The stormwater swales on a former landfill site owned by the Dharma Rain Zen Center are teeming with fungi.

Mushrooms sprouting from the planters designed to catch runoff as it flows off the Siskiyou Square site in Portland, near the intersection of Northeast 85th Avenue and Siskiyou Street, are no accident. Members of the Buddhist organization planted them to test the theories of mycoremediation. The technique uses fungi to filter pollutants commonly found in urban stormwater runoff, such as heavy metals and poly-aromatic hydrocarbons from vehicle fuel as well as E. coli and other bacteria.

The way fungi survive and propagate is ideally suited to filtering and breaking down contaminants, said Jordan Weiss, a Portland-based mycoremediation consultant. Mushrooms naturally release acids and enzymes that can break down toxins, he said. Planting fungi on a brownfield site has the added benefit of rejuvenating soil, Weiss added, fostering the return of native plants and wildlife.

“Once the fungus colonizes the soil, it unlocks valuable soil nutrients that kick-starts the soil-building mechanisms,” he said.

For the past two years, Weiss has contributed to the Dharma Rain Zen Center’s campaign to clean up and develop a nearly 14-acre portion of Siskiyou Square. He is leading efforts to plant mushrooms in a stormwater management system installed on the brownfield site, which once served as a rock quarry and construction waste landfill.

Although mycoremediation has been around for a number of years and was pioneered in the Pacific Northwest by Paul Stamets, an Olympia, Wash.-based mycologist, author and founder of mushroom cultivator business Fungi Perfecti, it hasn’t taken off in the Portland-metro area, Weiss said. But interest is starting to grow and he’s hoping to soon test the runoff passing through the planters on the Zen center property to confirm that the mushrooms are indeed filtering the stormwater.

“Mycoremediation, even though it’s been proven in a handful of research and demonstration projects, (is) still not widely accepted,” Weiss said. “It’s not common knowledge. It’s still kind of locked up in the mushroom books.”

In Washington County, Clean Water Services is tackling its own mycoremediation experiment. The water resources management utility for the Tualatin River watershed is partnering with Fungi Perfecti and Pacific University in Forest Grove on a pilot project to use fungi to filter out hydrocarbons from motor fuel found in street sweeper debris collected from throughout the county.

The 90-day pilot was launched last month. If tests later this summer prove that the technique is working, the agency could use mushrooms to decontaminate the mulch-like debris, making it safe for use as erosion control or a soil amenity, said Jared Kinnear, recycled water program manager with Clean Water Services. Currently, Clean Water Services pays to dispose of the leaves and other natural debris collected by street sweepers at a landfill that specializes in toxic materials, he said.

Mycoremediation appealed to the Dharma Rain Zen Center because the organization would like its brownfield cleanup effort to serve as a demonstration project, said Kakumyo Lowe-Charde, a priest and the center’s development director.

“We’re very interested in a pretty holistic scheme of going about this,” he said. “One of our goals is lessons learned are useful to other projects … The mycoremediation seems like a real winner there. We’d like to have some hard data that can help build our case.”

Since purchasing the property in 2012, the center has embarked on a series of environmental remediation efforts and completed the shell of a Zen temple and meditation hall. Plans for the site also call for constructing a preschool and restoring the surrounding natural area into a native oak savanna. Construction of a 31-unit co-housing complex on the site is scheduled to begin this fall, Lowe-Charde said.

The work has attracted the attention of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which recently awarded the center a $200,000 grant to help cover cleanup costs.

Mary Vogel, principal of Portland-based sustainable urban design and planning firm PlanGreen, has long had an interest in mycoremediation and was happy to hear that it’s being incorporated in the Zen center brownfield cleanup. She’s hopeful that the technique will finally start to take off in the Portland-metro area.

“I’ve been waiting 30 years for mycoremediation to take hold in this community,” Vogel said. “It seemed like a no-brainer … We’re one of the leaders in stormwater (and) bioremediation, but we’re not using mushrooms.”

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A close design-build partnership is being credited for the successful completion of a fast-tracked residence hall project at Pacific University in Forest Grove.

Mahlum Architects and Walsh Construction managed to complete the $13.5 million, 61,500-square-foot Cascade Hall project in 13 months, much quicker than typical for a structure that size, Mahlum principal Kurt Haapala said. The building opened recently, before students started fall classes.

“This was probably one of the most aggressive schedules we’ve had to address,” he said. “We had to do this in half the time.”

To meet the tight timeline, the Mahlum design team had to work extremely close with Walsh staffers and the owner’s representative, Inici Group, Haapala said.

“It took a kind of partnership, all-hands-on-deck approach,” he said. “It also required us to think differently about how we deliver our project.”

Part of the process involved stationing a Mahlum architect on the job site, Haapala said.

“The nuance is we really moved our design effort into the job trailer,” he said. “We had to put one of our lead architects in the field before we finished schematic design … It was kind of the secret ingredient. Our architect in the field had to make field decisions.”

Haapala said having an on-site architect was so successful that he’d like the firm to apply the approach for other projects.

“There was this sense of pride of the project that transcended the typical lines between design and construction,” he said. “It was a really rewarding process, so much that we’re trying to learn from this process.”

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Technology companies are continuing to expand in Portland, taking up limited office space and driving up rents, according to a third-quarter market report released last week by Jones Lang LaSalle.

“Office vacancy in Portland is at 10 percent – the lowest it’s been since 2000,” said Patricia Raicht, JLL’s vice president of research. “Tech demand continues to dominate our office leasing activity with tech occupiers making up more than 30 percent of all office demand, up from just 14 percent in 2011.”

According to data from Greater Portland Inc., Portland has 86,000 high-tech workers. That’s 30 percent more than the national average.

Raicht said limited supply is driving up rents in the Central Business District. Overall, office space rents are up 3.7 percent year over year, and specific submarkets have experienced increases significantly greater.

“Developers and occupiers (are) finding unique and creative ways to meet their space needs,” JLL Senior Vice President Eric Haskins said. “Owners are repositioning their buildings with amenities and features desired by tech tenants – they want a rich amenity set.”

Some of those amenities, Haskins said, are updated lobbies, athletic facilities and showers, bike parking, outdoor spaces and a strong component of sustainability.

Owners are not only remodeling office spaces, but also increasing new construction in the Portland area, Raicht said.

“There is now 780,000 square feet under construction, and we expect 400,000 square feet to deliver to the market in 2014,” she said.

Brad Christiansen, a Colliers International vice president, said he believes that a combination of affordability, an educated workforce and Portland’s culture are drawing companies to open offices in the area.

“On a macro level all the things our leadership program began promoting years ago – smart urban growth, good quality of life, emphasis on education – are all in alignment with what millennials value,” he said. “It’s a unique dynamic that we have an alignment between the culture here combined with a lower cost of living and an educated workforce that we didn’t have 15 years ago.”

Christiansen said larger tech companies are looking to Portland rather than Seattle or San Francisco in part because though rents are on the rise, they’re still far less than in either of those cities. Not only is office space more affordable, but apartments are too, comparatively.

“I’m hearing from companies that when they’re opening an office here they’re internally having a portion of their employee base ask for a transfer (here),” Christiansen said. “I see the trend of tech companies coming to Portland continuing as the cost of doing business continues to go up.”

When companies look to open an office in Portland they’re able to hire well-educated, high-quality people at a fraction of the salary they’d have to pay in a larger market, Christiansen said.

“They come here and they see the proximity to schools like Portland State (University), which has one of the top graphic design programs in the country, or Pacific University,” he said. “There’s Oregon State (University), where they have great mechanical and structural engineering programs. Those skills are transferable to the tech industry.”

Paige Morgan, a senior vice president at JLL, said her firm is seeing institutional and even foreign interest in Portland’s real estate market increase.

“Interest in Portland as an investment market has increased dramatically in the past several years with buyer pools deepening,” she said. “Two things are driving this increased interest; the first is the flood of capital that is being priced out of primary markets, and the second is our solid and improving market fundamentals.”

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Construction will begin in May on a new look for the University Center at Pacific University. The renovation is one of several projects under way at the Forest Grove campus.

The two-story University Center building, originally constructed in 1963, is considered outdated for the university’s plans for growth. The building needs cosmetic updating and greater accessibility, said Joe Lang, Pacific University’s media relations director.

“The overall use of the space itself is going to be more inviting for students,” Lang said. “We are trying to enhance what’s already a close-knit feeling for students, employees and guests.”

Asbestos work on the building was completed during the school’s recent spring break. Renovation on exterior portions of the building, including facades and entryways, will begin next month.

“The challenge is (that) we’re still in session with our students,” Lang said. “The bulk of the construction will likely happen after spring session.”

Design and construction of the project will be handled by a project team made up of the Portland-based firms of Opsis Architecture, Inici Group Inc., and Walsh Construction Co.

Interior work will include an energy-efficiency remodel, new paint, carpeting, and increased accessibility to bathrooms on the first floor of the building, Lang said.

The center also will be remodeled to bring the Pacific University Bookstore, operated by Barnes & Noble, back on campus. The bookstore was moved off campus in the past several years.

The project comes on the heels of construction of a new 200-bed residence hall adjacent to the university center. That residence hall also will be completed by the start of fall term, Lang said. Inici, Portland-based Mahlum Architects Inc. and Walsh Construction are on the project team for the residence hall, Lang said.

Construction of a second new residence hall and other improvements to buildings on the north end of the campus would likely be made in the next two to five years, depending on the university’s economic situation, Lang said.

The new construction and renovations are in response to university expectations that the Forest Grove campus will see enrollment increase from its present1,800 students to 2,000 students by 2020, Lang said.

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When an office space is struggling for natural light, sometimes it’s best to leave out the eggshell-white drywall.

At least that’s what the crew at is planning for a 1,500-square-foot space it is designing for . Located on the ground floor of the Pearl District’s Maytag Building at Northwest Eleventh Avenue and Hoyt Street, the space will be the new office headquarters for the university’s master’s writing program.

With a long, narrow floor plan that constricts sunlight in the space, principal architect Richard Brown said the team will build the office walls with clear and translucent laminated glass partitions that glow when they absorb light.

“I think it’s going to take advantage of the minimum light that’s there and amplify it and push it back into the space,” he said.

Brown said the space will be used primarily as an administrative office for the university writing program, but it will also be set up to host gatherings and meetings. The space will also serve as the Portland office for the university’s president, Lesley Hallick.

He said one nod to the office’s creative intentions will be found in the ramp leading into the building, where they are considering sandwiching writing samples, photographs and pieces of art between two sheets of glass.

“(The university) was looking for a space that was more sophisticated, where board members would be comfortable, but also would reflect the artistic nature of the study that goes on,” Brown said.

The project is currently out to bid and Brown said he hopes to begin construction in February.

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A new Pacific University building will be part of the Health Professions Campus in Hillsboro. The four-story, 62,000-square-foot brick building will house the admissions office, the School of Professional Psychology, the School of Occupational Therapy and research labs. Lease Crutcher Lewis is the general contractor and Yost Grube Hall Architecture is the designer of the project.

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