Seven projects have been awarded a total of $23 million for preservation efforts to keep affordable housing accessible in the city of Portland.

The Portland Housing Bureau (PHB) last week announced the awardees of the Spring 2025 Preservation Request for Proposals (RFP) and the preservation of 484 affordable units within the seven projects across eight sites.

Capital improvements will extend the useful lifetimes of these buildings and increase energy efficiency and address livability and safety concerns for tenants. The RFP made available approximately $23 million in HOME, Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) and Portland Clean Energy Community Benefits Fund (PCEF) dollars, according to a PHB news release.

PHB regulates more than 17,000 affordable housing units in more than 400 buildings, with other projects in Portland regulated by Oregon Housing and Community Services (OHCS) and federal rental assistance agreements. Like any capital asset, over time, these buildings require reinvestment to continue providing safe, affordable housing, a PHB news release states.

Following a competitive solicitation process, the bureau will fund seven proposals and preserve at least 484 affordable units and 11 commercial units, with new regulated affordability periods of 60 years or more. The projects include health and life safety repairs, as well as improvements to modernize the buildings and increase livability for residents.

Four of the seven projects will incorporate energy-efficiency and renewable-energy improvements, made possible through funding from PCEF. These awards support the city of Portland’s Climate Investment Plan goal of reducing carbon emissions and help protect low-income communities from the impacts of the climate, according to the city.

Funded proposals are in the early stages of predevelopment. Projects include:

• 333 Oak Street — 333 Oak Street is a building with 90 affordable units. Built in 1909, it primarily serves seniors and people with disabilities with incomes up to 30 percent Area Median Income (AMI), with all units receiving project-based rental assistance. The project team includes developer Northwest Housing Alternatives, architect KASA Architects, general contractor Walsh Construction Co., and construction manager Whitman Development LLC. Work will involve elevator modernization, new windows, new LED lighting, a sprinkler upgrade, full plumbing repair and replacement of unit heating/cooling with heat pumps. The $15.9 million estimated project is scheduled to start construction in 2026;
• the Group 8 Project — Ruth Haefner Plaza and Holgate House Apartments, also known as the Group 8 Project, are two buildings built in 1971 and 1983, respectively, with 153 units combined. It will undergo a Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) conversion. Both buildings serve primarily seniors and people with disabilities at or below 30 percent AMI, and all units will have project-based vouchers. The project team includes developer Home Forward, architect Holst Architecture and general contractor Walsh Construction Co. The project team is applying for a 4 percent Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) as public housing to LIHTC conversion/recapitalization, Portland Housing Bureau spokesperson Gabriel Mathews shared in an email.
• Building A (Ruth Haefner) will involve seismic reinforcement, a plumbing system replacement, elevator modernizations, structural masonry repairs with new sealing and insulation, HVAC installation in common areas and new windows. In unit kitchens and bathrooms will be remodeled, and there will be upgrades to ADA units.
• Building B (Holgate House) will involve a roof replacement, ADA upgrades, seismic upgrades, security/access upgrades and sprinkler upgrades. It will also involve replacing windows and replacing heating in common areas and units, as well as solar panels. The approximately $80.6 million project is slated to start construction in 2026.
• Taggart Manor — Taggart Manor is a 23-unit project built in 1960 and serves families in recovery with up to 50 percent AMI. The project is being led by Central City Concern. An architect and general contractor have not been selected. Work in the units will include new kitchen and bathroom appliances, water heater replacements, a lighting replacement and adding mini splits to the bedrooms. It will also involve a full-system electrical replacement, solar install and two EV charging spaces. The $2.2 million project is scheduled to begin in 2026.
• The Whitmarsh Building — The Whitmarsh Building is a 60-unit project built in 1912 serving lower-income, single-adult households, with units regulated at 50 and 60 percent AMI. The project team includes developer Innovative Housing Inc., architect LRS Architects and general contractor Bremik Construction. Work will involve sidewalk vault repair and sidewalk replacement, roof replacement, upgraded insulation and seismic bracing, as well as replacement of the rooftop HVAC, rooftop solar array and lightwell windows. The $5.2 million project is scheduled to start in 2026.
• McCuller Crossing — McCuller Crossing is a 40-unit project built in 2001 that serves low-income families and single adult households with units regulated at 60 percent AMI. The project team includes developer REACH CDC, general contractor Walsh Construction Co., and construction management by Housing Development Center. An architect has not been selected. The work will involve roof replacement, gutter replacement, siding/envelope replacement, window replacement, paint/flooring replacement in common areas and on the exterior and LED lighting in common areas. In-unit work will involve installing heat pumps and LED lighting. The $11 million project will start in 2026.
• Albina Corner — Albina Corner is a 48-unit project built in 1996 that serves low-income families and single-adult households with units regulated at 60 percent AMI. The project team includes developer REACH CDC, general contractor Walsh Construction Co. and construction management by Housing Development Center. An architect has not been selected. Work on the project will involve column repair or replacement, stair repair and water management, siding and window replacement, sealing of exterior masonry, adding a new trash enclosure, repairing the parking lot and replacing the common area lighting. In-unit work will involve adding new Energy Star refrigerators and finish/fixture upgrades. The $17.9 million project will begin construction in 2026.
• Villa de Mariposas — Villa de Mariposas is a 70-unit project built in 2004 and serves low-income families, with units regulated at 30 and 60 percent AMI. Hacienda CDC is leading the project. The design will be in-house. A general contractor has not been selected. Work will involve an exterior refresh, window replacement and mold remediation. The $4.25 million project will begin later this year or in 2026.

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A development dream is in the making for the Sullivan’s Gulch neighborhood of Portland.

Grace Commons is planned for an entire city block surrounded by Northeast 16th and 17th avenues and Weidler and Halsey streets. The existing Grace Memorial Episcopal Church, on the block’s northeast corner, will remain; all other existing buildings will be demolished. New construction will include a seven-story affordable housing building, a three-story community arts center and a courtyard.

Carleton Hart Architecture is designing the project, and Walsh Construction will serve as the general contractor.

Brian Carleton, principal at Carleton Hart Architecture, said construction of a community arts center has long been a dream for the owners involved: Grace Memorial Episcopal Church, Grace Institute (a secular arm of the church), and PHAME (a nonprofit arts academy serving adults with disabilities). Then, in response to growth of the homeless population in Portland, affordable housing was added to the project; Northwest Housing Alternatives is serving as the developer for that portion.

The team is still in the early stages of designing Grace Commons, but Carleton expects it to produce “a really incredible, vibrant community.”

The residential building is planned as a 78,800-square-foot structure with 90 units holding either one or two bedrooms. There will be shared common spaces as well as a private courtyard.

The community arts center will include a theater and a recording studio. All building spaces, from theater walkways to the control room, will be accessible, Carleton said. In fact, the entire campus will be accessible not only by individuals in wheelchairs but also by those with other disabilities, said Julia Mollner, an architect at Carleton Hart Architecture.

“It’s about accessibility, inclusivity, and a place for people to call home,” she said.

The project team has submitted an application for early assistance from the city regarding utility and zoning specifications. Meanwhile, a capital funding campaign is being formed.

Final design of Grace Commons might require two more years, Carleton said.

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An affordable housing project on the rise in Northeast Portland will add 159 new units to address the region’s ongoing housing crisis while providing residents with convenient access to mass transportation.

The four-story Glisan Apartments is being erected on a narrow, 0.45-acre parcel stretching between Glisan and Irving streets, just east of Interstate 205 and in two blocks south of the Gateway Transit Center.

General contractor Walsh Construction Co. is building the MWA Architects-designed building for nonprofit developer Northwest Housing Alternatives. The building fits the mold of workforce housing quite smoothly, Walsh project manager Jay Nees said, particularly in light of its convenient access to multiple bus and light rail connections.

“It’s all affordable, and it’s all geared toward the workforce so it’s a lot of studios and one bedrooms, not necessarily family housing,” Nees said. “It’s close to services, and we’re right off the light rail.”

Crews broke ground in March with the abatement and demolition of three single-family houses on the site. Once the 90,000-square-foot building is completed in spring 2020, the new complex will contain mainly studios and one-bedroom units, and a small number of two-bedroom apartments will be included, as well.

The four-story wood-framed structure is being erected atop a slab-on-grade foundation. The long, narrow building will feature gable ends with steep pitched roofing on the Glisan and Irving Street frontages. Cladding materials will include brick, and metal and fiber cement paneling. The project team is aiming to achieve Earth Advantage platinum certification.

The Glisan Apartments will be the first project in the area to include a required pedestrian path built according to the Gateway Master Street Plan, which calls for a network of new and improved pedestrian and bike paths to aid connectivity between large city blocks. The path will run along the west side of the property, connecting Glisan and Irving street.

“I’m amazed at how many people are walking by here on the sidewalk, but it’s not very friendly to walk on,” Walsh Construction Co. superintendent Andy Morris said.

The project will also include supportive offices, a large community room, parking for about 200 bicycles nine motor vehicles, and a landscaped courtyard.

“They’re committed to bike parking so there are big parking rooms on each floor,” Nees said. “And being so close to transit, they’ll be encouraging folks to use mass transit, because it’s in a perfect location for that.”

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In 2007, conceptualization began for a highly energy-efficient office building as part of a mixed-use development in Milwaukie. Around 12 years later, Northwest Housing Alternatives has a two-story headquarters on track for net-zero-energy certification.

The five-building campus was designed by MWA Architects and built by O’Neill/Walsh Community Builders. Three three-story, wood-framed buildings hold a total of 28 affordable housing units, and another building serves as an emergency shelter. All of those were designed and built to Earth Advantage platinum standards.

But the office building stands out for exceptional sustainability. Project team members discussed the effort on Wednesday during an event held as part of Portland’s second annual Sustainable Building Week. Crews broke ground in summer 2018 and finished roughly one year later. But design work dates back to 2013.

“The project started with net zero as the goal,” said Bill Lanning, a MWA Architects principal and lead designer for the project. “Early in the design it was going to be net-zero ready, but as we moved through design and funds were made available through grants we were able to add the solar.”

That was a huge component, said Afton Walsh, project manager for O’Neill/Walsh Community Builders. PGE provided an especially important grant, Northwest Housing Alternatives Executive Director Trell Anderson added.

“With the grant we said, ‘How much solar can we do?’” Walsh said. “And what is needed for net zero?”

A 38-kilowatt solar array placed on the office building’s roof not only powers that structure but at full capacity is also able to feed power into the campus shelter building.

“There will never be any power going back into the grid,” Walsh said. “It will all be going back into … the shelter.”

In addition to the solar array, the office building’s envelope played an important role in energy performance.

“We tend to spend a lot of our love and effort on the envelope,” Walsh said.

Under-slab insulation was used, all sheeting was taped, and an additional air barrier was installed beneath the weather barrier. Meanwhile, the double-ventilated roof assembly features three inches of spray foam under the ceiling sheeting. This gives a final energy efficiency rating of R-69 – far higher than required by Oregon Specialty Code. Finally, vinyl triple glazing is used throughout the building.

Testing showed the building is exceptionally airtight.

“We did a lower door air test and it came out to .047 (cubic feet per minute) per square foot,” Walsh said. “We had to reach 0.1, and we basically cut that in half.”

Lanning and Walsh worked with Green Hammer on the project’s sustainable aspects. The design-build firm has net-zero-energy project experience, especially on the financial side.

“We talked about budgets and how to set the stage so we could be successful with net zero,” Lanning said. “Really, it was looking at how to simplify things as much as possible and focus on the envelope; that’s the first place to start.”

Design started with a passive house model to estimate energy usage. Then the same approach was used for mechanical systems via readily available equipment, including ductless heat pumps and high-efficiency water heaters.

But one of the biggest interior factors was use of a zonal ventilation system.

“The building is split into four zones for ventilation,” Lanning said. “And with that we used a cross-counter-flow heat recovery system. It isn’t readily used in the U.S. right now, and it has an efficiency of 84 percent, which is much higher than most (energy recovery ventilation) systems.”

Budget constraints led to decisions to forgo other options for ventilation, passive cooling and some automated mechanical systems.

Nevertheless, “constant communication” among team members helped advance the project, Walsh said.

“We were always verifying,” she said.

That paid off during construction of the office building, when an air gap raised questions.

“We had started framing and sheeting the roof, and that second gap didn’t make sense to us, so we went back to design team and asked” about it, Walsh said. “And they made changes that meant they were able to give a pretty good credit back to NHA to use on other features. This project was definitely a labor of love … a lot of hands touched it.”

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Oregon’s Land Use Board of Appeals has denied an appeal of a Portland City Council decision upholding approval for an affordable housing project planned in the Alphabet District.

Plans call for construction of two new buildings – one five stories and the other a four-story addition to the existing three-story Buck-Prager Building, at 1727 N.W. Hoyt St. Combined, they would hold 148 housing units, including 48 for seniors. Northwest Housing Alternatives is developing the project.

Portland’s Historic Landmarks Commission approved the project last year, and then neighbors of the project site submitted an appeal to the City Council. It voted 4-0 against the appeal, which led resident Kenneth Dobson to appeal to LUBA.

LUBA, which hears appeals of land use decisions made by local jurisdictions, listened to that appeal in July. Then the board earlier this month upheld the City Council’s decision and rebuffed all five points of error claimed by the appellant.

In the appeal, Dobson claimed the proposed project would not be compatible with the surrounding neighborhood, and the proposed height, scale and design would violate city design standards. He also claimed the city erred in allowing elimination of on-street loading space.

The board, however, did not agree.

“Petitioner has not demonstrated that the city’s interpretation of ‘compatible’ is inconsistent with the express language of HAD-3, the purpose of that design standard, or the underlying policy that provides the basis for that standard,” stated in denying the first assignment of error.

As to the second assignment of error, the decision stated, “We conclude that a reasonable person could rely on that evidence to support a finding that the development will ‘maintain the district’s architectural scale and its fine-grained pattern of development,’ as required.”

The project is being designed by Carleton Hart Architecture. Michelle Black, a principal with the firm, declined to comment on LUBA’s decision.

Dobson or another appellant may appeal to the Oregon Supreme Court. If not, the project team will be able to apply for building permits; however, there is no timeline for such action.

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A new development in Oregon City will provide affordable housing for military veterans struggling with low-wage employment and even homelessness.

Known for now as Pleasant Avenue Veterans Housing – it will be named after a local service member upon completion – the building will provide 24 apartments for persons with incomes at or below 30 percent of the median family income. Northwest Housing Alternatives, a nonprofit, is developing the project for the Clackamas County Housing Authority. The two-story building was designed by KASA Architects and is being built by general contractor Walsh Construction.

“It’s open to veterans from all over; they’re not restricted to Clackamas County,” Clackamas County Housing Development Coordinator Angel Sully said. “The county has a long-standing relationship with NHA, so when we were approached by them and their former director it just seemed like a good fit; it just checked all the boxes we needed.”

The building will hold 12 one-bedroom units, eight two-bedroom units and four studios.

Crews broke ground in mid-January and currently are nearing completion of wood-framed interior and exterior walls and roofing. Mechanical, electrical and plumbing work is just getting started.

“We’re right at the tail end of framing, and in the next couple of days we’ll have the roof sheathing all done,” Walsh Construction superintendent Bryan Ware said. “The roofing and siding will start next week, and with windows there will be a very quick transformation. But right now the project is tracking really well. We’ve gotten some lucky breaks with the trades.”

The project is one of the first for Walsh using its new Cost Efficient Design Construction methodology, which seeks to minimize construction time and cost through design and material efficiency. Here, those efficiencies are being realized both through the use of panelized exterior and interior wall systems, as well as a design that avoids complex angles and shapes.

“The entire project is prefabbed and panelized,” Walsh Construction project manager Brandi Pine said. “It’s got the two-foot spacing, which is not totally common on a wood-framed structure. The entire project was panelized, and it took us two weeks to stand all the walls and then it’s been another week and a half to do the roof; so it’s been extremely fast framing.”

The wall panels are manufactured by Pacific Wall Systems, which has plants in Central Point and Tumwater, Washington. The wall systems come in a wide variety of configurations ranging from bare studs to nearly complete walls with drywall, window openings, weather barrier, and plumbing and electric fixtures.

In this case, Walsh chose to use exterior wall panels sheathed with DensGlass weather barrier. The interior consists of basic stud walls, some of which have plywood sheathing.

The biggest advantages are the time saved and the need for fewer on-site carpenters.

“It’s definitely faster when you panelize, regardless of how many people you have,” Pine said. “There are not a lot of wood framers too, so this was the perfect storm in terms of a lull in the workload. Being panelized, they were able to stand almost half a floor in a day.”

For context, the entire building consists of 18,000 square feet of floor area over two stories. That kind of time savings means completion will be reached in less than a year; tenants are expected to begin moving in at some point after Thanksgiving.

“This is the second veteran project that NHA has done,” Northwest Housing Alternatives’ Nikolai Ursin said. “The first was Pomeroy Place, which was opened a couple of years ago in unincorporated Washington County. There’s a veteran preference on the lease-up policy, so people who sign up to be on the wait list, if they’re a veteran, then they get bumped up the list.”

Financing the project has been complex, Ursin said. But because NHA has avoided using federal low-income housing tax credits, Clackamas County should be able to smoothly take over the building after it is up and running.

“We’re functioning as a turnkey developer for them,” Ursin said. “As we convert to permanent financing, the Housing Authority will purchase the project from us and then they will continue ownership and operations for the next several decades.”

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A downtown Milwaukie site that was formerly the home of local landmark Bernard’s Garage is being redeveloped into a multifamily housing project, the first such project to be built in the city in years.

Dubbed Axletree, the five-story, 110-residential unit mixed-use building is being developed by Guardian Real Estate Services on a parcel at the corner of Southeast 21^st Avenue and Washington Street in the heart of the city. General contractor R&H Construction is building the roughly $31 million project, which was designed by SERA Architects and is one of under way in the downtown district.

“I think we got a catalyst deal here and a catalyst project,” said Tom Brenneke, Guardian’s president and a Milwaukie native. “We need housing, and it’s ripe for it right now. We’re going to see some interesting things happen when this development is completed because there are lots of capital projects going on right now. It will begin happening, but we’re the first ones in.”

When it comes to commercial development, Milwaukie has lagged somewhat behind the rest of the metro area. But this year large projects have gotten under way at Milwaukie High School and the Northwest Housing Alternatives campus, both just blocks away from the Axletree site. Further plans also are on tap in the city center thanks to a city of Milwaukie master planning effort.

“I grew up there,” Brenneke said. “I know the neighborhood well, and that makes me unique. But you look at the proximity to Portland and you think of yourself being in downtown Portland working, and you can go left or right; left to Vancouver and right to Milwaukie, and I don’t know why you’d go left.”

Downtown Milwaukie, lacking the chic factor of Portland proper, has long been known as the home of Dark Horse Comics and not a lot else.

“Downtown has historically been very quiet,” Brenneke said. “Maybe it’s just not as cool or hip.”

A development surge that was expected to follow completion of TriMet’s orange line in 2015 has resulted in multiple transit-oriented projects near stops in southeast Portland, but downtown Milwaukie has yet to see the same type of mixed-use building that has proliferated in Portland.

“We’ve always been around that area, but why develop?” Brenneke said. “I’d say obviously light rail is very compelling, and then the proximity to downtown Portland. And I think you have to distinguish downtown Milwaukie from the rest of Milwaukie. You get out to King Road and 82^nd and you have a lot of development out there.”

Brenneke also blamed Portland’s inclusionary zoning policy for slowing residential development to a standstill.

Deals in Portland are not working right now, Brenneke said. “Inclusionary housing has really done this in. The math doesn’t work,” he said. “Trying to get these to pencil just doesn’t work. So we’ve started looking elsewhere where we don’t have those requirements, and obviously Milwaukie fits.”

Axletree’s 110 residential units will be split between four stories and programmed to provide 44 studios, 58 one-bedroom and eight two-bedroom units ranging from 440 to 1,044 square feet. The ground floor will be split into four commercial spaces totaling 7,300 square feet of floor area.

The building will contain 78 parking spaces, including a 17-stall mechanical car stacker.

Crews broke ground earlier this fall and the first concrete deck pour took place last week. Andy Hernandez, site superintendent for R&H Construction, expects to begin placing prefabricated wood-framed walls by next week.

Prefabricated components are being manufactured by Pacific Wall Systems of Tumwater, Washington, and trucked to the job site. Walls are hoisted into place with a tower crane, saving significant amounts of time and manpower, Hernandez said.

“It’s huge,” he said. “We’ll get truckloads of panels and we’ll probably be framed in 15 weeks, where to do it conventionally not only would it add three weeks to our overall, we would have two to three times the labor on site, which gets to be a problem.”

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The Portland City Council on Thursday denied an appeal of the Historic Landmarks Commission‘s approval of plans for a 148-unit affordable housing project in the historic Alphabet District.

The council voted 4-0 against the appeal, giving developer Northwest Housing Alternatives the go-ahead for a project involving the historic Buck-Prager Building at 1727 N.W. Hoyt St. Carleton Hart Architecture‘s design calls for renovating the existing structure to gain a four-story addition and constructing another building with five stories.

The Historic Landmarks Commission issued its approval in September. But the Northwest District Association and Portland attorney Tony Schwartz appealed that decision to the council, saying the planned development would be too large to fit the context of the surrounding neighborhood, which features 13 single-family homes listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

On Thursday, several Alphabet District residents testified in favor of the appeal. Dan Anderson lives two blocks from the project site and said there was no guarantee the development would deliver anything other than “full frontal market-rate housing.”

“In short,” Anderson said, “we have an incompatible building that fails to deliver affordable housing.”

City commissioners, however, rejected those arguments.

“I do believe approval criteria were met; I don’t believe errors were made in the review process or if there were deviations from that process that they would have resulted in a different outcome,” Commissioner Chloe Eudaly said prior to the final vote. “Like many Portlanders, I’m overwhelmed by the rate of change in the city and I don’t like a lot of it. But in this case I actually think that this is a much more attractive new development than I have seen on our streets, and that the developer and architect have really gone to great lengths to meet the criteria.”

Carleton Hart senior associate Michelle Black is the lead designer for the project. She told commissioners that attaching a covenant guaranteeing affordable housing will hinder the developer’s ability to fully fund the project.

“I don’t know how to address all the hypotheticals you’re laying out here,” Black said. “It’s already very, very difficult to provide affordable housing, and to put anything else tied to this project makes lenders very uneasy. And, quite frankly, we need as much flexibility as possible in talking to as many lenders as possible to get this project funded.”

Funding remains the single largest hurdle in the project’s path.

In a turnabout from earlier Historic Landmarks Commission meetings, the list of people signed up to testify included twice as many project supporters as project opponents.

“Regarding scale and height, that was a unanimous decision,” Historic Landmarks Commissioner Kristen Minor told the council. “None of the commissioners had concerns overall about the scale and height, and that’s important.”

As designed by Carleton Hart, the Buck-Prager Building will be seismically enhanced and a south wing with four stories will be built and physically attached to the existing structure to provide 48 affordable units for seniors. A five-story north building will provide 100 affordable units for people making 60 percent of the regional median family income or less.

The council’s vote Thursday was tentative in nature. A final vote to uphold the decision is scheduled for 10:30 a.m. on Dec. 19, at Portland City Hall.

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O’Neill/Walsh Community Builders, a partnership serving as the general contractor for Northwest Housing Alternatives‘ headquarters project, has its hands full.

“We’ve got three different construction types across five different buildings, which makes it a lot of fun and really easy to coordinate,” superintendent Drew Anderson said with a laugh. “They do that to make it easier on us.”

Northwest Housing Alternatives, a nonprofit, builds and manages affordable housing and homeless services throughout Oregon. Its in downtown Milwaukie, fronting Lake Road, includes one office building, three residential buildings and an emergency shelter.

Funding is coming from a variety of sources, including Clackamas County, $8.4 million worth of federal Low Income Housing Tax Credits, private contributions and a $2.78 million NOAH (Network for Oregon Affordable Housing) mortgage.

“A note on the housing buildings is that they are all (being built to) Earth Advantage” (silver standards), Anderson said. “So not only do we have a mix of funding on this project, but we have a mix of construction types.”

Northwest Housing Alternatives’ standard practice is to adhere to Earth Advantage standards for its new projects. This one was designed by . The three residential buildings will provide 28 total units – almost entirely two- and three-bedroom apartments.

The development and management office is actually being built to achieve net zero certification. To do this, a 38-kilowatt solar array will be installed on the roof of the split-level building, with insulation “like you wouldn’t believe,” Anderson said. Even the foundation will be insulated.

“All the slabs that we’ve poured here have two layers of two-inch, staggered, rigid foam insulation underneath the concrete,” he said. “The construction techniques are very similar to passive house because we’re building a highly efficient building.”

To achieve certification, the building will undergo a 12-month audit to demonstrate that it ultimately produces more energy than it consumes.

Then a two-story, eight-unit emergency family shelter will be built with more traditional techniques to provide the same services as the longstanding Annie Ross House, which was one of 11 structures on the 1.75-acre site that were demolished to make way for the new campus. The new shelter will take on the Annie Ross name and provide 60 percent more space than the old facility.

Currently, construction of each building is in a different phase.

Last week, in Building A of the residential trio, crews stocked and installed drywall. In Building C, MEP rough-in took place while roofers completed sheeting. In Building B, crews of carpenters from subcontractor Wood Mechanix busily installed roof trusses and the first pieces of sheeting.

The three residential structures were the first to have their foundations poured. The new office building was next in line and currently is gaining exterior wood-framed walls.

The emergency shelter is the final piece of the puzzle, in a center space surrounded by the other four buildings. Crews have finished pouring the concrete matte-slab foundation and installing utilities.

“It’s all old-school, with minimal production,” Anderson said. “It’s lay it out, shoot them all together, stand the walls and keep going. I’d really prefer to have a crane, but they told me it wasn’t in the budget.”

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Northwest Housing Alternatives‘ proposed 148-unit affordable housing project in the Alphabet District doesn’t quite have the green light for construction yet.

The Portland City Council later this month will hear of the planned two-building project, which earlier this year received approval from the Portland Historic Landmarks Commission.

Plans for 1727 N.W. Hoyt St. call for construction of a pair of new buildings – one five stories and the other a four-story addition to the existing three-story Buck-Prager Building. The five-story “North” building would have 100 workforce housing units, while the four-story “South” addition would combine with the existing building to provide 48 senior housing units.

Carleton Hart Architecture designed the project.

Opponents say the buildings as designed would be outsize for the neighborhood. The appeal filed on behalf of the Northwest District Association claims that criteria for approval were not met and multiple procedural errors were committed during the review process.

The City Council will hold the hearing at 2 p.m. on Nov. 29 in its chambers at 1221 S.W. Fourth Ave.

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