Students are settling into the newest addition to the downtown Portland campus of the Pacific Northwest College of Arts.

Renovation efforts to turn the historic building that once housed Portland’s main post office into the Arlene and Harold Schnitzer Center for Art and Design began in 2014.

PNCA worked with project manager Gerding Edlen, Allied Works Architecture and Howard S. Wright to maintain original features of the circa-1919 structure – including a gilded plaster ceiling on the ground-floor – while adding contemporary touches such as an atrium skylight, solar panels and a cable-suspended mezzanine level.

The $34 million renovation is targeting a LEED platinum rating.

The post Photos: PNCA unveils new digs appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

Three teams seeking the Portland Design Commission‘s approval for their projects’ designs will return for hearings next year.

The design commissioners on Thursday held no formal votes during their last meeting of 2014. Teams for the Block 136 mixed-use development, at 1241 N.W. Johnson St.; the Tess O’Brien Apartments, at 1950 N.W. Pettygrove St. and 1953 N.W. Overton St.; and exterior renovations to the Lloyd Center mall in Northeast Portland will return with revised project plans at hearings scheduled in January.

A second design review hearing for Block 136, designed by Seattle-based architecture firm Mithun, was scheduled for Jan. 22 after city planner Jeff Mitchem pointed out that the development’s proposed street-loading locations didn’t meet city approval criteria. The two buildings will occupy a full block bordered by Northwest 13th and 14th avenues and Johnson and Kearney streets. The block currently is home to the Pacific Northwest College of Art, which will relocate to the511 Federal Building.

Plans call for a five-story office building facing 13th Avenue and a 15-story residential tower on 12th Avenue separated by a public courtyard connecting Johnson and Kearney streets. The 13th Avenue building will contain approximately 15,000 square feet of retail space and 60,000 square feet of office space. The 12th Avenue building will have approximately 208 residential units and 211 underground parking spaces.

When potential neighbors of the proposed Tess O’Brien Apartments, designed by Portland-based FFA Architecture & Interiors, requested more time to craft a formal response to the design via the Northwest District Association, commissioners scheduled a fourth hearing for Jan. 15. Although the hearing continuance would further delay the project, commission Chairwoman Guenevere Millius said she wanted to be sure that neighbors could voice their concerns.

“I’m concerned about the type of neighborhood feedback that we’re getting and the tenor of the concern,” she said. “They have a right to convene and craft a response that’s official.”

Plans call for two six-story apartment buildings with a total of 126 units. A large courtyard is proposed between the two buildings with outdoor seating, stormwater planters and covered bike parking.

Because of an incomplete city staff report, the commission also held off on a vote on designs by Waterleaf Architecture for improvements to pedestrian and vehicular entrances at the Lloyd Center mall on Northeast Multnomah Street and the creation of a new plaza facing nearby Holladay Park. The design team will return for a second design review hearing on Jan. 22.

During the six-hour meeting, commissioners expressed lingering reservations with all three projects and asked each team to return with revisions. They praised the public courtyard and other design moves for Block 136, but expressed concerns about the use of board-formed concrete and whether the residential tower truly fit into the neighborhood.

“It feels very anonymous to me,” Commissioner David Keltner said. “I could put this anywhere … I could support it, but I’m disappointed.”

Several neighboring residents who testified during Thursday’s meeting reiterated concerns expressed during a previous design advice request hearing for the Seattle-based Security Properties‘ development that the 150-foot tower would be inconsistent with shorter surrounding buildings.

Overall, commissioners said they were underwhelmed by the Tess O’Brien Apartments design and pushed the FFA design team to go beyond meeting the bare minimum requirements to gain approval. Commissioner David Wark said he appreciated the design team taking commission feedback to simplify the materials palette to brick and stucco, but was left wanting more.

“I feel like you checked every box, but I feel like it’s still pretty weak,” he said.

Most of the commission’s criticism regarding the Lloyd Center improvements focused on the proposed plaza next to the Macy’s store on Northeast Multnomah Street. They also questioned the appropriateness of a metal mesh screening material that would cover a 22-foot-tall cooling tower on top of the Macy’s building and suggested using something less transparent.

Several commissioners worried that a planned green wall in the plaza would obscure the bike parking too much.

“I think you’re going to need to point out that the bike parking is over there,” Millius said.

Wark said he’d like to see more protection from the rain in the plaza.

“Try to make it more of an attractor and the main entrance all year,” he said. “You’re creating a street basically. What are the qualities we look for on the street in Portland? … Apply those.”

The post Design reviews pushed into 2015 appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

A frequent concern for Gerding Edlen CEO Mark Edlen is the impression that the Portland-based development company’s projects will make on neighborhoods.

“We used to think sustainability was a big deal, but today for us it’s building communities,” he said. “I think people are looking for more, richer ways to interact. To us, that’s what we think community is about. We think the buildings that we build have an enormous impact.”

With Portland communities in flux because of a boom in development, Edlen on Thursday joined three other industry professionals on a panel to discuss how to create inclusive, livable neighborhoods across the city. The “Designing Better Neighborhoods” event was hosted by Design Museum Portland at the Portland office of engineering firm Glumac.

Panelist and moderator Randy Gragg, executive director of the University of Oregon’s John Yeon Center, steered the discussion toward topics that included identifying ways to improve East Portland and addressing concerns about demolitions of older residences.

“We have a lot of heartburn going on in terms of change in historic neighborhoods,” Gragg said.

Panelist Jeff Stuhr, co-founder of Portland-based Holst Architecture, said it’s important for architects to investigate whether it’s possible to save an existing building or replace it with a thoughtful design.

“We’ve yet to elevate that conversation beyond historic preservation,” he said. “When we take down buildings and replace them with inefficient buildings, that’s not what we want to do. I think we need to change the conversation. I think this process of renewal and growth is natural.”

Acknowledging neighborhood opposition to development is crucial, said panelist DeAunne Denmark, a Pacific Northwest College of Art instructor who teaches a course that applies the principles of cognitive and behavioral neuroscience to design thinking.

“You get this vehement pushback, and it’s often because they want to feel like they have a stake in it,” she said. “If you don’t design well for the culture that’s in place you see these problems come out around it. The design process itself has to change. If the neighborhood itself wants historic preservation, it behooves you to find out why.”

The longevity of a development is one reason why its design must consider the larger impact, Edlen said.

“In our industry it’s very capital intensive; there’s a tremendous amount of risk,” he said. “One of the things we talk about a lot (is) … it’s a 100- to 200-year asset. It’s going to be around for a long time.”

Panelists also discussed ways to create better neighborhoods in underdeveloped areas in Portland east of 82nd Avenue.

“How can we create a sense of a neighborhood out there from this very piecemeal urbanism?” Gragg asked.

Some basic city amenities would be a great start, said Edlen, a Portland Development Commission board member.

“I think we’ve got to move faster,” he said. “We’ve got to have a public process, but we’ve got to move the needle faster on issues like parks and sidewalks.”

Stuhr pointed out that the larger lots available in East Portland could be advantageous for future development.

“I see this as a great potential benefit for the city rather than having to design the 200-by-200-foot square,” he said. “From a design standpoint, we have opportunities that we don’t have anywhere else. This is going to be the next big opportunity for density in the city.”

Redeveloping East Portland will also involve consideration of the needs of lower-income neighborhoods with more diversity than in other parts of the city, Denmark said. What worked downtown or in the Pearl District may not apply, she said.

“You can’t just impose those values on people that don’t want them,” Denmark said.

That doesn’t mean the standard of architecture in East Portland should be different, Stuhr said.

“Design makes a difference, and a lot of times when you’re working with a marginalized community you have to convince them of that,” he said. “People out there deserve good design just as much as we do in the inner city core.”

The post Improving neighborhoods through design appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

Based on the $11.75 million price tag the company paid last September, Security Properties‘ plans for Block 136 were bound to be big. Now, the first inkling of just how big has finally surfaced.

Earlier this month, the Seattle-based developer submitted conceptual plans to the Bureau of Development Services for a two-building, mixed-use development on the block bound by Northwest Kearney and Johnson streets, and 12^th and 13^th avenues. The block is currently home to the Pacific Northwest College of Art, which plans to relocate to the 511 Federal Building later this year.

Security’s redevelopment plans would construct a 15-story residential tower with approximately 220 units along the east end of the block; on the west end would be a five-story building with retail on the ground floor and office or residential space above.

As envisioned, the two buildings would straddle a central courtyard that runs the length of the property from Northwest Kearney to Johnson Street. An early scheme for the ground floor of the low-rise pictures an open market environment, while the ground floor of the high-rise would house residential amenities and live-work space.

The developer has penciled in two floors of below-grade parking, as well as a sub-grade area for bike parking. The cost of the project, according to the application the developer submitted to the city, is approximately $72 million.

Seattle-based architecture firm Mithun submitted the plans on behalf of Security Properties. Security Properties could not be reached immediately for comment.

The post Developer pitches plan for $72M Pearl high-rise appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

Work is complete on the six-story ArtHouse residence for Pacific Northwest College of Art Students on Portland’s North Park Blocks. The building features 50 units over ground-floor retail spaces, which will be occupied by Glyph Café & Arts Space and retail store Table of Contents. Construction on the $7.3 million project was completed in nine months, in time for students to begin moving in next week.

The building is located on the site of the former Powell’s Technical Books at 33 N.W. Park Ave. and is owned by the Powell family, who are leasing the building to PNCA. Project Ecological Development served as the project’s developer, and Walsh Construction was the general contractor. LEVER Architecture was the design architect, and LRS Architects served as the architect of record. LEED Silver certification is being targeted for the project.

The post PNCA student housing building on Park Blocks complete appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

The ‘s $30 million renovation on the North Park Blocks is beginning, appropriately enough, on a creative note.

PNCA has installed a new public sculpture on the block north of Northwest Glisan Street and Park Avenue that it hopes will anchor an expansion for the 143-year-old North Park Blocks corridor. It’s called Memory 99 and was designed by PNCA alumnus Lee Kelly.

The 23-foot wide, 11-foot high sculpture is made of Cor-Ten steel and was installed in 2010 at the entrance to the Portland Art Museum’s Lee Kelly retrospective exhibition. It now sits on the block adjacent to the former Federal Building, also known as the U.S. Post Office Building, at 511 N.W. Broadway. PNCA plans to renovate the building into a new academic building called the Arlene and Harold Schnitzer Center for Art and Design.

PNCA acquired Kelly’s sculpture with a special, one-time gift from the Ford Family Foundation. The donation was part of the foundation’s evolving Visual Arts program, which among other things, hopes to make significant works by Oregon visual artists available to the public.

PNCA will host a dedication ceremony for the sculpture, Friday from 11:45 a.m. to 12:45 p.m. The ceremony will feature Portland Mayor Sam Adams, PNCA’s President Tom Manley and Ford Family Foundation President Norm Smith.

The post PNCA jumpstarts North Park Blocks project with some culture appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

Sometime next year, the North Park Blocks corridor may see an influx of artistic students leisurely strolling to classes, lounging at cafés and displaying their work along Northwest Park Avenue.

The is teaming up with and to replace Powell’s vacant technical bookstore building at 33 N.W. Park Ave. with a uniquely designed, seven-story dormitory structure. The site is near both the Museum of Contemporary Craft and the historic U.S. Post Office building, which is being converted into PNCA teaching space.

“Having this residence hall five blocks away from our flagship campus really anchors this creative corridor of the North Park Blocks,” said Kavin Buck, vice president of enrollment services for PNCA. “It’s going to really activate the blocks, but it’s going to really help us with both our recruitment of students – over half our students come from out of state – and will help with retention and bring this collegiate life into the art school.”

PNCA has slightly fewer than 600 students, but is the fastest-growing independent art school in the nation, Buck said. The 103-year-old college has added five graduate programs in the past five years and plans to increase enrollment to 1,000 students by 2018. The new dorm building will have 60 apartments and be able to house 144 students.

Construction of the $7 million building – which Powell’s will own and lease to the college – is an exciting prospect for PNCA, but design review may be a big hurdle.

On Tuesday, the development team and presented a somewhat radical building design to the Pearl District Neighborhood Association. The proposed 55,000-square-foot structure would have an angular shape with a non-reflective, metallic facade to accentuate light and shadow through irregularly deflected surfaces.

“It’s sort of shaped by light,” LEVER Architecture founder Thomas Robinson said during the presentation. “What we wanted to do is deflect the facades a little bit to open up the building to light. When it deflects it gets a different color because of the way the light hits it.”

The neighborhood association approved the design unanimously and enthusiastically, but Patricia Gardner, the association’s vice president, said the city’s Design Review Commission may not follow suit at its May 3 meeting.

“I am tired of seeing really nice buildings get ruined by the design commission,” she said. “I am going to this meeting to tell them if they ruin this building we will protest.”

Robinson said he tried to extend the use of natural light to the interior as well in order to turn the hallways on each floor into gallery space for students. He said he took cues from other historic buildings downtown, such as the Ace Hotel. A Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design gold rating will be sought for the project, which calls for installing an interior courtyard as well as rain gardens to capture stormwater.

The building also may activate the street corner with a café and two retail spaces.

“I think a lot of buildings along the Park Blocks … they’re right next to the park, but they don’t have that inside-outside relationship, and so (we are) really creating a transparent ground floor that activates the streetscape,” said Anyeley Hallová, partner at Project Ecological Development.

The project also requires demolition of Powell’s existing warehouse. Emily Powell, the company president and CEO, said that while the vacant building held sentimental value for her family, the proposed project was a much richer use for the property.

“I walk into our main store and to me it smells like my grandfather – no one else probably has that connection,” she said during the meeting. “We looked at options (for the warehouse) and this was the best. The technical store’s history is a little less romantic.”

She said the team was considering whether to preserve the “Powell’s Technical Books” sign and display it inside the building.

The group hopes to begin construction by mid-November and anticipates a move-in date of August 2013. A Design Review Commission hearing is scheduled for May 3 at 1:30 p.m. at the Portland Bureau of Development Services building at 1900 S.W. Fourth Ave.

The post Art student dorm planned for North Park Blocks appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

Last week’s decision by a city hearings officer to reject a conditional use permit for a redevelopment project in Portland’s South Waterfront District dashed moving plans for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement federal agency.

But another organization also was affected by the ruling.

The organization that was going to move into ICE’s present digs – the Pacific Northwest College of Art – is now in limbo. The organization says it has plenty of due diligence to conduct in the meantime, but if the federal agency were to stay, the PNCA would need to retool its expansion plans.

“The transfer of the current ICE facility to the local art school is dependent upon ICE moving out,” said Stephanie Kenitzer, regional public affairs manager for the General Services Administration. “Until we are able to find a suitable location for ICE, we are unable to turn the building over to the school.”

ICE presently occupies the 511 Federal Building, a nationally registered historic structure at 511 N.W. Broadway that opened in 1919. The building no longer meets the federal agency’s needs, so the GSA in 2008 listed it as surplus property and started looking for a new home for ICE.

Then, in a competitive proposal process, PNCA won the rights to acquire the property at no charge if the facility would be used for educational purposes for at least 30 years. The school was eager to pursue expansion, and the city was optimistic about an opportunity to connect the Pearl District to Old Town/Chinatown.

“In my opinion, PNCA and the 511 project is the catalytic development that will finally bridge the raw and dynamic energy of Old Town with the newly developed Pearl District,” wrote John Jay, executive creative director with Wieden + Kennedy, in a letter of support for the project.

In June, with plans moving ahead to relocate ICE to the South Waterfront, the Portland Development Commission extended a $740,000 grant to the PNCA to pay for predevelopment costs associated with upgrading and converting the building into an educational facility. As part of the deal, the PNCA had to match the grant and use the money to conduct due diligence, prepare 20 percent construction documents for the project and begin developing a conceptual master plan for the campus.

But last week, Hearings Officer Gregory Frank shot down ICE’s plan to move to the South Waterfront. Residents had appealed the project proposal, and triggered conditional use review. Their biggest concern, and the reason Frank ultimately determined that the project shouldn’t move forward, was over a proposed 5,198-square-foot detention facility. No detainees would be held in the facility for more than 12 hours, but they could be released from there, near a charter school.

“The hearings officer found, based upon the evidence in the record, that release of detainees directly from the detention facility into the immediate neighborhood could pose an unreasonable threat to the safety of nearby users and residents,” Frank wrote in his findings.

The project developer – Lindquist Development Co. – and ICE officials have not determined their next step yet, according to Kenitzer, but they could choose to appeal the decision. An appeal would need to be filed by Aug. 24.

“We’re on a hold until we find out what ICE and the developer plan to do,” said Gus Baum, director of institutional research and planning for the PNCA. “There’s a chance they could appeal and move forward with the project, or choose a new location.

“In the meantime we’re just continuing our due diligence, which we have enough to keep us busy, and hoping that we can move forward with the project.”

The post ICE facility decision also jeopardizes PNCA appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

The Portland Development Commission believes the 511 Federal Building, constructed nearly a century ago, can become a link between two of the city’s distinct districts: Old Town/Chinatown and the Pearl District.

The PDC Board of Commissioners on Wednesday approved a $740,000 grant to help the Pacific Northwest College of Art pay for predevelopment costs to convert the building, at 511 N.W. Broadway, into an educational facility.

“It’s exciting for us because the school has a growing presence in town and we believe (it) can help substantially with our long-range plans along the Broadway corridor,” said Anne Mangan, a spokeswoman for the PDC.

The 511 Federal Building was formerly a federal post office; it was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1979. The school plans to transform it into office space, classroom and studio space, a resource center and a black box theater able to be used for lectures, installations and performances. The building will add more than 100,000 square feet of space to the campus; the school expects to be able to nearly double student enrollment and add about 50 employees in the coming years.

Gus Baum, director of institutional research for the PNCA, said the school became interested in the building because of the city’s plans around Northwest Broadway.

“With a park being planned in the parking lot of the building by the parks department, and the potential redevelopment of the nearby post office buildings, the location of this building couldn’t be better,” Baum said. “We hope to be the catalytic project here and help get the area going.”

The PNCA acquired the rights to redevelop the building, owned by the federal government, in 2008 after the General Services Administration listed the building as surplus property. The school was selected in a competitive proposal process.

The building is being used by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security as the Portland offices of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It’s planning to move to a building in the South Waterfront District, and the deed of the 511 Federal Building would then transfer to the PNCA at no cost as long as the school uses it for educational purposes for at least 30 years.

The PNCA must match the grant, which is coming out of the River District Urban Renewal Area. The school will use the $1.48 million over the next year to conduct all due diligence before acquisition of the building, prepare 20 percent construction documents for the project and begin developing a conceptual master plan for further expansion – including possibly a PDC-owned block across the street.

Mangan said the school plays a big role in the area, and is the type of entity the PDC likes to partner with. Plus, she said, all the money is contingent on a number of conditions being met. For instance, the PNCA must start its work before the end of the year and finish within 12 months.

Redevelopment of the 511 Federal Building is expected to cost approximately $26 million, but that amount could change because predevelopment work isn’t finished. The school has hired Howard S. Wright as the contractor, Allied Works Architecture as the architect and Gerding Edlen to oversee the project. The construction timeline is dependent on when the existing tenant moves out; however, school officials hope to occupy the building by 2014.

John Jay, executive creative director with Wieden + Kennedy, agrees with Mangan and Baum that the PNCA plays a vital role in redevelopment of the area, and the connection between Old Town and the Pearl District.

“In my opinion, PNCA and the 511 project is the catalytic development that will finally bridge the raw and dynamic energy of Old Town with the newly developed Pearl District,” Jay wrote in a letter of support for the project. “In addition to PNCA itself and (its) students, many arts, education and design partners across the city, state and region will benefit from the expanded programming the 511 Building will provide.”

The post Taxpayers to help PNCA with expansion appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

Ever since it was announced that the I-5 bridge between Portland and Vancouver needed to be replaced, the Columbia River Crossing has been traversing troubled waters.

From its frequently changing number of lanes to its potentially negative environmental impacts, nobody (not even our state and city leaders) seems to agree on what the project should look like and what it should mean to the Portland-Vancouver area.

But a week-long exhibition this week at the Pacific Northwest College of Art will attempt to reboot our thoughts on the CRC.

, a design collective made up of notable Portland architects and designers Carol Mayer-Reed, Rick Potestio, Rudy Barton, Mike McCulloch and Bill Tripp will present their own thoughts on how the project could – and should – impact the area. The 91��Ƶ will also be running several Q&A’s with the PDXplore team to get a closer look at its thoughts on the CRC.

Today, members of the City Club of Portland will present its recently adopted regional transportation research report and recommendations from noon to 1 in room 201 of PNCA’s Main Campus Building, Swigert Commons, 1241 N.W. Johnson St., in Portland. Members of the CRC staff and the cities of Portland and Vancouver will give an update on their planning progress so far and discuss what to do next. That presentation will take place 6 to 8 p.m. in the Swigert Commons.

The post Columbia River Crossing update appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.