At nine or 10 stories – depending how you count the original mezzanine – the Woodlark Building was one of Portland’s early skyscrapers. When its ribbon was cut in 1912, “one of the most modern and complete buildings of its kind.”

Next door is the equally illustrious Cornelius Hotel, which, over its 108-year life has served as an upscale hotel, a gay bathhouse and a fire-scarred vacant building.

Now, workers are fusing the two historical properties into a 150-room hotel for the ownership trio of Arthur Mutal, NBP Capital and Provenance Hotels.

“They want a nice hotel that also respects the unique history of the buildings,” said architect Christian Robert, principal at R&A Architecture, one of the architects employed for the project.

Owners kicked around a number of ideas for the past couple years, including various combinations of office, multifamily and hotel. They also purchased the nearby Sullivan Building and other adjoining parcels.

Robert said the design team had to “fight for every inch” to update the buildings and still abide by preservation guidelines. Certain materials and building technologies considered out of touch with the original historical era – including exposed brick in the lobby – were nixed in design development. To maximize space, the team created unique mezzanine and junior suites that employ the historic ceiling heights.

The project will have two restaurants – one for formal dining and a smaller tavern in the Cornelius building’s northern portion, the original entry lobby of the hotel.

Design-wise, there are a lot of cooks in the kitchen. Firms are under contract for room design and the design of the ground-level bar area that wasn’t included when the project went through permitting. And after the first construction permits were obtained (which took more than a year), R&A took over construction administration from the project’s initial architect, MCA Architects.

MCA has stayed on as architect of record.

“These are very old buildings,” MCA partner Dan Gates said. “There’s a million things about this project. It’s very complicated.”

Combining two buildings that have non-aligning floors is no easy task.

“None of the floors actually match up, so we solved it by providing a different stair length at each level,” Robert said.

Another major task is bringing Woodlark and Cornelius up to seismic code. The Woodlark is a concrete building. The Cornelius has some steel columns in the center, but is basically a wood-framed building with exterior walls made of unreinforced masonry (URM).

To achieve uniformity, the contractor, LCG Pence, is employing shotcrete with a fiberglass mesh to stabilize the URM from within. Other advantages include requiring less space to apply, and allowing the team to retain more of the historic URM.

In a way, tying two buildings together provides structural support, Robert said.

“It’s like you have two feet to stand on,” he said.

R&A project lead Richard Destin said it’s an honor to bring old artifacts back to life. And it’s exciting to work on a wood high-rise, he added, at a time when emerging mass timber products are de rigueur.

“Under current code, none of it would be allowed,” he said.

The Woodlark

Cost: $30 million

Architect: R&A Architecture

Architect of record: MCA Architects

Contractor: LCG Pence

Expected completion: spring 2018

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A gas leak at a downtown construction project site early Thursday led to full or partial evacuation of five heavily-used office buildings.

A crew with NW Natural was able to locate the source of the leak and stanch the spread of natural gas without incident, said Lt. Rich Chatman of Portland Fire and Rescue. The 911 call went out at 7 a.m. and the situation was deemed “safe” at 9:40 a.m. Southwest Alder and Washington streets were closed from Broadway to Southwest 10th Avenue.

But LCG Pence principal Paul Schulz said the leak was caused by a subcontractor hired by the developer, Arthur Mutal, though LCG Pence did have an employee on site performing preconstruction work. Philip Arthur, managing principal of Arthur Mutal, declined to comment.

Heavy work for the $14 million project is scheduled to begin shortly, according Schulz.

Chatman said that once the leak occurred, everyone involved followed proper protocols. The incident came around a month after a contractor-caused gas leak led to multiple blasts on Northwest 23rd Avenue. Multiple buildings were damaged and several people were injured.

“We moved with the same mindset of protecting life safety, as quickly as we could,” Chatman said. “Granted, that situation was very real in our minds because of what happened. We as humans are obviously going to remember something like that.”

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In 2002, Pence Kelly Construction merged with Loerke Construction Group (LCG Co.) to beget LCG Pence.

Dale Pence founded his portion of the business in the Willamette Valley in 1949. LCG had been in business since 1923. Past president Terry Loerke retired late last year, handing the reins to principals Paul Schulz and Dave Hays. Today the company employs 85 people across its Portland and Salem offices. Its portfolio includes Widmer Brothers Brewery in Portland, the Mary Stuart Rogers Music Center at Willamette University and Conoco Phillips’ field offices in North Dakota.

A bond-funded, $53 million effort to update McMinnville High School is now in preconstruction. About 60,000 square feet will be renovated for the McMinnville School District. About 150,000 square feet will be added to the two-story high school building, including an athletic facility, classrooms and a vocational tech space. The architect is DOWA-IBI Group. The structural engineer is Froelich Engineers. The MEP specialist is Interface Engineering. The construction manager is Cornerstone Construction Management.

LCG Pence last month delivered a 42,000-square foot, five-story multifamily building at the corner of Northwest 20th Avenue and Pettygrove Street. The Montessa Apartments was a project with a guaranteed maximum price performed on behalf of owner Civitas Development. The design by Ankrom Moisan Architects is intended to provide ample natural light, according to marketing manager Shannon Parker. Key subcontractors include Prairie Electric, Pioneer Sheet Metal and Janz Excavation.

The two-building Westgate project – now in preconstruction – is heading for The Round redevelopment area in Beaverton. The architect is Ankrom Moisan and the owner is a public-private partnership of the city of Beaverton, Metro, Rembold Properties and Gerding Edlen. One building is five stories and the other six. The project is scheduled to conclude in fall 2018.

Crews are busy in Milwaukie building a 25,000-square-foot retail store for Goodwill Industries of the Columbia Willamette. The architect is Baysinger Architects. Final completion is scheduled for early 2017.

The firm is working on the Harvard West building in Roseburg. The CM-GC redevelopment project will convert the former Douglas County Hospital building into an office building housing Oregon Department of Human Services offices for child welfare, aging and people with disabilities. Key subs include Northside Electric, Cradar Construction and Mid-Valley Drywall.

LCG Pence is gearing up for a major adaptive reuse project involving the conversion of Portland’s historic Cornelius (1908) and Woodlark (1912) buildings into one hotel building. The project is scheduled to wrap up in early 2018. The delivery method will be negotiated price. The architect is MCA Architects.

Now under construction, the Rise Old Town will be an 83,000-square-foot residential building in Beaverton’s Old Town area. The four-floor multifamily project is scheduled to be completed by the end of the year. Ankrom Moisan is the architect. The developer is Rembold Properties and the owner is Rescore Properties.

LCG Pence is now performing $16 million of work for Fern Ridge School District, including a replacement of Elmira Elementary School and an addition and remodel of Veneta Elementary School. The CM-GC project involves 56,000 square feet of space. The architect is DLR Architects. The firm was involved with early work in 2014. The projects are expected to wrap by April 2017.

Builder’s Choice is a 91ĘÓƵ feature offering a look at the projects being tackled by local architecture, engineering and construction firms. To have your firm’s projects considered, contact 91ĘÓƵ construction reporter Garrett Andrews at 503-802-7226 or garrett.andrews@djcOregon.com.

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After delivering two prominent Pearl District high-rises, developer Bob Ball is back with a $4.2 million mixed-use project in the Alphabet District.

“This is going to be a beautiful boutique project – a very high-end, high-quality project,” said Ball, builder of the upscale Wyatt (2007) and Parker (2014) apartment towers. “It’s going to be a great-looking building.”

Ball purchased the land for his latest project at 915 N.W. 21st Ave. prior to the completion of the Parker. Plans call for two ground-level retail spaces totaling 4,000 square feet, 31 parking spaces and 27 apartment units on floors 2-4.

The architect is FFA Architecture and Interiors, and the contractor is LCG Pence. Ball said both retailers have been selected, but declined to name them.

For Ball, who lives near the site in the West Hills and got his real estate start nearby, the project is personal.

“I felt very privileged to get the site,” he said. “That’s always been a neighborhood that feels like my home. I think this is really going to add to the neighborhood.”

Though Ball has been active in the local real estate market for years through his firm Astor Pacific, he is reforming operations under a new business heading: Robert Ball Company, which he says will have more of a focus on investment. That business will be launched formally on Feb. 11 – Ball’s 50th birthday. The new company has entered a long-term lease to rent a Northwest 23rd Avenue space that Apple.

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A new innovation center for San Francisco-based Diamond Foods has officially opened  in Salem. The 7,000-square-foot facility was built adjacent to a factory that produces Kettle Brand chips, and will serve as a product development and testing space for the company’s brands of snack and nut products.

The building was designed by ZGF Architects to reflect the surrounding area, which includes two state designated wetlands along Mill Creek. The wood cladding is made of pressure-treated pine with Douglas fir accents, and stormwater planters manage runoff into the wetlands.

In addition to office space, the new facility includes a research and development kitchen, space for the public to test products, and the “nosh pit,” an area for brainstorming ideas for new products. LCG Pence served as the general contractor on the 15-month project, which concluded in May.

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The transformation of a 52-year-old bowling alley into a retail space is complete. The Northeast Portland building that formerly housed Hollywood Bowl was sold last year  to Minnetonka, Minn.-based developer Oppidan Investment Co., which began redeveloping the 42,404-square-foot building for Orchard Supply Hardware.

General contractor LCG Pence began work on the Baysinger Partners Architecture-designed project last summer. Major work on the project included building a new front entry and removing large sections of exterior walls for glazing, installations of elevators and ramps for access to the lower half of the split-level building, and seismic upgrades to the roof. The store is scheduled to open Tuesday.

Hollywood District building renovation

Tenant: Orchard Supply Hardware

Address: 4030 N.E. Halsey St.

Owner/developer: Oppidan Investment Co.

General contractor: LCG Pence Construction

Architect: Baysinger Partners Architecture

Engineer: Kramer Gehlen & Associates Inc.

Civil engineer: Cardno WRG

Construction start date: mid-July 2014

Completion date: January 2015

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LCG Pence Construction crews this week started building in Salem a food product development and testing center designed by ZGF Architects.

The two-story, 7,000-square-foot center will be operated by San Francisco-based Diamond Foods and be adjacent to its Salem factory for Kettle Brand chips at 3125 Kettle Court S.E. The building, slated to open next year, will contain a test kitchen and laboratory, space for the public to taste recipes and a concept room for developing new snack and nut products, said Kathy Berg, a partner with ZGF’s Portland office.

One of the special design considerations the team made was for a tightly sealed tasting room that blocks out food smells wafting from the kitchen, Berg said.

“(Diamond Foods officials) don’t want anybody smelling a different product while they’re trying another product in the tasting room,” she said. “They really want to control as many factors as possible to make sure they’re getting a good product to market.”

The design of the building takes advantage of the natural setting near Mill Creek with an orientation that maximizes views of an oak grove and restored wetland, Berg said. ZGF designers evaluated several different sites for the center before a decision was made to remove part of the existing parking lot for the addition to become the facility’s new main entrance.

“It was important to the client that we reflect Diamond as a national company, but also respond to this Northwest site along the river,” she said.

The wood-clad facade has EternaClad siding made from pressure-treated pine, Berg said. It will be accented by portions of Douglas fir siding.

The building will have the appearance of two stacked boxes with the upper level twisted slightly to hang over and shade the ground-floor entry, Berg said.

“Essentially, the building creates an awning,” she said.

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The project team creating a retail space in the Hollywood District is rolling with the punches.

When the 48-lane Hollywood Bowl building opened as Timber Lanes in 1963, it had a split-level. It’s not ideal for incoming retail tenant Orchard Supply Hardware, but the project team modifying the building is working around it. Crews also are finding ways to make a dark and enclosed space more airy and inviting.

The split-level could not be altered without removing the horizontal, precast columns that supported the main floor. The bowling lanes’ mechanical equipment was hung in those T-shaped columns, so the split-level had to stay, said Paul Schulz, principal of LCG Pence, the project’s general contractor.

A variety of shoring and other strengthening methods are being used to reinforce the building. Much of the west side will be removed to work around the split-level.

Meanwhile, the building’s basement-level parking garage made it difficult to increase access into the main retail space, Schulz said.

“If you look at this building from the outside, you could say this is a simple project,” he said, “but it’s far more complex than that. We’re improving the old bowling alley on a lot of fronts to make it work for retail.”

From the outside, the parking structure presented aesthetic and logistical challenges. Creating a more attractive storefront meant taking off much of the west-facing wall where cars enter the garage. The four entry bays will be opened up with steel backing to support the remaining masonry. That will create a common building entrance from both the parking garage and street level, and give Orchard Supply Hardware a place to display its garden center.

“We changed where the front entry was,” said Matthew Lillard, an associate principal with Baysinger Partners Architecture, which designed the adaptive reuse project. “We are putting a lot of big holes in that building, taking out the block and putting in a lot of glazing. This will add to the communication to the street.”

Much of the work had to be done up front, with careful thought about how an old bowling alley could be made into a retail space, Lillard said. Ramps and stairs will be installed to give shoppers access between upper and lower levels.

“Orchard has been pretty good at this,” he said. “They have lots of experience determining how a large-format retail space can interact with an urban environment.”

Getting customers from the underground parking structure to the main floor also presented challenges for the contractor. Two elevator wells had to be dug deep into the footings and the walls had to be shored up for support, Schulz said.

LCG Pence cut out several thousand square feet of the floor structure to make room for the elevator shafts and stairwells, he said.

Crews had to work around long, precast, T-shaped columns to accommodate the elevator shaft and accompanying stairwells. The project team had limited information to work with to determine how the floor system would support a retail use, including a delivery area for trucks and vehicles.

“The precast floor system created the biggest difficulties,” said Joe Gehlen, senior principal at Kramer Gehlen & Associates. “Where we didn’t feel the structure was adequate, we were able to provide some reinforcement to those members by adding … support and columns. In other areas, we had to take the floor out and put in a new floor structure.”

A new seismic system also had to be installed. The building’s roof had limited lateral load resistance and needed to be replaced with plywood and anchored to the walls. That will make it more resistant to seismic shaking, Gehlen said.

The seismic work also exposed existing Douglas fir beams that had been covered by a dropped ceiling since the opening of the building. The like-new beams will increase the space’s aesthetic value, Schulz said.

Hollywood District building renovation

Tenant: Orchard Supply Hardware

Address: 4030 N.E. Halsey St.

Owner/developer: Oppidan Investment Co.

General contractor: LCG Pence Construction

Architect: Baysinger Partners Architecture

Engineer: Kramer Gehlen & Associates Inc.

Civil engineer: Cardno WRG

Construction start date: mid-July

Anticipated completion date: mid-November

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The growth taking place around the Bakken shale formation in western North Dakota and eastern Montana is similar to what happened during oil or gold rushes in Alaska, Texas and California, industry professionals say. Williston, N.D., for instance, since the 2010 census has at least doubled in population to approximately 30,000 and has seen permit activity increase by $1.2 billion, according to city officials.

“It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen,” said C.A. White, senior project manager for Portland-based LCG Pence Construction. “It’s reminiscent (of) what you would experience during the Alaskan pipeline days.”

LCG Pence opened a division in Williston three years ago, and other Oregon firms have explored potential opportunities in the area. However, obstacles exist for any contractor looking to take advantage of the boom. These include development of relationships with key players in the market, extreme shortages of housing and labor, and harsh winters.

After finding single-family housing for its staff, LCG Pence learned the importance of starting projects quickly and sustaining them. It also has developed an extensive database of subcontractors after performing significant due diligence.

“The subs are sometimes less than reliable,” White said. “You have to be thinking ahead for procurement and ordering ahead because there is such a big boom going on. Everybody is scrambling.”

LCG Pence, which in the past six months set up permanent offices in Williston, got its start through a developer that White declined to name. Through that relationship, the contractor built the First International Bank & Trust in Williston. Restaurants, multifamily housing and an office project for global oil titan ConocoPhillips have followed.

A proven track record is critical for a firm to succeed in an environment largely based on relationships and word of mouth, said Jeff Zarling, president and owner of DAWA Solutions Group, a Williston-based consulting firm that publishes the .

“The key is to get the first project,” he said. “There are so many fly-by-nights and carpetbaggers through here the last few years. People have been swindled out of a lot of money.”

Many contractors arrive expecting to find work right away, but fail because owners and investors are wary of the unknown, Zarling said.

“Don’t just show up with a hammer because a lot of contractors only work with people they know,” he said. “Those that take the long-term perspective and establish local facilities and live in the market are going to be more competitive. The transient service provider is going to be at a disadvantage because of the transportation costs of shuttling people back and forth.”

LCG Pence now has eight employees stationed in Williston, White said. The North Dakota division accounts for about 20 percent of the company’s total business, he said.

“We’re not self-performing work out there,” he said. “It’s just too hard to get people. We sub it out and manage the project. Most of the projects are negotiated contracts where you end up with a guaranteed maximum price.”

Work is shifting toward more consumer-based projects with amenities to serve the growing population. One 133,000-square-foot building is being used as a hotel during the boom and may eventually become an assisted living facility, White said.

“We’re going to focus on the oil industry as well as multifamily housing,” he said. “We’re also looking at restaurants and financial institutions. We want to work with a select group of clients instead of a whole bunch of clients. We want to find a few good clients to work for.”

Many Oregon contractors have considered North Dakota, but most have passed it up because it can be a very tough market to penetrate, said Mike Salsgiver, executive director of Associated General Contractors’ Oregon-Columbia chapter.

“I know there are a number of contractors who have explored it, but only a few who have set up shop,” he said. “It’s a frontier over there. It’s colder than heck in the winter and schedules are tight.”

Emerick Construction performed two years of research and made a dozen trips to the region before deciding to open an office in Dickinson, N.D., near the Montana border.

“It’s the most incredible engine I’ve ever seen,” Emerick Construction President Corey Lohman said. “Every time I go there, I am completely blown away by the amount of work going on, the money being spent and made, and the masses of scale. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Lohman declined to identify a confidential client, but said the operations in North Dakota will augment work performed in Oregon, Washington and California.

“We see it as a 20-year play,” he said. “We’re not viewing North Dakota like many are. We see it as a way to enhance our portfolio.”

The key is to not go too soon or too fast, Lohman said.

“You have to understand how the local economy works,” he said. “You are an outsider and until you are able to figure out how you fit into that puzzle and get people to trust you, it can be difficult.”

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