Portland Community College plans to build a 20,000-square-foot training center in Scappoose as part of a new venture: the Oregon Manufacturing Innovation Center.

Last week, the Oregon Legislature released $7.5 million for the project, also known as OMIC. The center is backed by Oregon State University, Portland State University and Portland Community College, along with Boeing and groups such as Business Oregon, the city of Scappoose and the Oregon Employment Department.

Plans for the OMIC call for both a research and development center as well as a training center. The research and development center will be housed in an existing building that the Oregon Institute of Technology has committed to purchase. It will have about 25,000 square feet for research and development and 10,000 square feet for classroom, business and office use, according to a news release.

PCC also wants to build a training center holding approximately 20,000 square feet, said Nathan Buehler, spokesman for Business Oregon, an economic development group. The community college is currently negotiating with the property owner to build a facility, he said.

A PCC spokesman was out of the office and could not be reached for comment.

In addition to OSU and PSU, Boeing will serve as an anchor tenant, the groups said in a news release.

OMIC is modeled after the Advanced Manufacturing and Research Center in Sheffield, England. AMRC Sheffield is a 400-acre campus that employs 2,000 engineers and apprentices, and provides 800 member companies with access to training.

OMIC is slated to formally launch by 2017, although advanced manufacturing research activities by Oregon Tech, OSU and PSU are poised to begin immediately. Also, PCC will begin OMIC apprenticeship programs at its Rock Creek and Sylvania campuses until the new training center is built.

In April, PCC’s board of trustees passed a resolution allowing the college’s president to move forward with the purchase of property for the training center.

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Portland’s Fortis Construction and Hennebery Eddy Architects are at work on an extensive, $10.5 million renovation of the University of Oregon‘s Chapman Hall.

The historic building on the Eugene campus was built in 1939 to house the university’s bookstore and humanities departments. It’s now home to the Robert D. Clark Honors College, with a large lecture hall and several smaller classrooms.

Crews will upgrade Chapman Hall’s building systems, including heating, ventilation, electrical, plumbing and lighting, according to the university. Work also will involve interior partition revisions and material enhancements.

The project is in the design phase. Design completion is targeted for July 1, and project completion is expected on Dec. 1, 2017.

The renovations are being paid for via $5.5 million in deferred maintenance X-bonds, $2.5 million in state G-bonds and a $2.5 million donor-matching grant, according to the university.

Chapman Hall, designed by Ellis Lawrence, features concrete walls and brick veneer. It’s among the historic buildings that front Memorial Quad.

Oregon’s public universities are hotbeds of construction activity. A major expansion is under way at Oregon State University‘s Cascades campus in Bend, while Portland State University is planning a new multiuse arena called Viking Pavilion as well as potential renovations to Smith Memorial Student Union.

The University of Oregon is also planning to renovate Dean Hall and build a $35 million, 50,000-square-foot College and Careers Building. Willie and Don Tykeson of Eugene in 2014 presented a $10 million lead gift for the College and Careers Building.

Fortis Construction is also leading construction management and general contracting for bond-funded projects at Portland Community College‘s Rock Creek campus. Shane Kucera, spokesman for Fortis, said that more than 80 percent of the firm’s projects are CM-GC builds.

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After an earlier effort in Corvallis to build a hotel on a prime riverfront parcel failed in dramatic fashion, a development team devised a plan that fit the height envelope while still providing the needed parking: They put the hotel on top of the parking, and secured a franchise with an upscale brand.

“I don’t think the hotel is terribly unique from a design standpoint, but it’s certainly an interesting development for downtown Corvallis,” said Vern McDonald, a member of the limited liability company that’s developing a 75-foot-tall Courtyard Marriott hotel at 115 S.W. First St. – what will be the second tallest building in town.

Crews with A&A Construction are now pouring the concrete superstructure and cap of the 136-stall parking structure. The second phase of construction will involve building the four-story hotel tower that will add 176 rooms to the city’s existing 800. Construction should conclude by summer 2017.

Though many of the rooms will be considered “upscale,” the project includes standard hotel fare – an off-lobby restaurant, 2,000 square feet of meeting space, a fitness center and a pool. The $20 million, half-block project is situated across the Willamette River from the Orleans Natural Area, and a short walk to the Oregon State University campus and downtown Corvallis’ many shops and restaurants. It’s also across the street from the 82-foot-tall Renaissance on the Riverfront mixed-use tower, the tallest building in town.

An earlier plan to build a $23 million Hyatt Place hotel on the site was shot down by the city council after vehement public opposition over using $4.2 million in public financing to build an accompanying parking structure. Without the subsidy, developers argued at the time, a hotel on the site wouldn’t work.

The parcel was purchased in 2014 for $2 million. Though partnering with the upscale Marriott line will mean higher room rates, McDonald says that decision wasn’t made simply to charge more per room.

“There’s a lot more to it than that,” he said. “We wanted to be more appealing to the traveling public and the convention-going public … It has to do with having a product type that the market wants to use.”

Regularly recognized for its livability, Corvallis has faced challenges where growth and economic development are concerned, said Tom Nelson, Corvallis’ economic development director. With such a small market, one hospitality project can quickly upset equilibrium.

The riverfront area, and Corvallis in general, is ready for another boutique project, he said.

“We feel that downtown especially is underserved by upscale hotels,” he said.

Tourism to the city has long revolved around two things: home football games and academic conferences. But that’s starting to change as more people visit for business unrelated to OSU, according to Mary Pat Parker, executive director of Visit Corvallis.

“I like to think we have three seasons now – spring, fall and now also, summer,” she said.

The project was designed by Jensen Fey Architecture and Planning of Seattle. Devco Engineering of Corvallis is the civil engineer.

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A ton of research for the building industry is happening at local universities. It’s all state-of-the-art and expensive; some of it is even proprietary.

University researchers with big budgets study many broad topics such as seismic retrofitting, air quality and energy conservation. Smaller-scale research for specific new products developed by startups and small businesses is underwritten by grants and loans – much of it provided by state-funded nonprofit Oregon BEST.

Kevin Van Den Wymelenberg is director of the University of Oregon’s Energy Studies in Buildings Laboratories, in Eugene and Portland. He said his labs are working on many projects, and that the research helps companies not only validate their products but also connect to each other.

“We work with a lot of different industry partners and it’s an opportunity to be an aggregator and cast the wide net and maybe make matches,” he said.

“And we have really, really deep knowledge in specific problems. Our real work is problems we have right now and how we can help make that research more meaningful.”

Such research is making possible the validation of groundbreaking and innovative building products and practices. Here are some of the latest developments:

Formaldehyde-free wood adhesive

One new product about ready to hit the market is a formaldehyde-free wood adhesive that can be used to make particle board and other manufactured wood products.

Hugh Mandel, owner and CEO of Corvallis-based EcoPro Polymers, has been working with Fred Kamke of Oregon State University’s Department of Wood Science and Engineering to test and develop his new glue.

Mandel said the research had an unexpected benefit by connecting him with his first client, Spekply, which has its own product being tested at OSU. Spekply creates wood-like products for specialty architectural panels and other products using agricultural waste, including hemp stalks and sunflower hulls.

“Spekply was looking to develop specialty architectural panels and we collaborated with them and did some pilot testing at OSU,” Mandel said. “We are ready to scale up for them whenever they are ready to produce. (The research) helped us a great deal.”

Kamke said EcoPro’s adhesive has been tested in phases over the past year and a half.

“The whole premise is to provide an alternative adhesive system for many types of wood products that does not contain formaldehyde,” he said. “This new commercial venture would not have been possible without Oregon BEST.”

Reduced-concrete wind tower base

Another emerging company, RUTE Foundation Systems of Portland, is working with Franz Rad, professor of civil and environmental engineering at Portland State University.

Doug Krause, president of RUTE, said his design for a wind tower base will cut down by 75 percent the amount of concrete used for wind farm turbine towers, which can reach heights up to 400 feet.

“As far as launching and making all other parts of the train roll right, they helped a ton in making leverage and getting the test project out there,” he said of Oregon BEST.

Rad said he has been working with Krause for about year. Everything is still in the design phase.

“What we’re trying to do is eliminate most of the concrete that is used,” Rad said. “It’s not because we don’t like concrete, but it is such a big heap.”

A wind tower’s base can be 8 feet deep and 40 to 50 feet wide to support the tall turbines, he said, which essentially makes it a permanent fixture.

The problem is that sometimes wind towers need to move because of changing weather patterns or greater need elsewhere. With the existing building method, that’s almost impossible to do, Rad said, and potential farming land is wasted.

“You can’t get rid of that heap of concrete and would have to spend lots of money to come in and dynamite it out,” he said.

The solution that RUTE came up with and that PSU is testing is a portable “hexapod” – a six-legged precast concrete structure that can be assembled in pieces and removed the same way.

“Once precast, these beams are pretty massive themselves – about 50,000 pounds each and 24 feet long,” Rad said. “The cross-section is 3.5 feet wide by 7 feet deep with a lot of reinforcement and post-tensioning systems inside. It’s a very stout beam.”

The beams, still being designed, will be able to handle 14,000 pounds of pressure per square inch. The six legs will be attached to a center hub about 17 feet in diameter, Rad said. Towers will be delivered to sites and bolted into the “hexapods.”

“Then all the equipment has to be installed – electronics and propellers – so we can eliminate most of the concrete and make construction easier,” he said.

A tower might stay in use for decades, Rad said, but once it is no longer needed, people will be able to move it.

“We can take the beams out and then reuse them somewhere else so the land can be plowed back into a cornfield,” he said.

Rad said he is also researching new methods to produce steel that is twice as strong and concrete that is three times stronger.

Better ways of capturing wind energy

Raul Cal, professor in PSU’s Mechanical and Materials Engineering Department, is studying wind energy for three proposals. Portland General Electric is providing grant money for one proposal and the National Science Foundation is covering the other two.

“Each one has a different scope, but all of them are looking toward how to increase capacity factors or be able to extract power out of wind farms in a better, more informed way,” Cal said.

Specifically, PGE has anted up about $750,000 for the PSU lab to conduct research on its Biglow Canyon Wind Farm in the Columbia River Gorge.

“They are interested in understanding what is happening with their farm and how they can product more energy,” Cal said. “We use wind tunnel experiments to try and replicate what they have and give them a better idea on how to harness the wind.”

Many people worked on the project, but Cal said high school student Jorge Reyes made a significant contribution by spending three of his summers as an unpaid intern constructing the terrain.

Efforts to increase seismic strength

Thomas Schumacher, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at PSU, is working with associate professor Peter Dusicka on seismic research.

Schumacher, who joined PSU last year, also is continuing his collaboration with Erik Thostenson of the University of Delaware on “a big federally-funded project” looking at carbon nanotube sensing of seismic events.

The nanotubes form an electrically conducive network. When the skin is put on the structure, an electric current is applied to the network in different places. Once a structure deforms or experiences tension, the skin deforms as the nanotubes in that area move away from each other. The amount of change in the skin can then be measured to determine the severity of the damage or stress.

Schumacher said he is still in the process of building his lab at PSU and working on other research, such as acoustic emission monitoring that can measure the effect of real-time seismic events.

“We measure dozens of sensors in a network and using advanced signal processing can figure out the location and type of source and the nature of the source and capture it as it occurs,” he said.

Other research can help measure damage from earthquakes by using ultrasounds to determine loads being carried by structures such as concrete columns.

“We can actually send stress waves through a material and determine the level of applied stresses on that element,” he said.

Another experiment at PSU uses digital cameras to take videos of how buildings vibrate, Schumacher said.

“We use signal processing to analyze individual pixels and see how the pixel changes as a function of time,” he said. “We get information on frequency and in some cases even the amplitude or vibration or displacement.”

Dusicka’s research concerns structural strength in seismic events. He is trying is to create a type of brace that becomes a “sacrificial” element able to absorb some of the energy of a seismic event and perhaps ensure a bridge’s continued use.

“And while that component gets damaged, it protects the rest of the bridge with the idea that you can come back and replace that component,” he said. “In effect, you are trying to have a sacrificial bit within the bridge that will hopefully protect the rest.”

Typical bridges have two or three spans with several columns in between, Dusicka said.

“This strategy we’re pursuing right now is introducing these special braces into where the columns normally sit so that when an earthquake comes through, the braces take most of the damage and protect the rest of the columns,” he said.

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Oregon State University is accepting nominations for the 2016 Excellence in Family Business Awards.

The awards are designed to honor families that have done outstanding jobs managing their companies and businesses through several generations.

Any business that has at least two generations working together is eligible for the award. Nominations can be submitted in one of three categories: family harmony, generational leadership and business renewal.

Nominations can be submitted by business family members or employees, business associates, and trade and community organizations. The deadline to submit nominations is April 1, with applications due by May 1.

A panel of past winners and OSU faculty and advisers will select finalists. All finalists will be required to make a presentation in Portland on June 14. Winners and finalists will be honored during an awards event in November.

For more information, visit or call 800-859-7609.

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Oregon State University now has a minor in humanitarian engineering to serve students who want to make positive societal impacts through their work.

Kendra Sharp, who directs the program, said electives as well as engineering courses can be used to fulfill the 27 credits required for the minor.

“We are really emphasizing the social and cultural context of work we do in engineering,” she said.

For example, a required class could be one covering anthropology in international development. More details are available at .

“A portion will be fulfilled by core classes in humanitarian engineering and technical engineering for global health solutions,” Sharp said. “And then they can count electives that are taken from general education requirements, so you can take courses in public health and social justice.”

Sharp was chosen to head the humanitarian program through an endowed chair created with a $1.5 million gift from OSU alumni Richard and Gretchen Evans. The couple also made contributions two years earlier to help launch the program. It was sanctioned officially in September.

Sharp, a mechanical engineer, has worked for the past several years to in Pakistan. She said the new humanitarian engineering minor is attracting a more diverse student population, including more women, than is typical for engineering.

Grace Burleson, a senior pursing a mechanical engineering degree, said she sees a minor in humanitarian engineering as a way to further her interest in helping developing countries. Burleson is now serving an internship in Uganda developing a sustainable business plan for the manufacture and distribution of biosand water filters.

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The Associated General Contractors‘ Oregon State University chapter took second place in the national AGC‘s Outstanding Student Chapter contest.

OSU AGC won $750 for “its unique focus and fusion of workforce development programs and service,” according to a news release issued by the Oregon-Columbia chapter. Among its accomplishments, the OSU chapter is credited with creating AGC’s first high school chapter at Portland’s ACE Academy. Chapter members helped the ACE students devise a constitution and calendar of events and expand membership.

Through a program sponsored by OSU, the chapter also used building games and computer programs to teach middle school students about the construction industry. The chapter volunteered for community service efforts, including food donation to a local homeless shelter, homebuilding and landscaping projects with Habitat for Humanity, and assistance with the Oregon-Columbia chapter’s work on a surgical center in Haiti.

Nearly 200 AGC chapters operate at two- or four-year colleges offering construction-related courses.

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The REvive Jacmel medical center in Jacmel, Haiti, is not a typical construction project. It’s being led by a Portland plastic surgeon, and costing approximately $150,000 — close to $35,000 more than budgeted originally. Project planning began in 2013; completion is slated for 2016.

But now the collaborative effort has almost produced a building … finally.

“It’s been a long, strange trip, and we’ve had lots and lots of help from lots of different people,” said Michael Workman, the Portlander who for the past three years has shepherded the effort to build the center. “I’ve never done anything like this before; I mean, I’m a private-practice plastic surgeon. I guess I was just looking for some way to help.”

With walls up and roof trusses assembled and ready for installation, the REvive Jacmel dental and surgical center is now, literally, off the ground. Elections in Haiti caused delays.

“There were times when I thought, boy, we’re never going to get shovels in the ground,” said Jim McKune, a retired general contractor and REvive Jacmel project team member.

On Jan. 12, 2010, Haiti was rocked by a magnitude 7.0 earthquake that laid waste to the capital city of Port-au-Prince and outlying areas. By chance it was the same day as Associated General Contractors‘ annual meeting in Oregon. After watching news footage showing the devastation, an AGC committee convened and voted to send money to the people of Haiti. It committed $75,000 up front, and individuals contributed more.

As a recipient for the money was sought, it “sat there and sat there and sat there,” McKune recalled. A land deal fell through and a designer pulled out. In time, students from the University of Oregon and Oregon State University were involved.

“The idea was to make this into a learning opportunity, so everybody benefits,” said Dale Campbell, former AGC president.

KPFF Engineering and Waterleaf Architecture signed on, assisting designs and working with students. Then, about two years ago, the group identified a 5-acre property near a Children’s Hope orphanage, where a surgical and dental center could be built for the price in mind. Children’s Hope, a ministry of the First Baptist Church of Montgomery, Ala., donated the land. Scott Payne of Children’s Hope has supervised the project on site.

Two months ago, the shovels finally hit the ground. The floor has been poured and the walls put up. OSU students traveled there to assemble the roof trusses, which are under tarps and should be installed soon.

Workman first visited the affected area three years ago, and came across people dying who couldn’t afford surgery. He saw a woman who contracted gangrene following a foot amputation, and a boy with a hernia whose intestines protruded through his stomach. Many people in the affected area earn no more than $2 a day. Medical centers accept only cash and no insurance.
“In essence, for many people, there’s no medical care,” he said.

Though there is a finish line of sorts in sight, Workman said the work won’t end when construction is complete. Next will come the matter of operating the full-time medical facility.

“One thing you notice when you go there,” he said, is “there’s so much need.”

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Oregon BEST and several of its partners will use a $120,000 grant from the U.S Economic Development Administration to study whether cross-laminated timber has the potential to provide a new source of income for rural Oregon and Southwest Washington communities struggling to survive in the face of dwindling timber revenues.

D.R. Johnson, a mill based in Riddle, already has tapped money from Oregon BEST along with research from Oregon State University to become the first company in the country to begin producing certified CLT.

The results of the study are expected to help officials in Oregon and Washington determine next steps to help the two states establish themselves as leaders in the emerging CLT industry. Data to be gathered will include information about the type and amount of training that might be needed to build a workforce well-versed in the production and manufacture of CLT, the supply of natural resources available, regulatory and building code changes that might be needed to encourage the use of CLT, and manufacturing capacity.

Joining Oregon BEST in conducting the study will be Business Oregon, Oregon State University, Washington State University and the Oregon Manufacturing Extension Partnership. In addition to the grant money, $80,000 worth of in-kind services will be used to conduct the study, according to a press release issued by Oregon BEST.

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Oregon State University, to help set its engineering school graduates apart, has trademarked the term Oregon State Engineer with the state.

Thuy Tran, spokeswoman for the OSU Engineering Department, said the university’s foundation wanted something that differentiates the school’s engineering program from those of other schools because it encompasses more than traditional engineering curricula.

“Our program trains our graduates to have several components: general knowledge of all engineering disciplines, depth of knowledge of their own chosen field, many programs through our Leadership Academy, and soft skills like communications, presentations and collaboration,” she said.

OSU engineering students also learn to be good global citizens through extracurricular activities and interaction with programs like Engineers Without Borders, Tran said.

The term Oregon State Engineer could be used in university publications, Tran said, when referencing OSU engineering program graduates.

“I also think it will give a boost to students seeking jobs along with reference to what that (trademark) means,” she said. “But the industry won’t know until the trademark is more broadly used.”

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