The Morrison Bridge, in Portland, has its first new coat of paint since it opened across the Willamette River in 1958.

Crews completed a $26 millionĚýimprovement projectĚýthis month after two years of work that gave the bridge a fresh look and enhanced safety. The project was primarily federally funded; Multnomah County covered 10 percent of the cost.

The project’s contractor was Southern Road and Bridge of Tarpon Springs, Florida.

The aluminum-gray paint is meant to resemble the original coat. Three different coats of paint were applied: a zinc primer coat, an intermediate coat for added protection, and then a finish coat.

Through required inspections during the project, crews were able to perform more than 20 steel repairs to strengthen the bridge. Crews also repainted sign structures over the bridge and replaced all the old signs to make traffic and safety messaging more visible.

On the horizon is another Morrison Bridge project. Crews will strengthen the Southeast Morrison Street and Southeast Belmont Street ramps to reduce weight restrictions that prevent drivers of heavy trucks from crossing the bridge. Work will also involve replacing the motors and brakes in the movable span. Construction is expected to take place from spring 2024 to fall 2025.

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Multnomah County has selectedĚýĚýof Tarpon Springs, Florida, as the general contractor for the upcoming Morrison Bridge painting project in Portland.

Bridge work is scheduled to begin in September and be complete in summer 2023.

Southern Road and Bridge submitted the lowest bid of $18,243,777. Bids were submitted by six contractors.

This will be the first time the Morrison Bridge river spans have been painted since the bridge opened 63 years ago in 1958.Ěý Steel bridges are typically repainted every 20 to 30 years.

The contractor will remove the original lead-based paint from steel surfaces on the four river spans and the easternmost river span that extends over the Eastbank Esplanade.ĚýSouthern Road and Bridge will also set up containment structures to ensure that old paint being removed and new paint being applied are not released into the environment.

The areas to be painted are all below the bridge deck except for metal parapets and curbs along the bridge sidewalks of the lift span. The bridge will be repainted silver. Additional work on the topside of the bridge will include replacement of the sidewalk panels on the lift span, and cleaning of the canopies, handrails and exterior of the operator towers.

Steel bridges are repainted to prevent structural steel from corroding and losing strength.Ěý The upcoming project will identify and repair areas of steel that have corroded over time, such as areas where moisture is persistent.

For more information, visit .

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With the Sellwood Bridge replacement project finished, Multnomah County is shifting its focus to three long-standing bridge projects in Portland.

Multnomah County officials will hold an open house Thursday to discuss upcoming work on the Broadway, Burnside and Morrison bridges. Traffic will be impacted in all cases.

The work includes replacing the four Rall wheels that open the Broadway Bridge, repairing and maintaining the Burnside Bridge, and replacing the lift span of the Morrison Bridge.

The county maintains five Willamette River crossings, including the Hawthorne Bridge.

The meeting will take place from 5 to 7 p.m. at the Multnomah Building at 501 S.E. Hawthorne Blvd.

For more information, contact Mike Pullen at 503-209-4111 or via email at mike.j.pullen@multco.us.

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A conceptual design for the proposed James Beard Public Market in Portland was inspired by the way that preparation and enjoyment of food often becomes a social activity.

“One of the goals of the market is to bring people together,” said Craig Dykers, founding partner of Norwegian architecture firm Snohetta. “Food has always been one of those wonderful aspects of life that bring people together. It’s a wonderful place to create a cultural hub, so that’s been the genesis of our design.”

Snohetta designers on Wednesday made public their conceptual ideas for the market – named for the late chef, cookbook author, syndicated columnist and television personality who was born in Portland. The Historic Portland Public Market Foundation, a nonprofit that over the past 15 years has spearheaded efforts to build the market, last fall hired the firm to lead design of the project in collaboration with Portland-based firms SERA Architects, Studio Jeffreys and Mayer/Reed.

Dykers, who is based in Snohetta’s New York office, was in Portland this week to unveil the firm’s initial designs for the year-round public market on a Southwest Naito Parkway parking lot at the west end of the Morrison Bridge. He and other Snohetta staffers on Thursday shared their architectural concepts for the market with the public during an open house at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry.

The initial plans call for an approximately 80,000-square-foot market, including a 45,000-square-foot ground-floor market hall with more than 150 food vendor stalls, a mezzanine level with a learning kitchen and event venue, a rooftop terrace and below-grade parking. The glass-lined market hall would have tall, wood-clad ceilings with steel trusses inspired by the Morrison Bridge nearby. Also, ample seating and gathering spaces both indoors and outdoors would be included, as would connections to the adjacent Tom McCall Waterfront Park.

“The facade of the building will light the park up in the evenings, so it will be safer,” Dykers said.

The Snohetta team used feedback gathered during public meetings held this past December to help shape the design, he said. The unusual geometry of the project site, including two clover-leaf-shaped areas surrounded by the Morrison Bridge access ramps, and its history also factored into the architectural concept, he said.

The idea is for the James Beard Public Market to bring food production back to the riverfront site, Dykers said. It was once home to a market that was demolished in the 1950s to make way for the Harbor Drive roadway along the west side of the Willamette River. Harbor Drive later was replaced by Tom McCall Waterfront Park.

“We hope to revive that idea of the culture of making food on the waterfront,” Dykers said. “It’s also a place that’s underutilized today.”

The market design takes into account how visitors will travel through the space and provide customizable vendor stalls of various sizes, he said.

“We wanted the system of movement through the site to be real simple,” Dykers said. “The market runs continuously across all three parcels of land.”

The design also proposes a garden space between where the two Morrison Bridge ramps split in opposite directions. The garden would grow towering hops that would be visible to drivers heading into downtown Portland over the bridge, Dykers said.

“One of the first things you’ll see as a visitor is this grove of hops,” he said.

Ron Paul, director of the Historic Portland Public Market Foundation, said Snohetta’s conceptual designs will help the organization as it prepares for the project’s next phases. Financial consultant ECONorthwest in the next couple of months will complete a second economic analysis assessing the market’s feasibility, he said.

“The vendor rents will support the market,” Paul said. “We need to build the market debt-free.”

Snohetta’s designs will also be used to determine an estimated construction cost.

“Now that we have the concept design, we can do that process,” he said.

The foundation in the past few years has raised more than $2 million from public and private sources to help pay for planning costs; it’s now in the silent phase of its capital construction campaign, Paul said.

Construction is scheduled to start in early 2017 and finish in 2018.

James Beard Public Market

Anticipated construction start: early 2017

Anticipated construction finish: 2018

Architects: Snohetta, SERA Architects, Studio Jeffreys

Landscape architect: Mayer/Reed

Engineers: KPFF Consulting Engineers, Interface Engineering

Other associates: Melvin Mark Cos.

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Multnomah County officials plan to reduce the weight and speed limits on the Morrison Bridge in an effort to keep the bridge in service until the deteriorating lift span is replaced.

The gross weight limit on the bridge will be reduced starting April 18 from 80,000 pounds to 20,000 pounds. Also, the speed limit on the bridge will be reduced from 35 miles per hour to 25. New speed limit signs are scheduled to be installed this week.

The limits will help keep the bridge operational following a botched project three years ago in which the span’s steel grating was replaced with a polymer deck that started falling apart shortly after it was installed, according to county officials.

“The deterioration of the fiber-reinforced polymer deck on the Morrison Bridge lift span has reached a point where the county needs to reduce vehicle weight and speed limits in order to keep the bridge open,” a county notice to freight industry groups said. “Our analysis has led the county engineering staff to conclude that keeping heavy vehicles off the bridge and reducing the impact of the high-speed vehicles is best to extend the life of the deck until it can be replaced.”

County engineers are working with consultant David Evans and Associates to determine the best replacement material for the deck; design is scheduled to start this year. The county is set to receive $4.4 million in damages that will help pay for the project; it sued the contractor, engineer and the manufacturer and distributor of the polymer decking panels that were installed on the Morrison Bridge between 2011 and 2012.

In the meantime, county workers are wrapping up deck repairs that have closed two traffic lanes on the bridge. Both lanes will reopen next month, when the weight limits will take effect.

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A jury has ruled that Morrison Bridge owner Multnomah County is entitled to $4.4 million in damages for a botched project that replaced the span’s steel grating with a polymer deck that started deteriorating shortly after it was installed.

Jurors last week ruled that all parties involved in a lawsuit over the $4.2 million project, completed in 2012, are to blame for its failure. This includes the county, contractor, engineer and the manufacturer and distributor of the fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) decking panels that replaced the bridge’s original steel grating.

The Morrison Bridge’s deteriorating deck was installed between 2011 and 2012 by Ridgefield, Wash.-based Conway Construction Co. Problems surfaced within the first year following project completion, when the polymer panels appeared worn and began to loosen, according to county officials. More recently, cracks were discovered in the structure below the panels.

Conway in 2013 filed suit against the panels’ manufacturer and supplier – Durham, N.C.-based ZellComp Inc. and Bristol, Va.-based Strongwell Corp., respectively – blaming the companies for the failing panels. The county later joined the suit, claiming that the contractor was also responsible for the botched project, and filed another suit against New York-based Hardesty & Hanover, which designed the fiber-reinforced polymer system.

The two-week Multnomah County Circuit Court trial started last month and concluded Friday. Jurors said damages to Multnomah County totaled approximately $5.6 million, but they reduced the award by 22 percent – the amount that the county was found at fault.

Jurors ruled that FRP panel manufacturer Zellcomp was most negligent and should pay for 40 percent of the damages. Engineer Hardesty & Hanover’s responsibility is 21 percent and contractor Conway’s is 17 percent. Although the jury found that panel supplier Strongwell was negligent in one or more ways claimed by the county in the case, the company does not owe any damages, according to the decision.

Deborah Kafoury, chairwoman of the Multnomah County Board of Commissioners, said in a statement following the verdict that county officials plan to move forward with a project to replace the faulty Morrison Bridge lift span deck as soon as possible. Along with the award from the lawsuit, officials are pursuing state and federal funding for the project.

County officials would like to avoid using FRP again and hope to soon decide on an alternate decking material – lightweight and providing traction – to install on the lift span, county spokesman Mike Pullen has said.

Design of a second deck replacement project is scheduled to start this year. Construction could take place in 2016 or 2017.

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Multnomah County engineers are still debating the best fix for the deteriorating Morrison Bridge deck as a jury trial continues this week over a botched $4.2 million steel grating replacement project.

The span was closed to traffic Sunday for continued repairs to the fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) decking panels; they were found defective shortly after installation three years ago because of cracking and failure of the fastening system. The county is suing the contractor that installed the deck that replaced the bridge’s original steel grating as well as the panels’ manufacturer and supplier and the project engineer for the cost of repairs, valued at $2 million, according to court documents. The Multnomah County Circuit Court trial started last week and is scheduled to continue through Friday.

Applying temporary fixes to the Morrison Bridge deck can go on for only so long, especially after a recent discovery of cracks in the structure below the panels, county spokesman Mike Pullen said. County engineers hope to decide by this spring what material should replace the failing FRP panels and start design work on a second deck replacement project, potentially funded by an award from the lawsuit and state and federal sources, he said. Construction could start in 2016 or 2017.

“There’s an urgency here,” he said. “It’s definitely our highest priority bridge project.”

In the meantime, the county will continue to close the bridge periodically to make repairs.

“What we’re doing this year is really a Band-Aid to give us more time,” Pullen said.

County engineers need the extra time because determining what type of material should replace the lightweight polymer decking on the drawbridge is a bit of a puzzle, he said. Officials have considered steel grating, aluminum or again using FRP, but each option has drawbacks. Open steel grating, used originally, doesn’t provide good traction when wet and isn’t ideal for cars traveling at high speeds. Aluminum panels are less slippery, but considered more experimental. As for FRP, the county is suing the only company that uses the material for bridge deck panels.

More recently, county officials have investigated whether it would be possible to use a material that is heavier than the bridge’s original open-grating deck, such as steel grating half-filled with concrete to add traction, Pullen said. This would likely require strengthening the bridge and beefing up its 950-ton concrete counterweights to lift the heavier deck, he said.

“The old assumption was to keep the weight of the material at or close to the steel grating,” he said. “We’ve taken a new tack to see if we can use a tried-and-true deck method.”

The challenge is that the steel truss double leaf bascule bridge essentially acts like a giant seesaw and wouldn’t lift if too much weight was added, Pullen said. County engineers, together with consultant David Evans and Associates, are working to determine this max capacity.

“It’s an interesting engineering challenge,” he said. “The bridge is designed for one weight and (we’re) seeing how much can we add.”

The Morrison Bridge’s deteriorating deck was installed between 2011 and 2012 by Ridgefield, Wash.-based Conway Construction Co. Problems surfaced within the first year following project completion, when polymer panels appeared worn and began to loosen, Pullen said.

Conway in 2013 filed suit against the panels’ manufacturer – Durham, N.C.-based ZellComp Inc. – and supplier – Bristol, Va.-based Strongwell Corp., blaming the companies for the failing panels. The county later joined the suit, claiming that the contractor was also responsible for the botched project, and filed another suit against New York-based Hardesty & Hanover, which designed the fiber-reinforced polymer system.

Expert witnesses who testified last week during the ongoing trial included engineers hired by attorneys representing parties involved in the case to investigate what went wrong with the Morrison Bridge deck replacement project.

ZellComp witness Robert Lindyberg, vice president of Raleigh, N.C.-based engineering firm FDH, testified on Friday that his lab research involving a piece of the FRP deck panel taken from the Morrison Bridge showed that the panels the company manufactured were not defective.

“The only opinion I really reached was that as designed and manufactured the Zellcomp deck is structurally adequate,” he said.

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Multnomah County officials are holding off on major repairs to the Morrison Bridge until an investigation takes place to determine replacement materials for failing deck panels.

Construction to replace the bridge deck was initially scheduled to take place next year, but will have to wait until a decision has been made whether to use steel, aluminum or fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP), county spokesman Mike Pullen said.

The challenge is that each option has drawbacks, he said. Open steel grating doesn’t provide good traction when wet and isn’t ideal for cars traveling at high speeds. Aluminum panels are less slippery, but also considered more experimental.

As for fiber-reinforced polymer, the county is suing the only company that uses the material for bridge deck panels. This type of panel was installed on the Morrison Bridge nearly three years ago and later found defective because of cracking and failure of the fastening system.

The deck was installed between 2011 and 2012 by Ridgefield, Wash.-based Conway Construction, which later filed suit against the panels’ manufacturer – Durham, N.C.-based ZellComp Inc. – and supplier – Bristol, Va.-based Strongwell Corp. Earlier this year, the county joined the suit and filed another against New York-based Hardesty and Hanover LLP, which designed the fiber-reinforced polymer system. The lawsuits are scheduled to go to trial in February 2015, Pullen said.

In the meantime, the county will continue to close the bridge once a month to make repairs, but this can only go on for so long, he said.

“We do see signs of premature wear that tells us we’re going to have to replace the deck in the near future,” he said.

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Ron Paul has been entrenched in development of a public market in Portland for so long that he’s looking forward to working with Snohetta, a Norwegian architecture firm unfamiliar with the city.

Craig Dykers, Snohetta’s founding partner, and Nicolas Rader, director of the firm’s San Francisco office, this past spring toured the parking lot off of Southwest Naito Parkway, at the west end of the Morrison Bridge, where the James Beard Public Market is planned. They were invited by Paul, executive director of the Historic Portland Public Market Foundation.

“We walked the site, and (Dykers) and Nic Rader were just enchanted,” he said. “(For a Portland resident,) it fades into the background. But for someone coming into the city for the first time, it piques you in a different way. It was really electric.”

This month, Snohetta officially signed on as lead architect and landscape architect for the James Beard Public Market – named for the late chef, cookbook author, syndicated columnist and television personality who was born in Portland. To kick off design work, the firm next month will host a design forum for project stakeholders and a community open house to gather public feedback.

Paul, who has been working for 14 years to make the year-round, indoor-outdoor public market a reality, said he greatly appreciates efforts to date of local design firms SERA Architects, Studio Jeffreys and Mayer/Reed; he said they will continue to contribute to the project. Snohetta will bring an extra edge, he said. The firm has worked on a number of high-profile projects involving public space, including the Norwegian National Opera & Ballet opera house in Oslo. In New York, the firm designed a reconstruction of Times Square and the National September 11 Memorial & Museum pavilion.

“The coming together is really about honoring and celebrating what the local team has accomplished (and) now bringing in fresh, talented eyes,” Paul said. “We’ve gone from vision to concept and now we move into design.”

The initial design stages will involve extensive public outreach, especially because Snohetta staffers are new to work in Portland, Rader said.

“Of course Portland is a very unique market,” he said. “It’s very important to understand the culture. What attracted us to this was the opportunity to have a positive impact on the public space in Portland. It makes people aware of Portland as a place and the importance of their food and architecture.”

Early concepts created by SERA Architects call for an outdoor plaza between two indoor market halls totaling 93,000 square feet with more than 100 stalls for food, beverages and flowers, a teaching kitchen and an event venue. Snohetta staffers will use input from the upcoming community open house to further refine those plans.

“We’re able to bring that public nature beyond Portland while also tapping into the public knowledge,” Rader said. “We’re approaching this process all ears. We’re interested in people’s stories on how they hope to use the market. We’re really there to be a sponge and take in all the information and figuring out what this market wants to be.”

The community open house is the start of a larger public engagement effort as design moves forward, Paul said.

“The aggregate of successful market experiences that we can have anywhere in the world is what we want people to experience,” he said. “That’s the magic that Snohetta brings is crystallizing those experiences and translating it into a design where form and function are so closely fused that most visitors will think the market has been there forever.”

Rader said he’s not intimidated by the challenging project site, which is dominated by car ramps connecting to the Morrison Bridge. The curved ramps frame two clover leaf-shaped market sites. Snohetta, for both the Times Square and the Sept. 11 memorial projects, navigated complex urban sites to ensure traffic flow for pedestrians, bicyclists and motorists while synthesizing the needs of numerous stakeholders, he said.

“From a site complexity standpoint, we have a lot of work with nearly impossible sites,” he said.

When Paul travels, one of the first places he visits is a public market because the spaces often serve as community hubs; however, Portland lacks such an asset. He knows exactly what he wants to experience when he walks into the James Beard Public Market.

“I can’t visualize what I want it to look like, but I can taste, smell, hear what I want it to be,” he said.

Construction of the James Beard Public Market is anticipated to start in fall 2016. A grand opening is scheduled for spring 2018.

James Beard Public Market

Anticipated construction start date: fall 2016

Anticipated construction completion date: spring 2018

Architects: Snohetta, SERA Architects, Studio Jeffreys

Landscape architect: Mayer/Reed

Engineers: KPFF Consulting Engineers, Interface Engineering

Other associates: Melvin Mark Cos.

Ěý

If you go …

What: James Beard Public Market community open house

When: Dec. 13 from 2 to 5 p.m. (Portland Mayor Charlie Hales and the project architects will give a brief presentation at 2:30 p.m.)

Where: Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, 1945 S.E. Water Ave.

RSVP:

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Multnomah County is a failing Morrison Bridge lift span deck fewer than three years after it was installed.

The cost of the replacement could run upwards of $7.3 million and be paid for with money originally intended to cover $30 million worth of Burnside Bridge repairs two to four years from now, county spokesman Mike Pullen said.

“We got more money for Burnside, but now we’re talking about shifting that extra money to Morrison,” he said.

That shift would require an intergovernmental agreement, Pullen said, and discussions with the Oregon Department of Transportation are under way.

The decision to replace the span came after an investigation earlier this year determined that the deck’s panels, made of fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP), were defective.

The deck was installed in 2011-12 by Ridgefield, Wash.-based Conway Construction, which later filed suit against the deck panels’ manufacturer – Durham, N.C.-based ZellComp Inc. – and supplier – Bristol, Va.-based Strongwell Corp. The county joined the suit and in March filed one against New York City-based Hardesty and Hanover LLP, which designed the fiber-reinforced polymer system. The lawsuits are scheduled to go to trial in February 2015, Pullen said.

Some of the panels are cracking, and a fastening system that attaches the panels to the bridge’s structure are failing, said Pullen, noting that the county has to close the bridge once a month to replace panels that are wearing out.

“Experts tell us the whole thing needs to be replaced,” he said.

The county is basing its cost estimate on a design that would use a solid deck made of aluminum. No other bridge in Portland features aluminum, but it is considered safer and provides more traction, Pullen said.

A cheaper option would be an open steel grating system like the one used on the Hawthorne Bridge and was used on the Morrison Bridge for 53 years until it was replaced by the FRP system in 2011. However, that system has been linked to fatalities when drivers lose traction changing lanes during wet weather, Pullen said.

The county has hired David Evans & Associates to design the new lift. The design should be completed by the end of the year, and construction is scheduled for 2015.

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