Project name: Nueva Esperanza

Location: Hillsboro

Completion: January 2024

Size: 20,157 square feet

Owner: Bienestar

Architect: Scott Edwards Architecture

Interior Designer: Scott Edwards Architecture

Engineers: Standridge Design, Stonewood Structural Engineers, Interface Engineering

General Contractor: LMC Construction

Submitting Company: Scott Edwards Architecture

Other Associates/Key Consultants: PLACE

Subcontractors: ACME Scenic and Display, Benelli Construction, Castle Masonry & Restoration, Creators, DE-EL Commercial, Eagle Striping Services, Environmental Works, Great Northwest Gutters, Halsey Design, Interior Tech, JB Insulation, Jet Industries, Joshua Legacy Painting, KO Construction, Kodiak Pacific Construction, Lanz Cabinets, Lauzon Contracting, McDermott Fence, Modular Paving Systems, MSC Contracting, Nail It! Roofing, Northwest Door & Supply, Northwest Waterproofing, Pacific Landscape Services, Pacific Northwest Glass & Mirror, Outdoor Play & Amenities, Parca Floors, Precision Countertops, Santiago Concrete, Solid Form, Standard TV & Appliance, TerraCalc, Ultra Quiet Floors, VPI

Nueva Esperanza, meaning “new hope” in Spanish, brings 150 affordable apartment homes to Hillsboro while embracing the cultural diversity of its residents through thoughtful design and community engagement.

The 6-acre development breaks down its scale into three distinct neighborhoods, called colonias, each featuring outdoor plazas with unique amenities like barbecues, play structures and piñata poles. These colonias are connected by paths including the Paseo, Arroyo Walk and Alameda, creating a walkable community that invites interaction.

The design team learned through collaboration with clients and community engagement that the development would primarily serve families, predominantly from Latinx and Somali cultures.

Cultural sensitivity extends to apartment interiors, where three- and four-bedroom units feature kitchen and living room spaces divided by partitions or doors – a specific request from community members. Two-bedroom apartments include separate vanity areas outside bathrooms.

The community building serves as a gathering hub with a large community room featuring a connected kitchen, multi-colored acoustic ceiling and warm wood accents. A retractable partition allows the space to host multiple events simultaneously.

Nueva Esperanza was designed applying principles of universal, trauma-informed and inclusive design. Five of the six architecture team members were women, two of whom were Latinx, and subconsultants included minority-owned and women-owned firms.

The development achieved Earth Advantage Platinum certification, exceeding initial sustainability goals. Features include preserved existing trees, stormwater filtration systems and a 26-kilowatt photovoltaic array.

Budget constraints were addressed through creative use of economical materials, including traditional board-and-batten siding applied in non-traditional patterns and cedar accents referencing materials common in residential neighborhoods.

Scott Edwards Architecture noted in the project submission form that it is important to the team to design for diverse communities, and it is equally important to partner with diverse businesses to deliver these projects for the community and clients. Nueva Esperanza’s design DMWESB contracting goal was 20 percent and the design team exceeded that goal, reaching 37 percent.

The minority contracting goal for the project was 35 percent MWESB participation, and the general contractor – LMC Construction – achieved 38.71 percent. LMC actively reached out to minority, women-owned, and emerging small businesses to inform them about the project and collaborated with organizations supporting MWESB firms, such as LatinoBuilt and NAMC-Oregon, to identify and engage potential contractors. LMC also provided training and resources to MWESB firms to help them meet project requirements and enhance their capabilities.

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Upcoming bidding opportunities were announced at the NAMC-Oregon general meeting on Wednesday night. Project managers for Andersen Construction, Hoffman Construction, Mortenson Construction, Skanska and the Oregon Department of Transportation presented project overviews with anticipated bid dates.

Erin Storlie, an Andersen Construction project manager, announced that Benson High School‘s trade package five will be issued around mid-February. The package includes interiors, miscellaneous metals and railings.

The school modernization project is 230,000 square feet of renovation and 135,000 square feet of new construction. The renovations include the main classroom building built in 1916, the old gymnasium, the auditorium building, the foundry building, the radio building, and the library and health services building.

Andersen is seeking trade partners with COBID (Certification Office for Business Inclusion and Diversity) certification for the Benson High School project to either bid or develop partnerships with noncertified partners in order to achieve a minimum 18 percent MWESB participation goal.

Andersen Construction will release another bid package on Jan. 19 for Portland Community College‘s Metropolitan Workforce Training Center. Bids for package three, which includes steel supply, installation and excavation, are due Feb. 5.

Business equity goals for the project are: 20 percent COBID participation, 20 percent minority workforce, 20 percent apprenticeship workforce and 15 percent women workforce.

Stephanie Coyle, a Hoffman Construction project manager, announced that bid package six for work at Lincoln High School would be issued early next month. Phase two of the project includes flatwork, landscaping, and demolition of the old building to allow track and field construction.

Bids will be due in early March and awarded in the spring. The project’s equity plan calls for 18 percent or more of the contract to go to a COBID-certified business and 20 percent minimum to apprentices for minorities, women and disadvantaged individuals.

Jacob Erven, a Mortenson Construction project manager, announced that the Multnomah County Behavioral Health Resource Center project has a green light after a pandemic-related delay. The project includes a 4.5-story seismic upgrade and complete interior renovation. Bidding is open; construction is anticipated to start in April.

The project’s equity plan calls for 25 percent COBID participation, 20 percent apprentice participation, 25 percent minority apprentice participation and 14 percent female apprentice participation.

Daphne Patrick, small business outreach coordinator for the Hoffman-Skanska joint venture, discussed the 175,000-square-foot main terminal project at Portland International Airport. The main terminal will have a nine-acre roof prefabricated on site and then erected in 120-foot-by-220-foot sections weighing nearly one million pounds.

The project has a 20 percent MWESB participation goal and an 8.5 percent MBE goal for certified firms. Both Oregon COBID and Washington state-certified firms can bid because of the project’s location near the Columbia River.

Andrew Warren, small business programs manager at ODOT, discussed project work on Interstate 205. Improvements are being made to address congestion and traveler safety on a seven-mile stretch between Stafford Road and Oregon Route 213. The project will add a third lane in each direction as well as seismically upgrade the Abernethy Bridge and eight other bridges over I-205.

A northbound auxiliary lane is being built between the Oregon Route 224 Sunrise Expressway on-ramp and the Sunnyside Road/Sunnybrook Boulevard interchange exit ramp.

Also, design is under way to bring intersection and ramp safety improvements to the I-205 and Division Street interchange in Portland.

NAMC-Oregon is looking to host more meetings with trade partners soon.

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Portland Mayor Charlie Hales on Thursday pledged his office’s “full support” to the city’s Equitable Contracting and Purchasing Commission and apologized for appearing distant at a meeting that showcased all the issues raised by progressive advocates.

It was the first time the mayor attended a meeting of the ECPC, and it came after months of talk by commissioners of feeling ignored.

“I’m not interested in having this appear to work; I’m interested in this actually working,” said Hales, who sat alongside commissioners and took notes. “I’m not interested in photo-ops or shelf studies. What should we do?”

Following Hales’ exit, to attend a different meeting, commissioners resumed airing their frustrations with his office.

“One thing we’ve been missing is the other side,” said Marcela Alcantar of Alcantar and Associates. “We can’t go too long. It becomes a rathole, and I think right now, we are in that rathole.”

The ECPC was formed by ordinance last year to increase the utilization of minority-owned and women-owned businesses in city contracting. In the months since, its nine members – a mix of community leaders and minority business owners – have complained of being stonewalled by City Council and city staff and not given requested data.

The commission voted “no confidence” in the City Council at a charged meeting in February. The matter was compounded when the city delayed release of the meeting video and omitted hostilities from the meeting minutes.

Hales’ office has responded by sending city personnel – including Office of Management and Finance Director Fred Miller and Chief of Staff Josh Alpert – to ECPC meetings.

Thursday’s meeting was held at the water bureau’s Interstate Maintenance Facility, the renovation of which was one of two projects in a pilot program testing so-called Community Benefits Agreements (CBAs) as a means of disbursing city contracts. The two projects (the other was the Kelly Butte Reservoir project) were hailed at the meeting for achieving much higher participation rates than the traditional low-bid procurement method.

“What I’m hearing from everyone here is there’s a disconnect in the process, and you cannot have equity with a disconnect,” said audience member Ranfis Giannettino Villatoro of the MRG Foundation. “I’m led to believe it’s deliberate.”

He said MRG supports CBAs.

A regular source of frustration for commissioners, notably Maurice Rahming of O’Neill Electric, is the way the city has handled a set-aside for DMWESBs for the upcoming renovation/seismic retrofit of the Portland Building. The council voted to allot 1 percent of the cost of the highly-technical design-build-relocate project. ECPC commissioners have questioned why the figure is 1 percent of rough construction costs (approximately $100 million) rather than the total project cost ($195 million).

Beyond that, Rahming has said repeatedly that he wants the conversation regarding minority participation in the Portland Building project to involve the “99 percent” rather than a 1 percent set-aside.

The request for proposals for the Portland Building project includes participation targets of 18 percent for minority-owned businesses and 9 percent for women-owned businesses. Those goals aren’t “aggressive” enough, according to Rahming.

“A CBA can produce 50 percent,” he said.

Three design-build teams submitted proposals for the Portland Building project; the city is expected to select one next month.

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Mayor Charlie Hales‘ chief of staff told Portland’s Equitable Contracting and Purchasing Commission he’s ready to “blow up” the city’s procurement system and start over, if that’s determined to be the best course of action.

Josh Alpert attended the ECPC‘s monthly meeting April 21 to ask members to think through new strategies for increasing participation by women and minorities in public projects. The commission’s business has brimmed with tension for most of its short existence, as members have increasingly complained that the City Council isn’t listening to them. Alpert sought to try to refocus the commission in the wake of one especially volatile meeting in February, a reconciliatory retreat this month and several “restless nights” on his part.

“Most of you doing this work have gotten frustrated with the level of process that it takes to get to some kind of resolution,” he told the commission. “When at the end of the day, all we’re all trying to do is create more opportunity for women and minorities.”

But ECPC members questioned how much the mayor’s office could accomplish before Hales’ term finishes at the end of the year.

“I appreciate your comments, but we’ve been at this for almost eight months and we’ve had almost no cooperation from the City Council,” commission member Andrew McGough said. “We’ve spent a lot of time and energy, and we weren’t responded to; we were just ignored.”

Alpert conceded that Hales’ recent attention on housing affordability and homelessness has shifted money and focus from all other issues, including minority participation in public contracting. And those issues haven’t gone away, he acknowledged.

“I’d encourage you use this as an opportunity to blow up the system that we currently have for procurement in the city of Portland and redesign what that system should be,” he said. “We will give you all the resources that you need … Obviously, I can’t promise the council will adopt what that plan will be.”

The commission will bring several items before the City Council in the near term, including the possibility of using Community Benefit Agreements as a way to improve participation. Also, the commission will be part of upcoming discussions about minority participation in the $195 million project to renovate the Portland Building.

The ECPC was formed by a vote of the City Council in February 2015. Its goal is to “investigate and report on” Portland’s efforts toward equitable contracting, and “advise” the council on what it finds, according to its bylaws. Once enough commissioners were selected, it met for the first time in July 2015.

In late February the commission voted “no confidence” against the City Council. The matter received attention after the vote was kept out of the meeting minutes and the city delayed release of the meeting video.

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