Combining eight different programs with varying needs was the challenge that faced a Soderstrom Architects team when designing the Linn-Benton Community College Healthcare Occupations Center in Lebanon, Oregon.

The new $18 million, 42,000-square-foot facility will house nursing, medical, dental and occupational therapy assistants. It also will have diagnostic imaging, phlebotomy, pharmacy technician and polysomnographic technology programs as well as a library. Prior to constructing the building, the programs were scattered between six buildings on two different campuses.

“We are really designing a next generation facility for them,” said Marlene Gillis, the Soderstrom Architects principal in charge of the project.

She said that finding ways to accommodate the specific needs of such a variety of programs was a challenge.

“It really kind of felt like nine different buildings in one,” Gillis said. “We had to talk about a holistic approach. “

Modernizing an aging campus was a major goal of the school’s administration.

“The college was aging a bit,” said Lou Tarnay, Linn-Benton Community College bond program manager. “The consolidation seemed the next logical next step.”

One of the biggest challenges that designers had to take into account was where certain programs needed to be located, Gillis said. Programs that dealt with x-rays needed easy access to the building’s electrical system. Programs that dealt with imaging needed darker rooms to allow images to be examined without light reflecting from windows.

The design team also had to get all program personnel to buy into office locations.

“They had to understand why certain things needed to be where they are,” Gillis said.

The project was paid for, in part, by money from a $34 million bond measure passed by voters in Linn and Benton counties. The state of Oregon chipped in about $8 million for the project. Triplett Wellman Contractors is the project general contractor. The building is slated to be finished in time for the fall term.

“We train every kind of health-care professional, except for doctors,” Tarnay said. “There will be some expansion on the nursing program. It’s sort of a general trend at the college.”

After Gillis and her team got the school’s support for the two-story design, they had to face residents in a city where large multi-story buildings are far from the norm.

“It is definitely out of scale,” Gillis said. “Some see it as positive and some see it as negative.”

The community college’s current project is part of a larger building boom taking place in Lebanon. A new medical center and a convention center and a supporting hotel are in the process of being built in the city. The changes in the city have led to a variety of reactions in the community.

“There are some longtime residents that say it has really changed the town,” Gillis said. “It is unusual building for that area. The scale of it is different.”

The change is not likely to slow down anytime soon. The school plans to begin construction on the second and third phases of an Alternative Transportation Technology Center. Despite some residents misgivings, the new buildings help address what residents cited as their top three concerns in the city’s long-term visioning plan called “Lebanon 2040.”

“(The school) is a huge employer,” Gillis said. “With a project like this, the opportunity to stay in the area is increased. There is such a shortage of services for these people in these small towns.”

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