A bid to bring Major League Baseball to Portland has gotten very serious, very quickly.

The Portland Diamond Project, a group led by former Nike executive Craig Cheek, has submitted formal offers on two large properties in Portland.

One is a Portland Public Schools property north of the Rose Quarter that includes the Blanchard Education Service Center, at 501 N. Dixon St. The property is zoned IG-1 for general industrial uses.

The other is an industrial site in Northwest Portland. While not identified by the Portland Diamond Project, the site matches the description of the former ESCO Corp. foundry that closed in 2016.

Earlier attempts to lure a major league team to Portland foundered because of difficulties finding a suitable site. Portland Diamond Project aims to fill that space in the lineup first.

Besides Cheek, the Portland Diamond Project includes former Trail Blazers announcer Mike Barrett and former state Sen. Jason Atkinson, according to a news release from the group.

The group has retained Kansas City’s Populous Architects, which has designed more than 20 MLB stadiums. TVA Architects is serving as a local design partner. The Portland firm did not return a message seeking comment. A New York-based attorney, Irwin Raij of O’Melveny & Myers, is serving as legal adviser.

The baseball boosters said they want to build multifamily units along with a ballpark. Both sites have “ample room for multifamily development, which can help alleviate Portland’s housing crisis,” Cheek stated in the news release. “We’re planning to pave the way for 8,000 new workforce and market-rate apartments to create a vibrant, walkable community around the facility, wherever it ultimately lands.”

The group is not seeking “new programs” to fund the ballpark, according to the release. Public funding for ballparks has become controversial after several deals across the nation left local taxpayers holding long-term debt.

Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler, in a prepared statement, said he is focused on housing and homelessness.

“It’s my belief that city resources should be directed to these priorities,” he stated. “We will continue to watch the Portland Diamond Project proposal as it develops.”

Portland Public Schools was due to discuss the offer during a closed-door executive session Wednesday.

“The district is not really actively pursuing anything – more in listening mode,” PPS spokesman Dave Northfield said.

The PPS property has the advantage of proximity to existing sports venues – the Moda Center and Veterans Memorial Coliseum.

The area is also targeted in the Albina Vision, a loosely drawn plan for a large-scale redevelopment of underutilized properties. The historically African-American neighborhood was disrupted to make way for redevelopment in the 1960s. Albina Vision proponents did not return messages seeking comment Wednesday.

The ESCO property is close to Interstate 405 and the fast-growing Slabtown area. City leaders have discussed extending Portland Streetcar tracks to that area. The area is likely to become more integrated into surrounding neighborhoods, said Tom DiChiara, principal at Cairn Pacific, a major developer in Slabtown.

“I like the idea of the area north of Highway 30 there becoming more a part of Northwest Portland, more a part of a mixed-use neighborhood long term,” DiChiara said. He noted there are many obstacles to a baseball stadium in Northwest Portland, including zoning, transportation capacity and infrastructure.

Portland hasn’t had professional baseball since the minor-league Portland Beavers were sold in 2010 to make way for the Timbers soccer franchise.

The Hillsboro Hops began playing in 2013. Its 3,500-seat stadium is about 14 miles outside of Portland. Portland also has the Pickles, a summer league team that is mainly for college players.

A 32,000-seat baseball stadium would dwarf any other sports arena in the Portland area.

MLB has two teams that have made noise about moving to new stadiums. The Oakland Athletics just celebrated 50 years in the Bay Area, but their aging stadium has drawn few fans in recent years and generated embarrassing headlines for issues such as sewage problems. The team’s efforts to build elsewhere in Oakland have so far been stymied.

Similarly, the Tampa Bay Rays play in an older stadium and consistently rank among teams with low attendance.

MLB could also opt to expand. The league’s two newest teams, the Rays and the Diamondbacks, began playing in St. Petersburg, Florida, and Phoenix, respectively, in 1998.

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Nike Inc. has agreed to pay $10.1 million in transportation development taxes to Washington County to pay for road improvements around the sportswear giant’s growing Beaverton campus.

County commissioners unanimously approved the agreement on Tuesday.

The payment is a windfall for county roads, which received a record $20.3 million in development taxes in the 2014-15 fiscal year. In one fell swoop, Nike will pay nearly half of that amount.

The payment reflects the size of Nike’s planned expansion, county spokeswoman Melissa De Lyser said.

“All developers pay transportation development tax based on square footage and anticipated traffic generated by the development,” she said.

The projects are expected to cost $45.3 million in total. Nike is paying about 22 percent of the projects’ total cost.

The improvements include widening three streets from four lanes each to five. The road sections are 158th Avenue from Walker Road to the MAX light-rail line south of Jenkins Road, Jenkins Road from 158th Avenue to Murray Boulevard and Walker Road west of 158th Avenue to Butner Road.

Also, turn lanes will be constructed at the intersection of Murray and Walker.

All of the improvements will be accompanied by bike lanes and sidewalks. Nike also agreed to set aside 2 acres for right of way and easements for the road construction and trail construction along 158th Avenue. The section of trail will join the Westside Regional Trail, which ultimately is planned to extend 22 miles from the Willamette River to the Tualatin River.

Bids are not being sought for any of the projects yet. The project on 158th Avenue will bid first – hopefully this spring, De Lyser said. All of the projects will follow Washington County’s typical competitive bid process.

The road improvements come as Nike pursues a 3.2 million-square-foot expansion of the Beaverton campus. Work is scheduled to be completed in 2018.

Nike Media Relations did not respond to calls and emails requesting comment.

ZGF Architects, SRG Partnership, Skylab Architecture and Place Studio are engaged on the projects. Hoffman Construction Co. is Nike’s main contractor.

It’s not clear whether the street improvements will affect Nike employees’ on-street parking, which has given rise to complaints from residents.

“I can’t really say if it’s going to address it or not,” De Lyser said.

Parking garages under construction at the Nike campus should be able to handle parking demand, De Lyser said.

“Nike has assured us there’s adequate parking,” she said.

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From his Portland office, Hoffman Construction Vice President Bart Eberwein has watched the glass curtain walls going up at Park Avenue West.

“It started out as a hole over a decade ago and construction was halted, but it came back,” Eberwein said about the downtown Portland project where Hoffman is serving as general contractor. “That’s kind of what happened to the industry.”

Eberwein’s company also seems to have emerged from the past recession in fine form. The company reports annual revenue of $1.8 billion. In addition to Park Avenue West, its current project list includes projects for Nike in Beaverton; the Daimler North American Headquarters building on Swan Island; and educational facility projects at schools that include the University of Oregon, Oregon State University and Washington State University.

The company also has joined with ZGF Architects to emerge as one of the leading contenders to handle Oregon Health and Science University’s $340 million Center for Health and Healing South project in Portland’s South Waterfront area.

The building industry, including general contractors, emerged from the past recession to find that a new normal had taken hold. Lessons learned during the recession mean companies are more competitive than ever when it comes to winning contracts. Projects also come with higher degrees of difficulty.

“Projects are increasingly more complicated and data-driven,” Eberwein said. “Wiring for data is a primary utility like plumbing or electricity.”

Hoffman has risen to the challenge by continually tracking the changing needs and expectations of both clients and the market. The company, for example, has established a strong expertise in laboratory projects for both medical and educational clients.

“It’s a kind of commitment to including bio-sciences as part of a broader education,” Eberwein said. “It’s where people will work to find solutions to problems created by a crowded planet.

“I’m excited for this year … everything points towards growth,” he added. “Do we have a leg up? We like to think so, but it’s really about staying on top of the market. We’re growing, too.”

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It’s no secret that Oregon Health & Science University has compiled short lists of firms still in the running to design and construct two new buildings in Portland’s South Waterfront District. However, university officials have declined to name these finalists that responded to a request for proposals in August.

Now, industry sources say six teams of architects and general contractors are vying for the projects.

Industry professionals, who requested anonymity, confirmed that the three teams moving ahead in the interview process to design and build the $340 million Center for Health and Healing South are ZGF Architects with Hoffman Construction, NBBJ and GBJ Architecture with Turner Construction, and SmithGroupJJR and Mahlum Architects with Mortenson Construction.

Sources said teams interviewing for the contract to design and build the $160 million Knight Cancer Research Building are ZGF with Mortenson Construction, SRG Partnership with McCarthy and Andersen Construction, and Perkins + Will and Hennebery Eddy Architects with Skanska.

The university anticipates having a design-build team in place for the Center for Health and Healing South in mid-December and one for the Knight Cancer Research Building by early January 2015.

The estimated 675,000-square-foot Center for Health and Healing South will hold ambulatory surgery services and outpatient clinics for cancer treatment and cardiovascular surgery. It also will house the clinical trials for OHSU‘s Knight Cancer Institute, an 80-bed guesthouse, a conference center, a central utility plant and a parking garage.

The approximately 330,000-square-foot Knight Cancer Research Building will have research labs, administrative offices, a conference center and parking. Plans to construct the center got a boost last year when Nike co-founder Phil Knight promised to give $500 million to the Knight Cancer Institute if OHSU could raise $500 million more in two years.

Construction is scheduled to start on both buildings is scheduled to start in March 2016 and finish by July 2018.

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Oregon Health & Science University is seeking architects and contractors to create two new buildings in the South Waterfront District.

The university last week issued requests for proposals for design and construction of new ambulatory care and cancer research buildings on the Schnitzer campus, OHSU spokeswoman Tamara Hargens-Bradley said. She declined to discuss the estimated cost and construction timelines for the projects.

OHSU officials plan to select general contractor and architect teams for both projects by November and officially hire the firms by December, Hargens-Bradley said.

Plans to construct a new cancer research center got a boost last year when Nike co-founder Phil Knight promised to give $500 million to OHSU’s Knight Cancer Institute if the university could raise $500 million more in two years. Last month, an anonymous donor gave $100 million to push OHSU’s fundraising efforts over the $400 million mark.

The two new OHSU buildings would be built near the $295 million Collaborative Life Sciences Building, which opened in June. A tight construction schedule for the joint effort between OHSU and Oregon State University required close coordination between designers SERA Architects, Los Angeles-based CO Architects and general contractor JE Dunn Construction.

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In April 2013, when Nike passed on a proposal to locate a hundred-million-dollar development in Portland and instead chose to expand its existing campus in Beaverton, the corporate behemoth may not have based its decision on the proposal’s grammatical precision – but it certainly came under the microscope.

Mike Salas, Nike’s real estate manager throughout the Americas, looks at the details in proposals.

“I love reading them,” he said. “I like to look for typos and grammatical errors because it highlights (whether) these people (are) paying attention. Seriously, there’s nothing more irritating than typos and grammatical errors.”

Salas was among the industry professionals who spoke last week at a panel event hosted by the Oregon chapter of the Society for Marketing Professional Services. The event, titled “Why some firms win: staying competitive in a relationship-based industry,” offered insight into the art of forming and maintaining professional relationships to potentially gain business in the future.

Grammar aside, the initial point of contact is critical.

David Etchart, Beaverton School District‘s administrator for facilities development, advised attendees to nurture their professional relationships like their personal ones – with care. Ultimately, he said, he wants to work with people he feels connected to.

The same is true for Liam Thornton, managing director of investment and development for Langley Investment Properties. Typically, he won’t even consider a proposal from a firm he doesn’t already know.

“You establish a relationship before there’s a need,” he said. “Like all of you, I’m really busy.”

Traditionally, Langley has focused its investment energies on Class A office assets, but the company is now looking to expand its portfolio into the multifamily sector. It recently acquired one multifamily asset and is planning to develop another at 1501 S.W. Taylor St. Langley recently applied for early assistance to discuss those plans, which currently call for construction of an eight-story, 164-unit building.

Thornton acknowledged that Langley doesn’t have as much expertise with residential as it does with office, and said the firm is looking to work with others that can help it strengthen those weaknesses. He recommended making the initial point of contact through a mutual acquaintance who can vouch for the firm’s abilities.

“That is definitely more productive than a cold call relationship because you don’t know the person (and) you don’t know much about them,” he said. “And if I’m jammed up and I need help, I’m not going to call anyone I haven’t met already.”

Attentiveness is also important when forming professional relationships. Jamie Hurd, vice president of programs for the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, said she is constantly surprised at how few of the people who submit proposals to her actually know anything about the nonprofit organization.

That’s crucial because OMSI wants its team members to help it develop its relationships. For instance, OMSI is preparing to develop a $10 million, 20-acre camp in Newport; it’s a new market for the nonprofit, and so its design and building consultants need to operate almost like ambassadors, Hurd said.

Lastly, the panel advised listeners to prepare and rehearse their pitches. Salas recalled a series of presentations he once lined up with potential design consultants for a project in Birmingham, Ala. He told the candidates they each had 90 minutes to dazzle him.

“The first person … sat across from me and asked, ‘So, what do you want to know?’ and I thought, ‘Boy, this is going to be a long ninety minutes,” Salas said. “There’s not a lot of time, and there’s a lot of options we have at our disposal, so you really need to stand out.”

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Nike executives have released the names of their partners for the expansion of their world headquarters campus in Washington County.

The primary contractor for the project will be Hoffman Construction. Project management will be handled by Gerding Edlen. ZGF Architects LLP will provide architectural services.

Nike executives worked with Hoffman during a previous expansion of their world headquarters in 2000. They estimate the new $150 million expansion will create at least 500 jobs in Oregon.

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Nike Chairman Phil Knight on Friday got the tax guarantee he wanted from the Oregon Legislature, but at a price.

Mary Newell of Portland will never buy a pair of Nike shoes.

Not that she ever has in the past, she testified before the Joint Revenue Committee, but now she never will.

“I don’t like blackmail,” she said.

Knight offered Gov. John Kitzhaber a deal where Nike would stay in Oregon with a $150 million expansion – and create at least 500 new jobs – if legislators agreed to not change the way Nike’s taxes are calculated.

Companies in Oregon are taxed based on the products they sell in the state rather than on their employees or capital investments. Knight wanted that system locked in place for the next 40 years for companies that commit to investing $150 million or more in the state.

Instead, legislators whittled that number down to 30 years with an opportunity to review their decision in five years.

Kitzhaber called legislators together for a hurried special session to respond to Knight’s offer. It turned out to be an offer lawmakers couldn’t refuse. They ended the one-day session with only five nays in the House, six in the Senate, and a bill of $13,000 for taxpayers for getting everyone together.

Newell was not the only one who left the capitol unhappy on Friday.

Nick Caleb, a political science professor at Concordia University in Portland, echoed most of the sentiments voiced by citizens who came to testify when he said the Legislature was acting too quickly.

“We’re accepting a horrid premise for making public policy,” Caleb said. “The confidence of investors is not the most important thing to consider.”

He added that the Legislature is reducing the role of government to an intermediary between the people and the massive corporations that truly run the country.

“We are in a race to the bottom,” he warned.

Knight and his wife, Penny, philanthropically support Beaverton public schools while insisting on outcome-based education, observed Susan Barrett of Portland. Yet students in Beaverton are packed 60 to a classroom, she added.

“Where’s the same accountability for Nike?” she asked.

That’s another reason Newell said she won’t buy Nike shoes.

“I wouldn’t trust Nike to do anything for schools,” she said.

Mary Thayman of Portland also told the Joint Revenue Committee that the Legislature was acting in undue haste.

“This situation doesn’t seem to be any kind of emergency,” she said. “We need time to look into the claims made by Nike.”

In the flurry of the special session, more than 70 amendments were proposed to the legislation. A number of them, designed to extend a similar tax guarantee to smaller businesses, never got beyond the Joint Revenue Committee.

State Sen. Betsy Close, R-Albany, favored one such amendment.

“It can go from a good deal to a great deal,” she said. “By removing the high threshold, government can offer the same predictability to businesses of all sizes.”

Rep. Vicki Berger, R-Salem, co-chairwoman of the Revenue Committee, agreed.

“Rather than being a special carve-out for a special business, it will be a provision that applies to all,” she said.

Given concerns that lawmakers are already acting too quickly, Sen. Chris Telfer, R-Bend, said the question of expanding the tax guarantee to other businesses should be taken up after the regular legislative session convenes Feb. 4.

Sen. Mark Hass, D-Beaverton, said he doesn’t believe the Legislature acted too quickly when he considers the private citizens who had a chance to testify.

“It feels like Oregon to me,” he said.

Rep. Phil Barnhart, D-Springfield, said the special session was important.

“We’re trying to help a business that needs help now,” he said.

Sen. Ginny Burdick, D-Portland, said this is not favoritism toward Nike.

“We have a wonderful company that will continue to be in Oregon in a big way,” she added.

Berger said lawmakers value all Oregon businesses, large and small. However, she said, it is undeniable the contribution that Nike makes to Oregon.

“Income taxes are what really pay the bills,” she said.

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Nike is preparing for a massive expansion project, and Gov. John Kitzhaber wants to make sure it happens in Oregon.

At a press conference in Salem on Monday, Kitzhaber announced that he will convene a special legislative session on Friday to discuss a new piece of legislation designed, essentially, to entice the Beaverton-based sportswear company to expand within the state.

The Economic Impact Investment Act would let the governor prevent future corporate tax laws from affecting companies that commit to creating 500 jobs and investing at least $150 million in capital investment over five years. The impetus for the act is that Nike is pursuing an expansion that could generate more than $2 billion a year and 12,000 jobs by 2020.

During discussions with Nike, Kitzhaber learned that it is considering other states for the expansion. The act would assure Nike that Oregon’s tax laws would hold steady for a set period of time.

“Nike is a global company with a long history in Oregon,” Chief Financial Officer Don Blair said. “We support this proposed legislation as a way to help us continue to grow in Oregon.”

Nike said if the legislation were to pass, it would commit to the 500-job and $150 million investment minimums. Kitzhaber did not have any details on the expansion, but said construction would create 2,900 jobs and pump approximately $440 million into the local economy.

“A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush,” he said. “This is a very important company to Oregon. It is expanding rapidly and they have to make this move as soon as possible for a number of business reasons … they just want to make sure that the tax policy that is making it favorable for them to operate here does not change on them somewhere midstream.”

Kitzhaber said Nike did not divulge which other states it was considering, but added that officials informed him that if the state could provide it with certainty, it would stay.

“For me, that’s enough,” Kitzhaber said.

Nike employs more than 8,000 people in Washington County – a number that has grown nearly 60 percent since 2007. The average Nike income, at $100,000, is roughly twice as much as regional and state averages.

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Nike hired Portland-based to design a temporary exhibition space for the Olympic Trials currently going on at Hayward Field at the University of Oregon in Eugene.

The space, titled Camp Victory, gives visitors a chance to view and interact with Nike‘s newest track and field products. Skylab designed the space out of lightweight material and gave it a sleek appearance to match the products being advertised, said Jeff Kovel, principal at Skylab.

“We really wanted to take the experience around track and field and take it to a level it’s never really been before,” he said. “We arranged and designed (the exhibition) to be expressive of speed and kinetic energy, almost like a runner coming out of the starting blocks.”

Within the exhibition are four inside areas; one is a retail store, while the other three are three-story, triangle-shaped pavilions, each containing interactive exhibits of Nike’s new products.

The first pavilion, called the “Speed Tunnel,” reveals Nike’s new track suit technology. In order to see how the technology works, the tent holds a large LED screen that shows real-time footage of athletes wearing the technology while competing in the Olympic Trial races.

The second pavilion is for Nike Plus, which connects runners to an online community and archives their training. Visitors can see how the technology works by racing each other on treadmills that run on human momentum rather than motors; the technology records their “fuel” output while they run, Kovel said. Additionally, inside the pavilion is an interactive table, which shows a real-time map of where Plus users are running in Eugene.

Finally, the third pavilion shows off one of Nike’s newest running shoes, the Lunarglide, which is innovative for its form-fitting shape, Kovel said.

All of the pavilions are made of a light-weight translucent tent material created in Australia. A racing track surrounds the pavilions and eventually leads into a park area.

“We wanted to show how they’re developing all these innovations for track, but they’re translating them to products that fit any running enthusiast,” Kovel said.

The exhibition will run until the trials end on July 1. Hush, a New York-based design agency, worked with Skylab to design the electronic aspects of the project.

“On the Boards” is a weekly feature that spotlights local firms’ best design work. Submissions from architectural and engineering firms are encouraged. Please call 503-802-7240 or email ontheboards@djcOregon.com.

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