Andersen Construction has won the contract to build a new hospital tower at Kaiser Permanente‘s Sunnyside Medical Center in Clackamas.

Construction of the seven-story, 615,000-square-foot facility will begin in early 2026. Site clearance is expected to begin late this year.

“During peak construction, more than 600 local tradespeople will be working on the project,” Kaiser Permanente spokeswoman Debbie Karman said in an email. “We prioritize partnering with local companies whenever possible, and are proud that the general contractor for our hospital tower project is a local company founded here in Portland.”

The tower is expected to open in 2029. Once the new tower is open, the existing tower will be replaced with parking, walkways and outdoor spaces, according to Kaiser Permanente.

Details of the contract were not available. Andersen referred questions to Kaiser Permanente.

The medical group announced the expansion in late March. The new tower will have all private patient rooms, in-room telemedicine capabilities and greater emergency room capacity.

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Three Central City Concern mixed-use projects now under way in Portland may not be dazzling examples of engineering or construction, but they’re already making an impression.

The Blackburn Building, the Stark Street Apartments and Charlotte B. Rutherford Place – all part of the Housing Is Health initiative – are expected to help get homeless individuals into housing units and provide health care resources to people without insurance.

“I think this one’s different, in that it’s going to be a real service to the community,” said Brian Ames, a project engineer with Walsh Construction, the general contractor for the six-story Blackburn Building at East Burnside Street and 122nd Avenue. “It’s definitely something that we need right now with the housing crisis, and we’re providing housing and a critical need to people who really need it.”

The Blackburn Building is the flagship of – a unique effort that has received a total of $21.5 million in financial support from nonprofit organization CareOregon and five major hospitals (Adventist Health-Portland, Kaiser Permanente Northwest, Legacy Health, Oregon Health & Science University and Providence Health & Services-Oregon). An additional $9 million for the initiative is coming from the Portland Housing Bureau, and private fundraising efforts will supplement investments.

All told, Housing Is Health this year alone will provide local low-income residents with 382 new housing units, along with health care and other facilities.

Besides 186 housing units, the Blackburn Building will have a health care clinic, a pharmacy and commercial space. Central City Concern, which runs 23 other facilities around the Portland area, will provide on-site support including services focusing on employment, addiction recovery and mental health treatment.

Ground was broken last year on all three projects. The Stark Street Apartments will be a 153-unit complex at the corner of Southeast Stark Street and 127th Avenue, and Charlotte B. Rutherford Place will be a 51-unit complex on North Interstate Avenue.

Recognizing substantial needs

Sean Hubert, Central City Concern’s chief housing and strategy officer, said the nonprofit has been engaged with a range of health systems in the Portland area since the early 2000s. In 2007, it established at its Old Town clinic on Burnside Street a recuperative care program that pairs houseless persons with housing and social services needed to return them to work.

“We put them in housing and stabilize them and give them primary care and help them resolve their acute health conditions,” he said.

The program, in turn, allowed the types of partnerships, Hubert said, that have resulted in initiatives like Housing Is Health.

“At this point we have a decade’s worth of data showing the reduction of recidivism and emergency room admission rates,” he said. “We’re finding housing stability and a standard of care for that population, and all that was already enabled when we started talking about these projects.”

The other factor driving development of Housing Is Health is the ongoing lack of affordable housing. Coupled with increasingly expensive rents in the metro area, it has turned out to be a time bomb for persons with substance abuse or other acute health issues.

Even hospitals accustomed to handing out hotel vouchers to patients without homes began to feel the pinch when their own employees began to struggle with the same issue.

“More generally, housing was on their radar,” Hubert said.

Central City Concern has operated transitional housing for decades now. But these days, that process is not nearly as cost-effective as it once was.

“It worked well when rent is $600 or $700 a month,” Hubert said. “But now, at $1,400 a month, that really has had an impact on our partner organizations’ ability to leverage that. The amount of people we could serve was declining and the hospitals were seeing the results of that.”

Busy building affordable units

At the $52 million Blackburn Building project site, concrete support columns extend upward two stories from ground level as the elevator shaft and other superstructure features take shape. The building’s bottom two stories will be reinforced concrete post-tension decks, while the upper four stories will be wood-framed, Ames said.

The location next to TriMet‘s 122nd Avenue MAX light-rail platform also is ideal for the target population. Coincidentally, most of TriMet’s blue line platforms are being renovated by California-based Stacy & Witbeck at present.

“This whole corridor is now zoned for high-density residential, and you’ll see a lot of that continue to change, as it already has along Burnside,” Ames said. “It should be a big face-lift for this area.”

Just around the corner from the Blackburn Building, crews of framers swarm over the wooden skeleton of the Stark Street Apartments. Consisting of two primary wings, the $29.9 million complex was designed by Ankrom Moisan Architects. Central City Concern expects tenants to come from the immediate neighborhood, while rents will range from just $412 up to $995 per month depending on household income. There will be playground amenities for children and at least 88 solar panels.

TEAM Construction of Vancouver, Washington, is the general contractor for the project. Senior Project Manager Mack Thames said the company has a track record of working on similar projects benefiting low-income residents.

“We do a lot of projects with REACH (Community Development),” Thames said, in reference to the Portland nonprofit affordable housing development and property management company. “But this is our first one in recent memory with Central City (Concern). We certainly work with the Vancouver Housing Authority and with Catholic Charities, so we do a fair amount on the nonprofit side.”

Thames showed off the four-story complex, which will feature 91 one-bedroom and 62 two-bedroom apartments. The design provides for interlocking fields of view and communal courtyards and playground spaces. The main feature will be an exterior elevator that allows residents to access either side of the south building via a sky-bridge. Exterior walkways will be built on each floor in other recessed courtyard areas, providing residents with an unusual overhead perspective.

Meanwhile, the $9.9 million, 51-unit Charlotte B. Rutherford Place complex in North Portland is on track to finish first – possibly by the end of the year.

“This will be the first time where we really brought our clinical services together with our housing in the same project,” Hubert said. “This is very exciting for us. It allows us to take all of our knowledge and put it into one projects, and to design the best model of care from a client’s perspective.”

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Many factors influence design, but a new exhibit at the Center for Architecture is focused on the one considering health and fitness.

The exhibit, Building Fit 2015, uses photographs and text in large standing displays showcasing designs that encourage healthy activities like walking and bicycling. Health considerations can include whether a building is close to parks and healthy food sources, how it encourages exercise and how close it is to public transportation.

Brian Cavanaugh, president-elect of the Center for Architecture, said it’s now focusing on fewer exhibits, but more significant ones around specific themes.

Building Fit 2015 is the first in a series over the next two years that will focus on the effect of design on communities. Its purpose is to show designers, planners and architects how they can encourage physical activity and give greater attention to health through thoughtful design.

The exhibit, which opened Oct. 1 and will continue through December, mostly features works by New York designers; however, several local projects are included.

“We expanded upon (an AIA New York exhibit) to include local projects,” Cavanaugh said. “It gets at how design and health are related, and how the design of the built environment actually affects people’s health in a lot of different ways.”

Local projects featured in the exhibit include the Kaiser Permanente Westside Medical Center in Hillsboro, the Tilikum Crossing, the Academic and Student Recreation Center at Portland State University, Harper’s Playground in North Portland, Legacy Emanuel Medical Center Healing Gardens and Oregon Health & Science University‘s Collaborative Life Sciences Building.

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The Portland City Council this week will consider whether to appropriate money – no more than $500,000 – to help build a walk-in mental health clinic in Northeast Portland.

Four entities are partnering to build the $50 million Unity Center for Behavioral Health on Legacy Emanuel‘s Holladay Park campus at the site of a former Oregon State Hospital facility. Legacy Emanuel, Oregon Health & Science University, Adventist Health and Kaiser Permanente have entered into a joint operating agreement for construction.

The donation of real estate by Legacy will account for $10 million of the project cost. The $40 million renovation will create space for beds to accommodate 79 adults and 22 adolescents. The building will also include a psychiatric emergency unit.

Currently, no Portland facility exists specifically for people experiencing psychiatric emergencies, Legacy spokeswoman Amber Shoebridge said.

Other public entities paying into the project include Multnomah County ($3 million), Clackamas County ($250,000) and Washington County ($200,000). Earlier this year, the Randall Charitable Trust announced a $20 million contribution to the project.

“This project is going to be really interesting,” Shoebridge said. “The reason I think you’re seeing several different municipalities paying in, and four different systems trying to find a solution is that this problem is really too big for any one entity to address. But the hope is that by coming together, we can do more than we could alone.”

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A Seattle-based community health organization has purchased an office building in Vancouver, Washington.

Sea Mar Community Health Centers bought for nearly $5.2 million the three-story, 22,500-square-foot University Plaza property, at 14508 N.E. 20th Ave. The building is located in Vancouver’s Salmon Creek neighborhood near Washington State University Vancouver, a Kaiser Permanente clinic and Legacy Salmon Creek Medical Center.

Doug Bartocci, vice president of Portland-based commercial real estate company NAI Norris, Beggs & Simpson, represented the building seller, Seattle-based FFLP MTH LLC. Brian Petro of Seattle-based Horizon Real Estate represented Sea Mar Community Health Centers in the sale.

Sea Mar provides health, housing and social services throughout Washington state with a specialty in serving Latinos. In Clark County, the organization operates medical, dental and behavioral health clinics and offers preventative care services.

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An abandoned big-box building in Portland’s Gateway area is gaining an unlikely tenant.

is preparing to relocate its operations on Southeast Division Street into a former Circuit City space at 1700 N.E. 102nd Ave. By reusing the existing shell, the health care provider is hoping to reduce construction costs; the renovation is expected to cost between $10 million and $12 million.

But the team first had to get with the programming.

“Probably the biggest challenge of the project was to actually fit everything that they wanted inside the building,” said Brad Dehle, a principal at , the project architect. “It was about 4,000 square feet smaller than what they wanted it to be, and an addition was not going to be possible without tearing it down.”

That is because the 32,186-square-foot building is inside a design overlay zone. The shell of the building was grandfathered in; however, an addition would trigger code requirements that would make the property unusable for Kaiser Permanente.

So, Soderstrom focused on making efficient use of the interior. For instance, designers placed the pharmacy near the entrance to eliminate the need for an additional hallway. Dehle likened it to piecing together a jigsaw puzzle without a picture as a guide.

But solving the puzzle generated significant savings for the health care provider.

“It’s definitely cheaper than the ground-up development option that we looked at,” said John Sullivan, senior real estate manager for Kaiser Permanente.

The hope is that 20 to 25 percent savings can be achieved by not building new. Sullivan said the move is because of a Portland Community College campus expansion planned to start in 2014 on Kaiser Permanente’s leased Division Street space.

A year and a half ago, Sullivan began scouting for possible sites to relocate. Kaiser Permanente ultimately chose the bank-owned Circuit City property – one of 567 spaces around the nation left behind by the defunct retailer – which it purchased for a discounted price of $2.8 million.

Approximately 24,000 patients receive services at the Division Street facility. Sullivan said the Gateway location – near the nexus of interstates 84 and 205 – would make transitions easy. But it also offers other advantages.

“We see ourselves as a combination of an office user but in a retail environment,” Sullivan said. “We are trying to attract new members, and get our name brand and logo out into the public for more visibility. We feel that a retail environment is more to our advantage.”

Building upon that brand was a challenge for Soderstrom as well. Dehle said that Kaiser Permanente uses a 21-point program to foster cohesion in design and patient experience. For instance, one point asks architects to consider whether the building is visible from the street and whether it is recognizable as a Kaiser Permanente facility without a sign.

For the Gateway project, Circuit City’s iconic red triangle entryway will be removed and the entire concrete masonry building will be rewrapped in a new, beige brick veneer. Also, numerous holes will be cut in the exterior to make way for window systems, and the storefront will be reconstructed with a tall, glass vestibule.

Dehle said a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design gold rating will be sought. Two exterior garden/bio-swale areas will treat all of the building’s stormwater runoff on-site.

In addition, the facility will feature a fairly new heating and cooling method called a variable volume refrigerant system. A series of heat pumps and pipes will redistribute hot and cold air throughout the building in order to maintain a steady temperature.

Another innovative technique that Kaiser is employing is a software program by tech company that syncs building information modeling data with ongoing maintenance systems.

The project is out to bid, and construction is slated to begin within the next two months. Kaiser Permanente hopes to open the facility in early 2014.

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The Kaiser Permanente complex under construction in Hillsboro is a testament to high building standards – and to the challenges they can create.

The Westside Medical Center is on track to be certified Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design gold, but when an installed insulation material was declared illegal in Oregon, the company paid approximately $500,000 to have most of it removed.

Construction firms had bid and agreed to contracts to perform work using materials containing flame retardant chemicals called polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDE). They are sometimes used in wrappings and coatings of pipe insulation.

Little is known about the direct effects of PBDEs on human health; however, studies revealed that animals suffered brain damage and other harm after coming into contact with the substances. The Oregon Legislature passed a law to ban three specific PBDEs, effective Jan. 1, 2011.

When manufacturers notified F. Rodgers Corp., an insulation contractor, that the law would force them to halt shipments of certain types of insulation, the company had already installed approximately 12,000 lineal feet of the affected material in the Kaiser facility, as well as some in two dozen other facilities throughout Oregon.

Despite some loopholes that may have allowed installation of material inventoried before Jan. 1, F. Rodgers Corp. chose to avoid any legal gray areas.

“I basically tried to put liability off of myself and my company by simply saying that we couldn’t continue to install this material,” said Gordon Vierck, F. Rodgers project manager.

Kaiser was the only client that asked F. Rodgers to remove the material, Vierck said. F. Rodgers also had installed PBDE insulation in the Legacy Emanuel children’s hospital in Portland, but its owners elected to leave the material in place and use compliant materials moving forward, to meet the new state standards.

Daniel Green, project director for Kaiser, said it decided to go above and beyond state requirements.

“Why would we want to build a brand-new building and leave that stuff in?” he said. “I’m proud of the local doctors and our construction management people, as well as in the headquarters in Oakland for saying we’ll stand tall and pay for this.”

Despite the insulation-related setback, Green said the $350 million project is still on track to finish on time and slightly under budget. After approximately 800,000 man-hours, construction last week reached a milestone: completion of the central utility plant.

The hospital’s entire information technology infrastructure passes through the plant, so it is one of the project’s most complex construction phases. After that component finished, the construction team released 40-50 workers, according to Travis Baker, project director for general contractor Andersen Construction.

“The hospital, nursing tower and medical office building are in the hot and heavy phase of construction now,” Baker said. “And for neighbors and people driving by, we’re almost there with the parking garage – we’ve got one more level to go.”

Baker said the eight-story garage might be the tallest building in Hillsboro, which led the city to work with the project team to help ensure the structure fit into the neighborhood. Curved walls and green screen features on the facade are designed to minimize the building’s scale and soften its impact, especially for residents of the neighboring apartment complex.

“At least efforts have been made to take a big, concrete box and make it look a little less obnoxious,” Baker joked.

Rainwater that hits the 950-car garage will be captured, stored in a tank and then pumped to irrigate plants and fill a landscaped water feature in front of the medical office building.

“It’s not enough rain capture for a LEED point, but it’s the environmentally conscious thing to do,” Green said.

Both Green and Baker emphasized the sensibility of Kaiser’s approach to LEED certification, and cited instances where the company’s decisions reflected values beyond mere point-gathering.

“My personal take on it is that Kaiser does a good job of weighing all of the factors,” Baker said. “They weigh the cost – what’s good for the environment, what’s good for the community – and one thing doesn’t just drive it home. Other clients will just do something for the LEED point and don’t really care if it’s actually a good decision.”

The planned photovoltaic array is not large enough to earn a LEED point, for instance. Nevertheless, the medical center will feature high-efficiency equipment to reduce energy use, and Kaiser will purchase green power from Portland General Electric.

Green explained that Kaiser has its own standards.

“Before LEED existed,” he said, “Kaiser pushed for the cradle-to-grave history on the products (it) bought – on carpeting, paint, upholstery for furniture. And we said, ‘Get the toxic material out of the products or we won’t buy them from you.’ ”

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