One of the newest developments along light rail in the Portland-metro area, Hub 9, is set to open later this month. The six-story mixed-use building sits within Hillsboro’s Orenco Station neighborhood, directly across from a MAX station offering service throughout the metro area.

This is merely the latest step to ensure the neighborhood is connected, according to Megan Gibb, transit-oriented development program manager for Metro.

“If you go back a long time ago, there was a large public-private partnership around Orenco,” she said. “There was a long history of planning for that station. It’s really been a very phased neighborhood development over time.”

The history of Orenco Station dates back to the 1800s, when it was homesteaded. Eventually the land became the town of Orenco, named after the Oregon Nursery Co., which owned the land for a time. When the business closed in 1938, the town disincorporated.

Flash forward to 1993, when the entire area around Orenco was zoned for industrial use. A decision was made to bring light rail to the metro area’s west end, and Metro and the city of Hillsboro agreed to require that use of surrounding land be transit-oriented. The city then decided it wanted the Orenco Station area to be a “town center” in Metro’s 2040 Growth Plan.

The area has developed over three real estate cycles. The first included the mixed-use town center and adjacent residential space north of Cornell Road. The second phase included three-story apartment and condominium buildings built around 2005 and 2006 slightly south of Cornell Road. Hub 9 is part of the final phase.

Hub 9 was developed by Holland Partner Group, which also served as the contractor. Leeb Architects LLC was the architect. The building’s 124 apartments – either studios, one-bedroom units or two-bedroom units – were leased completely within three months.

“It’s clearly been well-received by the market,” Hillsboro Planning Director Colin Cooper said. “We’re excited about being able to provide a place where our tech workers … consider urban and some of our older residents … choose to downsize and be in an exciting pedestrian environment.”

Hub 9 has three eateries – Ava Roasteria, 9 Dang Thai and Schmizza Public House – that are expected to contribute to the area’s vibrancy and safety. Other amenities include bike parking, secure car parking, a rooftop courtyard, multiple social gathering spaces, proximity to Orenco Plaza for community events, and a fitness center.

“We’re seeing that people are really starting to understand the value of transit access,” Gibb said. “Part of it is appealing to a different demographic. Millennials like to be in urban areas, they like walkable districts, they like having choices for transportation. Some older people are doing that too. They’re moving back into the city to be with grandkids, or because they’re tired of driving. There’s kind of a dual shift going on there in terms of the market economics and the demographic shift that’s increased the interest in transit access.

“Employers are also recognizing that if they want to attract employees, they want to be in places that have options for people other than driving 45 minutes to get to their job.”

The grand opening for Hub 9 is scheduled for Oct. 26, from 4 to 5 p.m.

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For the past 15 years, thousands of housing units have popped up around Orenco Station in Hillsboro, but they have been out of reach for people who earn $30,000 a year or less.

That situation is about to change with the opening of the first phase of Orchards at Orenco, a 57-unit affordable housing project that owner and developer REACH Community Development says is on target to become the largest multifamily passive house building in the country.

The decision to design and construct Orchards’ first phase to achieve one of the highest benchmarks of energy efficiency in the building world was about more than a title. In addition to filling a much-needed housing gap for those who earn 50 percent or less of median income for Washington County, where the project is located, pursuing an actual passive house project has given REACH a foundation for creating highly energy-efficient buildings that the organization will be able to implement on future affordable housing projects throughout the Portland-metro area, according to Laura Recko, REACH’s director of fundraising and public relations.

It also offered some valuable lessons for the construction firms that worked on the project, starting with general contractor Walsh Construction Co.

Students become teachers

Before joining the Orchards at Orenco project, Walsh had been introduced to the high standards of passive house while helping another organization study the feasibility of converting an existing building to meet passive house standards, said Mike Steffen, Walsh’s general manager  and the company’s principal in charge of the Orchards project. Even so, the general contractor faced a learning curve when it joined the Orchards project team, a situation that Steffen says was eased by the collaborative environment and the fact that Walsh was involved in the project from the earliest stages.

Walsh soon found itself passing the lessons it learned on to project subcontractors, few of which had ever been involved in a passive house project.

“We did the education … as part of the bid process,” Steffen said.

Throughout construction, the company also provided subcontractors with reminders that a passive house project requires flexibility and a new way of thinking about the building process.

A Walsh foreman, for example, posted a cup next to a sign with a message: “Normal does not exist here.” Each time someone working on the project said, “That’s not how we normally do it,” he or she was required to place a dollar in the cup.

“They learned not to say ‘normally’ very quickly,” Steffen said.

Education about the project is extending beyond just those who helped build it. Tenants who will live in the building also need to be taught a whole new way of interacting with their living environment.

“We’re really engaging our residents in new ways,” said Ben Sturtz, REACH’s housing development project manager.

Something as simple as how residents treat the triple-paned windows in their apartments, for example, is critical.

“The windows are crucial to (the residents’) indoor air quality and their comfort,” Sturtz said. “But also, if we’re really going to make this (project) energy efficient, how those windows get used is crucial.”

Tracking how residents interact with the energy-efficient features of their units will be boosted by an energy monitoring system installed in the lobby area, Recko said. The flat-screen television will show how much energy is used in each unit throughout each month.

While the screen will allow residents to engage in a friendly competition to save energy, the monitor also will let REACH determine which residents need more help understanding how to obtain the best performance from the energy-saving features in their units.

“If we see hot spots, that will show us that we need to do more education and will allow us to offer incentives to reward those who are doing well,” Recko said.

Planning for the future

Units in Orchards at Orenco already are in high demand, Sturtz said. Part of the draw is the opportunity for renters already watching their budgets to save money with lower utility bills. But another part of the attraction is a simple matter of supply and demand.

Sturtz estimates that there’s a need for approximately 19,000 living units in Washington County for residents who earn at or below the 50 percent median income level. But REACH and other groups that focus on affordable housing are only able to bring a total of roughly 150 units online each year. Surtz doesn’t see the imbalance improving in the future.

“As Portland becomes more unaffordable, it becomes an even bigger challenge,” Sturtz said.

Recko, Sturtz and others at REACH consider their foray into the world of passive house a success. But while future phases of the development – as well as REACH projects throughout the Portland-metro area – will likely be “passive house inspired, they won’t be designed and built to pursue official designations, Sturtz said.

Finding the funding to cover the extra costs that came with the decision to pursue a designation for phase one, which Recko estimates increased the project cost by 10 percent to 11 percent, required stitching together money from several sources, which likely won’t be available for future phases. A $500,000 grant received for the first phase of Orchards, for example, was a one-time opportunity.

“We made a pitch to Meyer,” Recko said. “What they did was over and above what they would typically invest. They were investing in (research and development).”

Ground will be broken this month on a second phase of Orchards, near the first. Its 58 units of workforce housing are expected to be ready for tenants around June 2016.

A third, final phase is further down the road. REACH is considering possibly locating that development near an elementary school and including two- and three-bedroom units to serve families, according to Recko. But right now, planning is still in the early stages.

“We’re at the point where we’re starting to seek out financing,” she said.

If you go

What: Orchards at Orenco phase I grand opening

When: June 29, 10:30 a.m.

Where: 6520 N.E. Cherry Drive, Hillsboro

More information: call 503-231-0682
Orchards at Orenco Phase 1

Owner/developer: REACH Community Development

Architects: Ankrom Moisan Architects (of record), William Wilson Architects (design)

General contractor: Walsh Construction

Construction manager: Housing Development Center

Passive house consultant: Green Hammer

Special limited partner: Washington County Housing Authority

Funding partners: Enterprise Community Partners, Community Housing Fund, Energy Trust of Oregon, Meyer Memorial Trust, NOAH, Oregon Housing and Community Services, NeighborWorks America, Washington County Office of Community Development, Wells Fargo

The post Atypical affordable housing appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

$18 million of state money awarded to REACH Community Development will help it construct and rehabilitate dozens of affordable housing units in the Portland-metro area.

The nonprofit will use low-income housing tax credits and grant money from Oregon Housing and Community Services to construct the second phase of the Orchards at Orenco affordable housing complex in Hillsboro and renovate the Bronaugh Apartments in downtown Portland, REACH spokeswoman Laura Recko said.

The project to build the 150-unit Orchards at Orenco on a six-acre property off of Northeast Cherry Drive in Hillsboro has been broken into three phases, Recko said. The $14.5 million, 57-unit first phase is under construction and scheduled to finish in June 2015. The $13.6 million, 58-unit second phase is scheduled to start in June 2015 and wrap up in June 2016.

Walsh Construction Co. is the general contractor for the first phase of the project and will construct the second phase. William Wilson Architects and Ankrom Moisan Architects designed the first phase; Ankrom Moisan is designing the second.

No start date is set yet for the third phase, Recko said.

“It’s still several years out for us,” she said. “It’s definitely in our plans to finish it.”

REACH also will use state money to tackle a $13.6 million renovation of the historic, 109-year-old Bronaugh Apartments. The 50-unit building, home to low-income elderly and disabled residents, most recently was renovated in 1982.

Plans for an upcoming renovation include a full seismic upgrade, a courtyard upgrade and installation of new walls, flooring and heaters in units.

Walsh Construction crews will start work in May 2015 on the Bronaugh Apartments project, designed by Carleton Hart Architecture. Construction is scheduled to wrap up in May 2016.

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Walsh Construction is building a highly efficient, transit-oriented workforce housing project in the Orenco Station neighborhood of Hillsboro for owner/developer REACH CDC. The 57-unit project, designed by Ankrom Moisan Architects, is the first phase of the development, which over the course of three phases will total approximately 150 units.

The $14.5 million project is being built to Passive House standards with the goal of reducing tenants’ monthly energy bills. Green Hammer is serving as a consultant on the building, which will be the largest multifamily Passive House project in the country when completed. Work on the 12-month project is slated to wrap in June 2015.

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Urban Land Institute Northwest next week will host a presentation about the benefits that cities can reap by encouraging infill development.

The event, “Thriving Cities Alliance Presents: Advanced Metrics & Urban Land Value,” will take place Sept. 25 from 3 to 6 p.m. at The Benson hotel, 309 S.W. Broadway.

Joseph Minicozzi, principal of Urban3, an Asheville, N.C.-based real estate analytics company, will discuss his research comparing urban infill and sprawl development, said Sarah DeVita-McBride, ULI manager for Oregon and Southwest Washington. His findings point to increased city tax revenue on properties with infill development, she said.

“He basically says we are giving all these subsidies to urban sprawl, but what cities are getting back are actually much less than you think,” DeVita-McBride said.

Also, Gerard Mildner, director of Portland State University’s Center for Real Estate, will talk about the Orenco Station development in Hillsboro and how the team’s use of the Oregon vertical housing tax exemption program can be applied elsewhere.

Both presentations will be followed by a panel discussion with Metro councilor Carlotta Collette, Hillsboro Planning Director Colin Cooper and Hillsboro Chamber of Commerce President Deanna Palm.

The entire event will focus on creating thriving urban cores in cities throughout the Pacific Northwest, DeVita-McBride said.

“It’s also: How do we create better communities within the downtowns we have instead of encouraging urban sprawl?” she said.

Check-in for the event will start at 3 p.m. The presentations and panel discussion will run from 3:30 to 5 p.m., and networking and happy hour for attendees will follow until 6 p.m.

The cost of the presentation is $50 for ULI members and $70 for nonmembers. The costs for members and nonmembers who work in the public or nonprofit sector are $40 and $55, respectively. Student rates are $25 for members and $40 for nonmembers.

More information and event registration is available at . The deadline to register is Sept. 23.

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As Marti Brown walked along North Mississippi Avenue in Portland, she thought about Franklin Boulevard in Sacramento, Calif.

Brown, executive director of the North Franklin District Business Association in Sacramento, immediately noticed that little was needed to spruce up the storefronts on Mississippi Avenue. Fresh paint or new signage could be enough to help revitalize older commercial buildings on Franklin Boulevard, she observed.

“A lot of the work (on Mississippi Avenue) was really simple, like peeling back to the original architecture and painting bright colors,” she said. “All of those are things that I think could be very relevant to my district … There’s little things like that – they’re not rocket science – that could make a big difference.”

Brown, government officials, private developers and others representing Sacramento County or Sacramento suburbs Elk Grove and Rancho Cordova in May spent a couple of days in Portland learning about its success with neighborhood revitalization, infill and transit-oriented development. The visit was organized through participation in Portland State University’s Urban Sustainability Accelerator program.

Through the PSU program, a year of support is provided for participating cities to implement sustainability programs. Participants next week will reconvene in Portland to review lessons learned from their visit.

Officials from Sacramento-area cities were especially interested in the program because they’re aiming to compact development and reduce the time residents spend driving their cars, Urban Sustainability Accelerator Executive Director Robert Liberty said.

The recent tour for Sacramento-area officials spotlighted successful infill and redevelopment sites, and included stops in the Central Eastside, on Williams and Vancouver avenues, in the Pearl District and at housing developments Villebois in Wilsonville and Orenco Station in Hillsboro.

“We never say, ‘You should do it like this,’ ” Liberty said. “What we say is, ‘(Here are) some things that are parallel – maybe that can help you.’ I think they do see us as innovators of a different kind of urban development. What we like to do is help them skip over our learning and help them advance more quickly.”

Officials in the Sacramento area can learn a lot from Portland, said Mike McKeever, CEO of the Sacramento Area Council of Governments. The organization spearheaded involvement in the PSU program, and McKeever joined the group’s visit to Portland. Many of the tour attendees hope to emulate the rapid revitalization of commercial corridors like Mississippi Avenue, he said.

“Portland has so many great examples of amazingly fast turnarounds of areas like that,” he said. “It’s really those areas like Mississippi and Williams and Division that really have my folks hopeful that they can steal some ideas and bring that back.”

Several Sacramento-area developers attended the tour. Meea Kang, president of Domus Development, was impressed by how closely public agencies and private developers worked together toward a common goal of infill development.

“It’s about the single-minded prioritization of what those consumers want to see,” she said. “It was a great take-away for our group.”

Portland is ahead of the game in responding to a generational shift where many more people prefer walkable neighborhoods closer to the city core, Kang said.

“It’s starting to change here in Sacramento,” she said. “It’s starting to change in other parts of California. There is absolutely a demand, but there are challenges. It’s frankly a lot easier to build low density than it is to build high density.”

Sacramento County Planning Director Leighann Moffitt said she attended the tour because the county is encouraging development similar to what is happening in Portland.

“We want to create that pedestrian feeling, knowing that the market is changing,” she said.

Brown said one of most insightful parts of the trip was seeing concrete examples of how neighborhoods have been revitalized in Portland.

“I appreciated that Mississippi (Avenue) has had its own challenges being isolated from the rest of the city,” she said. “It was helpful to know that this is not a district that had perfect bone structure. It was just helpful to be reminded that you can work through the challenges.”

The post Exporting revitalization success appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

The developer of The Platform District at Orenco Station in Hillsboro has released the names of three buildings that will be a key part of the project.

Holland Partners Group, which is developing the project, has named its central, east and west buildings Hub 9 at the Platform District, The Rowlock at the Platform District and The Edge at the Platform District, respectively, said Gary Vance, development director for the Vancouver, Wash.-based developer.

Hub 9 was named for its central location in the $120 million project, which will be north of the Orenco light-rail station and west of Northwest 231st Avenue.

A public plaza, retail and a one-way loop road will surround Hub 9, Vance said. Nine is short for 1909, the year of construction of the Orenco Mercantile in the area, Vance said.

“We are located very close to that site,” Vance said. “It is the central building and is very central to activity at Orenco.”

The Rowlock is named for masonry term and gives a nod to the warehouse style of the east building.

The Edge is a building that is more on the outskirts of the development and will push the limits with a modern and edgy style, Vance said.

The project’s first phase, Platform 14, opened in Jan. 2013. Its second phase, Tessera, opened this past January.

In total, the five phases will have 1,090 apartment units, about 25,000 square feet of ground floor retail space and two levels of above-ground parking.

“The ground floors are concrete; the top four floors are wood construction,” Vance said. “That is unique for suburban construction. Usually, we do not see concrete levels in the suburbs. This will be unique for Hillsboro.”

The project’s retail and apartment buildings will essentially “wrap” around the above-ground parking, creating what is called a “Texas-style donut” for the parking area in the middle, Vance said. The parking connects residents and shoppers to their apartments and stores.

“Essentially, we have finished the hole of the donut,” he said. “What’s unique about this style of building is that it allows residents to park above ground and walk right onto the floor of their unit without getting wet (in the rain).”

Holland also has reached a disposition and development agreement with TriMet for building 125 public parking stalls in the west-side parking garage area, Vance said. In return, TriMet will sell the land for The Edge, the westernmost building of the project, for market price, he said.

Holland Construction, which is building the project, expects to start on construction of the building, including the stalls, in the fall, Vance said.

The post Naming names at Orenco Station’s Platform District appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

Market-rate housing is being planned for the AmberGlen area of Hillsboro.

West Hills Development is currently seeking permitting to build a four-story, 203-unit apartment complex on Northwest 206^th Avenue and Cornell Road. The complex, tentatively named the 206, will join a number of other affordable housing units of similar size in the area.

The project is predicted to cost between $20 million and $25 million. Construction is planned to begin in August.  The complex will include two wood buildings and a number of sustainable design features, including stormwater planters. designed the project.

AmberGlen was designation as a regional center by Metro in 2010; it is the first center designated since Portland adopted its 2040 Regional Growth Concept in 1996.

The post 203-unit apartment complex planned for AmberGlen in Hillsboro appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

The team at REACH Community Development, an affordable housing developer based in Portland, is ratcheting its focus up a notch from affordable housing to affordable living.

“If we really think through all the things we do, we can really enable our residents to have lower housing costs, lower energy costs and lower transportation costs, which are the biggest bills people deal with,” REACH project manager Jessica Woodruff said.

With that pursuit in mind, REACH is developing a 57-unit affordable housing complex in Hillsboro with passive house design. Craig Kelley, senior project manager for the Housing Development Center, said it is cost-engineering the Orchards at Orenco Station, between $8.2 million and $8.4 million, with William Wilson Architects, Walsh Construction, Green Hammer and PAE Consulting Engineers, to optimize energy performance and minimize incremental costs.

Passive house design uses superior insulation and air ventilation systems to dramatically reduce energy consumption, and Dylan Lamar, certified passive house consultant with Portland-based Green Hammer, said the building will be one of the first passive house multifamily buildings in the nation.

“It’s a fabulously innovative project that’s going to reduce total heat loads in the building by about 90 percent from a typical building,” he said.

Lamar participated in the design of one of the first low-income passive houses in the country, a single-family project in Urbana, Ill. He said the size of the Orchards at Orenco Station will present its own unique design challenges, such as the creation of an elaborate ventilation system to continuously cycle air throughout the complex.

The building will use 11-inch-thick walls with several inches of exterior insulation, and triple-paned windows to make the building’s envelope nearly airtight. Lamar said that one advantage of incorporating passive design in a larger building with many rooms is that it does not require 16-inch-thick walls typically needed in single-family homes.

“I think the most exciting part of it is to be able to provide what’s typically a very expensive way to build for a low-income population,” he said.

Passive house can add roughly 10 percent to the front end of construction costs, but Woodruff said it will save money over the life of the project because of lower utility bills, which are expected to climb faster than the rate of inflation. They expect that electricity for one unit could cost as little as $15 a month.

Woodruff said the Orchards at Orenco Station will be geared toward people who earn 50 percent of the area’s median income – approximately $25,000 a year.

According to Washington County’s Comprehensive Plan, between 12,000 and 20,000 households in the county are in that income bracket and have affordable housing needs not being met by current supply. In addition, approximately 34 percent of households have extremely low (below 30 percent of the area’s median), low (below 50 percent of the area’s median) or moderate (below 80 percent of the area’s median) incomes. Of those with low incomes, 49 percent are likely to spend more than half of their pay on housing.

“It’s a wonderful neighborhood; there’s just no affordable housing there,” Woodruff said. “So we are hoping to sort of round that out and make it a little bit more holistic of a neighborhood.”

But getting the financing for that kind of a development in today’s economy – in which the majority of projects that pencil out are high-end multifamily – can be difficult.

Woodruff said the Washington County Office of Community Development recently awarded the project a grant of $750,000 and that Enterprise Community Investment and NeighborWorks America previously awarded grants. REACH also is applying to Oregon Housing and Community Services for a 9 percent housing tax credit.

REACH has a purchase and sale agreement for the entire six-acre, greenfield plot that sits just north of the MAX light-rail line and south of Cherry Drive at Northwest 231st Avenue. The land’s owner is Tom Walsh, via Orenco III LLC.

Woodruff said the 57-unit building is planned as the first phase of a three-phase project to develop 140 to 150 units on the site. The group is approximately 75 percent done with its schematic design and hopes to begin construction in fall 2013. Whether those second and third buildings use passive design will depend on the success of the first, Woodruff said.

Kelley said he thinks it will pencil out in the long run.

“It’s not something you can necessarily underwrite to, but there’s a lot of studies out there that green buildings generally … tend to have higher resident satisfaction. They tend to lease up faster and they tend to turn over less,” he said.

Lamar agrees and hopes the project will attract the attention of other developers.

“It’s a more superior living environment, and I suspect they’re going to have a much lower turnover rate in their tenancy as a result, which I hope will start to sell the concept with other developers that are more financially driven and not so vision-driven,” Lamar said.

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