A long vacant lot in North Portland is gaining affordable housing.

Walsh Construction is serving as the general contractor for the Argyle Street Apartments, a 189-unit complex that is rising at the corner of Argyle Street and Interstate Avenue – in the Kenton neighborhood.

MWA Architects designed the complex, which technically is a single building. However, it’s more akin to a pair of neighboring structures connected by walkways. The two four-story structures will provide a total of 151,555 square feet of floor area.

The project is intended to serve low-income families and working adults. Longtime and displaced residents of North or Northeast Portland will have priority through the Portland Housing Bureau‘s N/NE Neighborhood Housing Strategy.

After changes in the federal tax code reduced the value of low-income housing tax credits, developer REACH Community Development Corporation was forced to abandon plans for mixed-use programming.

Construction is under way, with crews tackling structural concrete work and sewer lines.

A 55-foot-deep dry well is being excavated this week, with a crew of pile drivers from Vancouver, Washington-based Pacific Foundation utilizing a massive Bauer BG 55 foundation drill rig to carry out the work.

“We’re working hard at getting some footings and columns and shear walls and stem walls built, and today we’re doing the rebar for the slab-on-grade that we’re going to pour, I believe, next week,” said Laura Voss, a project engineer with Walsh Construction. “Then we’ve been doing a lot of plumbing work over here, but it all kind of had to be paused until this rig gets out of the way.”

Originally there were supposed to be three separate dry wells, Walsh Construction project engineer Scott Rascoe said. But geotechnical analysis suggested one location would be superior.

To complete the job, a convoy of trucks delivered the drill rig, including a 6-foot-wide steel caisson that was used to shore up the walls of the dry well as the permanent concrete pieces were set into place. Setting the drill rig up for a single day’s work required three days of prep, Rascoe said, and then three more days were needed to break it down.

“It’s another load just to get the caisson out here,” he said. “And then we’ll fabricate what’s left on site. It takes about one day to drill it. Then we’ll start testing it tomorrow … It’s a big process.”

On Monday, crews from Pacific Foundation and N8 Excavation set the caisson and installed the concrete manholes inside before backfilling. Then the caisson was removed.

“We ended up going a lot deeper with the one location instead of having three separate dry wells on the site,” Rascoe said. “This is one of the largest drill rigs they actually have, which becomes an issue, because there are not many of them. There are only a couple of companies that even do this in the state, so to get someone who has the capability and the knowledge to do this is hard.”

The project team expects construction to finish next year.

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Bremik Construction is performing a tenant improvement and structural upgrade on Viking Automatic Sprinkler Company‘s office on Northwest Front Avenue. Viking has occupied the office, which is connected to its fabrication shop, since the early 1950s. Due to soil instability, the office space at the front of the building had sunk around six inches, so that portion of the building was pulling away from the shop side.

In order to stabilize the foundation, Pacific Foundation installed 68 micro-piles, which were driven 25 to 30 feet into bedrock. The old concrete foundation was demolished, and new grade beams, concrete supports and a new 100-foot-by-20-foot slab were installed to bring the office area back to elevation.

With structural improvements done, the office area is now undergoing a remodel. Non-load-bearing walls have been removed and the two-story space has been reframed with both wood and steel studs. A mezzanine has been expanded, adding about 1,440 square feet of office space, and windows have been replaced with energy-efficient aluminum-framed windows.

Framing work is nearly complete, and installation of insulation and drywall is set to begin soon. Crews will install an aluminum and glass storefront entrance, concrete walks and stairs, an ADA-accessible entrance, and landscaping and irrigation. They also will paint the building’s exterior.

The project’s architect is Mildren Design Group, and T.M. Rippey Consulting Engineers is the structural engineer. Total completion of the project is slated for late February or early March.

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