They include increasing handwashing stations, minimizing use of enclosed job trailers, sanitizing radios and tools and other objects and hard surfaces multiple times per day, maintaining minimum physical distances between workers on site, and ordering those who feel even slightly sick to stay home.

“We’ve come up with a list of best practices,” Brunetto said. “But this is such a moving target; how do we do this? There’s not a rulebook on this. We haven’t been faced with this before by any stretch of the imagination. So being aware of those types of concerns and trying to head those off as best as possible with continued communication is important.”

The post Working in a state of flux appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

The five-year, $2 billion-plus PDX Next program calls for upgrading nearly all of Portland International Airport, piece by piece. Construction of a new main terminal is the heart of the initiative. But another critical project now under way will add a new six-story, 2,400-space parking garage, a four-story office building with an on-site car rental facility and a new exit plaza.

The new Parking Additions and Consolidated Rental Car Facility is expected to significantly help travelers and airport employees enter and exit the grounds.

“We’re really looking at it more as a transportation improvement around the whole airport,” Port of Portland spokeswoman Kama Simonds said.

YGH Architecture and JE Dunn Construction are using a progressive design-build model that allows for rapid and timely changes as needed.

The scope of work includes new offices for airport operations, additional long-term parking, a consolidated rental car facility, new rental car offices and a new and relocated parking toll plaza. Efforts that will enable these additions include modifications to the existing P2 parking structure as well as significant upgrades to surface roadways and underground utilities.

Work began over a year ago, and much has taken place since. The exit plaza building and travel lanes are nearly complete, and a new parking garage for rental car fueling, cleaning and storage has also been constructed. Another important portion of the project involves moving underground utilities out of the new buildings’ footprint.

JE Dunn is self-performing the concrete work for this project, and plenty of that remains – especially for the new parking structure. Crews are also building temporary ramps from the existing parking structures to provide egress while the new parking garage is built.

Finally, DeWitt Construction crews are excavating and pile driving to accommodate construction of the new parking structure. Because of the sensitivity of the radar systems and others used in the airport control tower, vibratory pile driving is being used instead of traditional drilling.

Much of the work involves temporary structures or solutions that will enable crews to complete permanent ones. That’s the case with a roadway being built to connect the parking structures with the new exit plaza. Once the new garage is complete, the temporary road will come out and a new roadway running straight east from the new P3 garage to the new exit plaza will be built.

“Ultimately, they will all come out on level three on P3, and it will be an elevated roadway all the way out of here,” said Anna Tindall, a Port of Portland civil engineering inspector. “You can see the squares down there – those are the piles they’ve already driven for the elevated roadway. This will all end up being an elevated roadway.”

Another crucial part of the will be the addition of a second light-rail track to the airport terminal. Currently, TriMet‘s MAX Red Line moves to and from the main terminal via a single spur line that will be replaced. The addition of a second track will ease MAX scheduling throughout the system.

Various phases of this project will roll out in stages. The new rental car storage garage is already up and running, while the new exit plaza should open in November. Then the temporary road will be constructed to clear space for construction of the P3 garage. But in the meantime, ironworkers are already building the rebar cages for the concrete beams that will tie the P2 and P3 structures together.

The complicated dance of scheduling and logistics should produce a finished parking garage by mid-2021, Simonds said.

“It’s super complex, and we’re moving everything around,” she said. “It’s crowded, and we’re making these small, micro-adjustments to make it better. But a big fix is still a couple of years off.”

The post Complex transportation improvements advancing at PDX appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

Substantial completion has been reached on a two-year project to provide a much-needed seismic retrofit and other upgrades to Washington County’s Charles D. Cameron Public Services Building.

The 30-year-old Hillsboro structure, home to the board of commissioners and multiple major departments, has suffered from sub-grade water intrusion issues from the outset. More recently, engineering studies revealed that the building’s structural frame and internal systems were not sufficient to withstand a major Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake.

In 2015 the county launched a plan to retrofit both the Cameron building and the nearby Washington County Law Enforcement Center, which houses the sheriff’s office, attorney’s office, and county jail. Construction began on both projects in early 2017 with JE Dunn Construction serving as construction manager/general contractor.  The project team also included SERA Architects and KPFF Consulting Engineers.

The Law Enforcement Center project was completed two weeks ahead of schedule, in September 2017, and the more extensive Cameron building received a temporary certificate of occupancy this past May. That milestone was even reached earlier than expected.

“We were two months early,” said Bassam Khalifeh, Washington County’s capital improvements project manager. “We were planning our moves for after July, but JE Dunn got done a little early.”

The $30 million project is based around the seismic retrofit of both the north and south wings of the building, which together form the shape of the letter ‘T.’

Massive concrete shear walls were constructed around each corner of the two wings of the building, eight corner shear walls in all.

Then, steel drag struts and other connections were installed inside the exterior walls of the building to tie everything together. The retrofit greatly improved the lateral load bearing capability of the entire building, allowing it to reach the “immediate occupancy” performance level in the event of a major earthquake.

“It means you have backup systems, and nothing will fall over your head,” Khalifeh said. “And of course the building stays together, so we went above and beyond the life safety many buildings are built to, even with newer buildings.”

The other major issue addressed by the project involved a groundwater mitigation system to fix a problem with recurring leaking in the basement level of the building’s north wing. Romtec Utilities was contracted to provide the four stormwater pump stations used to keep water out.

The installation of a remotely accessible building management system means that the building’s mechanical systems, fire alarms, security features, doors, lighting and more are all controlled and monitored remotely. According to Khalifeh, it’s one of the smartest buildings in Washington County.

“It talks to us,” he said. “From the mechanical system to lighting system to the pump. It sends you messages on the different issues we’ve told the system to tell us about.”

That includes the four large water pumps.

“If they get stopped and it’s not pumping it can burn up the pumps,” Khalifeh said. “So it will tell us if there is a problem, or if the pump is not working, we can go check it.”

Work on the north wing of the building was completed a year ago and normal departmental functions restored. The south wing, however, will see the gradual return of employees over the course of the summer from their temporary relocation a block away. The project should be completely finished, including ongoing tenant improvements, by this fall. An open house is tentatively planned for September.

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Multnomah County this week celebrated the grand opening of the Gladys McCoy Health Department Headquarters, a new public health building that will bring an array of services and 500 employees to the western edge of Portland’s Old Town Chinatown neighborhood.

The nine-story, $94.1 million building is over a decade in the works, and includes pharmacy services, specialty clinics, examination rooms, open office space, and a large central laboratory that will service 20 off-site county clinics. A large ground-floor space will serve as a public health emergency command post and a meeting space. Employees will move into the space next month from an outdated 10-story building (also named for the late Gladys McCoy, a former county chairwoman) at 426 S.W. Harvey Milk St.

The grand opening marks the completion of a two-year project by construction manager-general contractor J.E. Dunn, which began major work on the ZGF Architects-designed project in February 2017. Shiels Obletz Johnsen served as the owner’s representative. A total of 935 skilled tradespeople worked on the project – up to 250 on the site at one time at the peak of construction. The project team utilized 31 percent apprentice labor and 28 percent DMWESB-certified firms.

Multnomah County Chairwoman Deborah Kafoury, speaking at the opening ceremony, praised a project labor agreement between the county, contractor, labor unions and other interested parties. The PLA created a framework so that the project partners “could work together to overcome the historic barriers that have kept the construction industry from being open to everyone,” she said.

The project was funded in part by Prosper Portland, which contributed $36.4 million in tax increment financing from the River District Urban Renewal Area. The building is located within the Broadway Corridor, a 34-acre area that could eventually see up to 4 million square feet of mixed-use development.

“This is a key moment in our long-term partnership with Multnomah County,” said Kimberly Branam, Prosper Portland’s executive director. “This building signals the transformation to come within the Broadway Corridor, which is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to bring the Pearl District and Old Town together.”

The post Officials welcome new county health building appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

Washington County is currently carrying out a $30 million seismic retrofit and renovation of its Charles Cameron Public Services Building in downtown Hillsboro. In this video segment, County Project Manager Bassam Khalifeh talks about various aspects of the project, including the seismic upgrade and new groundwater pump system. Besides the video, you can also check out a photo gallery from the job site here.

The post VIDEO: County carries out seismic work appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

and general contractor are currently carrying out a $30 million seismic retrofit and renovation of the county’s Charles Cameron Public Services Building in downtown Hillsboro. Other project team members include Portland’s and .

In addition to an extensive retrofit to bring the building up to an “immediate occupancy” standard in the event of a serious earthquake, a new system of groundwater pumps is being installed on the grounds to protect against the water intrusion that has long plagued the structure.

This photo gallery shows off some of the work being done, both inside and out. And in this 91��Ƶ video, county project manager Bassam Khalifeh talks about the project.

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