Portland State University and its partners have named a new building in memory of a tragic chapter in the region’s history.

The seven-story structure in south downtown previously known as Fourth and Montgomery has been renamed the Vanport Building. The name recognizes Vanport (now north Portland), a largely Black city that flooded on May 30, 1948, resulting in many residents’ deaths.

The 175,000-square-foot Vanport Building is a cooperative project of PSU, Oregon Health & Science University, Portland Community College and the city of Portland.

Vanport was a haven for Black Portlanders who were kept out of other local neighborhoods during World War II. But after the war ended and the flood devastated the neighborhood, Vanport fell into disrepair.

“Vanport represents an important part of Oregon history that we must acknowledge and learn from,” OHSU President Danny Jacobs stated in a news release. “The Vanport Building offers us an opportunity to honor those who were harmed, while reaffirming our commitment to creating an anti-racist future for Portland.”

A noose was found at the construction site in May 2020. The discovery of the racist symbol led general contractor Andersen Construction to file a police report and conduct an internal investigation, but the perpetrator has not been identified.

The building, designed by SRG Partnership, opened in January. It is home to PSU’s College of Education, the OHSU-PSU School of Public Health, Portland Community College’s dental hygiene and dental assisting programs and the city of Portland’s Bureau of Planning and Sustainability.

A mural by Portland artist Alex Chiu and an exhibit by Bryan Potter Design, titled “The Spirit of Vanport,” occupy space near the building’s entrance.

“There’s a collective, deep sense of loss for what this city could have been had the flood not happened or, more importantly, if city leaders had rightly valued the community,” stated city Commissioner Carmen Rubio, who oversees the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability. “We take a small step in honoring Vanport’s value, and in reminding ourselves to value all our communities every day, by choosing this name.”

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Years of planning and construction are on display in Portland Community College’s Oregon Manufacturing Innovation Training Center as it opens for classes this summer and credit offerings are planned to start this fall.

Mortenson Construction was the general contractor on the project. PCC chose a Progressive Design-Build Project delivery. Construction started in fall of 2019.

The training center is the educational arm of the nearby Oregon Manufacturing Innovation Center (OMIC) initiative  — a collaboration of industry, higher education and government that combines applied research and development and workforce training. PCC’s facility is traditionally known as the OMIC Training Center and is located at the college’s Columbia County Center (34001 NE Wagner Ct. in Scappoose).

It officially opens on Monday, Aug. 16, with a free, five-week series of “On-Ramp to Manufacturing” classes that are designed for people interested in working in advanced manufacturing.

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Big changes are in store for Portland Community College’s Metropolitan Workforce Training Center in the Cully neighborhood.

Bora Architecture & Interiors has designed for PCC a new two-story, 50,000-square-foot building. Plans call for a mass-timber structure with a wood veneer panel exterior.

“We thought of the building almost like a block of wood that you’re carving into and then exposing parts of it,” Bora principal Jeanie Lai said.

The existing training center is located at 5600 N.E. 42nd Ave., on a three-acre lot in the Cully neighborhood. The new building will be built alongside the current center, which originally held a Safeway grocery store. After Andersen Construction builds the new one, the old one will be demolished.

The training center’s purpose is to provide programs to low-income families with children. The project’s main goal, Lai said, is to develop the space into an inclusive educational hub for the community.

Cully is a growing as well as racially and ethnically diverse neighborhood. Historically it was once the Neerchokikoo village home to Chinook people.

Bora’s design, Lai said, focuses on three main aspects: equity, well-being and sustainability. Trauma-informed design guided the process, she said. Trauma-informed design aims to create environments that promote a sense of calm, safety, dignity and well-being for all occupants.

Training center users are seeking self-improvement, Lai said. It’s important that the space feels nurturing to them, she added.

Natural materials will provide a greater connection to the outdoors. The existing building didn’t have any windows, but the new one will be able to let in lots of daylight. The aim is for the building to exceed the Oregon energy code baseline by 40 percent.

The goal for the interior was to create a homely and welcoming atmosphere. The design team focused on the lobby, career center and community room, Lai said, because those places will have the most foot traffic.

A mass-timber staircase built into the structure will connect the two levels, and appear as if it’s floating.

Soft, organic forms were used for the building and in the landscape, Lai said, in order to complement the natural materials. The plan is to pull the building up to the street, so that the intersection of Northeast 42nd Avenue and Killingsworth Street is defined better.

Surrounding the building will be a mix of softness and paved landscape. A long strip of land is intended to become a potential spot for the community to hold farmers’ markets or other seasonal markets.

The project budget, according to PCC, is $32.5 million. The project is being paid for with money from a $185 million bond approved by voters in 2017.

Plans call for construction to begin in early 2022 and finish in spring 2023.

On the Boards is a 91��Ƶ feature offering a look at the projects in Oregon being tackled by local architecture firms. To have your firm’s projects considered, contact the 91��Ƶ at 503-802-7221 or newsroom@djcOregon.com.

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A noose was discovered in May at a construction site in downtown Portland, the contractor and client revealed recently.

The object – a symbol of racial intimidation – was found on May 20 at the site of the 4th and Montgomery Building, according to a Portland State University statement issued Tuesday. PSU indicated it was notified of the discovery on June 9, but did not explain why it waited to publicize it.

Andersen Construction is the general contractor for 4th and Montgomery. Andersen officials filed a police report and launched both an internal investigation and a third-party investigation, the company stated.

“First and foremost, Andersen Construction is disgusted and outraged with a hate symbol like this being displayed anywhere, let alone one of our own job sites,” the company stated. “We acknowledge the negative emotions and outright pain this abhorrent event caused and to the individuals at our project directly impacted, and to our Black community at large, we are so very sorry.”

“This act of hatred is heartbreaking,” PSU stated. “It is reprehensible. And it is particularly troubling at a moment when our country seems to be waking up – finally – to the legacy of slavery and our collective failure to address anti-Black racism. Incidents like this one, and similar incidents happening around the country, remind us how deeply racism is embedded in our culture and how far we have to go to attain justice for Black Americans.”

The seven-story, 175,000-square-foot project is a collaboration of PSU, Portland Community College, Oregon Health & Science University and the city of Portland, all of which will occupy space in the building.

Crews broke ground on the project in December 2018, and completion is expected this fall.

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With skilled workers in short supply, Portland Community College is preparing to open a new manufacturing training center in Scappoose.

The 31,000-square-foot Training Center of Excellence for Advanced Manufacturing will be constructed on a 17-acre parcel at the existing Oregon Manufacturing Innovation Center. A ground-breaking ceremony for the project is set for Jan. 29. General contractor Mortenson Construction is scheduled to finish work this fall.

“Manufacturing has come a long ways,” said Linda Degman, PCC director of planning and capital construction. “It’s all very high tech now, with clean spaces. The CNC (computer numerical control) machines are big and enclosed, and we’re teaching people how to work on computers and how to keep them up and running and calibrated. Those are the types of things they’re learning; not the dirty type of manufacturing that people envision.”

The project is a collaborative effort between PCC and partners from industry and other higher education institutions. Hennebery Eddy Architects designed the training center to hold CNC operations, welding, machine operations, industrial fabrication and mechatronics.

The facility will complement OMIC’s applied research and development division that focuses on metals manufacturing. Research and development projects are led by industry partners, university faculty members and student interns, which goes hand in hand with PCC’s apprenticeship training.

A progressive design-build process is being used to deliver the project. Concrete tilt panels will be used, as well as generous amounts of glazing.

“There’s lots of glass so you can see what’s happening in the building and see what’s happening on the manufacturing training floor,” Degman said. “So when people walk in they can see what’s happening in the building; that’s a big aspect of it.”

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The Trail Blazers’ Damian Lillard must be helping Adidas sell a lot of basketball shoes.

The company’s North American headquarters is on an expansion kick in North Portland, and generated the construction permit with the single highest dollar amount in the city of Portland in 2019, according to the Bureau of Development Services.

Adidas’ building permit for two new office buildings at 5070 N. Greeley Ave., issued on Sept. 16, ascended above the rim with a $149 million valuation. The permit was for a five-story office building with five stories of underground parking, a second new building, additions to a third building and surrounding East Village site improvements, including required landscaping and screening.

The Adidas permit was by far the most valuable. The one with the second-highest value was $81 million for the Fourth and Montgomery building, a south downtown collaboration shared by Oregon Health & Science University, Portland State University, Portland Community College and the city of Portland. The permit for the seven-story, three-quarter block project was issued on May 16.

Development in 2019 was “a little choppy,” said Sam Rodriguez, senior managing director of Mill Creek Residential Trust, a major multifamily developer. Mill Creek is developing Modera Glisan, which had a permit that ranked fourth on the list.

The economy recovered quickly after flashing recessionary signals in the fall.

“The good news is we’re not at the end of a cycle – at least it doesn’t feel like that,” Rodriguez said.

Rents have remained stable amid deliveries of thousands of new apartments. A slowdown in new proposals offers hope for future projects, Rodriguez said.

“It seems like we’re reaching equilibrium moving forward, which makes development possible,” he said.

The office market appears to be at a similar point as multifamily. Projects totaling more than 1.6 million square feet were under construction or renovation in November, according to Jones Lang LaSalle, but that number is expected to soon decline.

“While the elevated level of office development remains historically high for Portland, it is set to slow down considerably over the next year when all but Block 216, J.K. Gill and Arete will deliver,” a JLL office report stated.

No one type of project dominated the bureau’s list of most expensive projects. The top 10 includes three office buildings, four multifamily buildings, a middle school, a hospital expansion and a hotel. Multifamily buildings were seven of the next 10 most-valuable projects.

The permit data comes from the Bureau of Development Services, which collated the most valuable permits at the 91��Ƶ’s request. It includes new construction permits issued between Jan. 1 and Dec. 19.

The list does not include some large projects, such as the 35-story Block 216 tower for Ritz-Carlton – it has received excavation permits, but not building permits. Other major construction projects under way, such as the Hyatt Regency at the Oregon Convention Center, were working based on permits from prior years.

The data is also necessarily limited to city boundaries – leaving out major projects in, for example, unincorporated Washington County, where Adidas’ largest competitor resides.

Here are the top-dollar building permits in Portland during 2019:

1. Adidas East Campus expansion, 5070 N. Greeley Ave., issued Sept. 16. Two new buildings, a building addition and outdoor improvements. $149.1 million, Turner Construction Co.
2. Fourth and Montgomery, 1810 S.W. Fifth Ave., issued May 16. New seven-story, three-quarter-block mixed-use building with classrooms and offices for Oregon Health & Science University, Portland State University, Portland Community College and the city of Portland. $81 million, Andersen Construction.
3. Legacy Emanuel West, 2835 N. Kerby Ave., issued May 17. Five-story core-and-shell building with two stories of below-grade structured parking. $73.7 million, Andersen Construction.
4. Modera Glisan, 1430 N.W. Hoyt St., issued Feb. 14. A 12-story, three-quarter-block mixed-use building with 291 apartments, 201 parking spaces and retail space for Mill Creek Residential Trust. $63.8 million, MCRT PNW Construction LLC.
5. ART Tower, 1510 S.W. Alder St., issued Oct. 7. A 21-story building with 314 apartments, 5,500 square feet of ground-floor retail space and 215 parking stalls in four undergrounds levels for developer Wood Partners of Atlanta. $55.2 million, Andersen Construction.
6. TriMet administration building, 9800 S.E. Powell Blvd., issued March 5. Administration and operations building for TriMet with expanded employee parking. A separate permit was issued for a bus fueling and washing building. $51.4 million, JE Dunn Construction Co.
7. Kellogg Middle School, 3400 S.E. 69th Ave., issued July 10. Three-story, 100,000-square-foot Portland Public Schools building with a covered play area, play field, parking lot and vehicle access road. $44 million, Todd Construction.
8. E2 Building (Block 40), 3883 S.W. Moody Ave., issued Dec. 9. Seven-story, 245,000-square-foot, mixed-use building with 232 apartments, retail space and two levels of underground parking for Alamo Manhattan of Dallas. $43.5 million, Andersen Construction.
9. Saltwood North, 1650 N.W. 21st Ave., issued Aug. 6. Six-story apartment building with 177 residential units, ground-floor retail space, residential amenity space and two stories of underground parking for Cairn Pacific and Prometheus Real Estate Group. $40 million, Bremik Construction (A separate permit valued at $35 million was issued for Saltwood South, at 2050 N.W. Raleigh St. Bremik Construction is the general contractor).
10. Hyatt Centric Hotel, 601 S.W. 11th Ave., issued Jan. 8. A 15-story, 215-room hotel for Mortenson. $37.4 million, Mortenson Construction.

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A former surface parking lot on the Portland State University campus is quickly becoming a seven-story, 175,000-square-foot mixed-use building.

The 4th and Montgomery Building is rising on three-quarters of a block bounded by Southwest Montgomery and Harrison streets, and Fourth and Fifth avenues. SRG Partnership designed the approximately $104 million project, which is being built by construction manager/general contractor Andersen Construction. The building will be occupied by PSU‘s Graduate School of Education, the joint Oregon Health & Science University-PSU School of Public Health, Portland Community College dental programs, and Portland’s Bureau of Planning and Sustainability.

Crews broke ground in December 2018, and substantial completion is expected by November 2020, according to PSU. The building will have ground-level commercial space, classrooms, a dental clinic, and both academic and nonacademic offices.

SRG Partnership’s design matches the curved streetcar path that clips the block’s northeast corner. All sidewalks and access to the building will be generous and open.

To accommodate a significant grade change, designers used landscape walks, stairs, walls, benches and planters to define a central courtyard space while offering multiple access points.

Inside, the ground floor will feature retail spaces and a lobby. A central staircase will bring people to classrooms and offices for tenants on the second floor and above.

The design’s aim is for a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design gold rating. Sustainable features include a green roof with 62 percent coverage, a rooftop solar array, a large stormwater planter and a dedicated outside air system with radiant heating and cooling.

In addition, the building will have a high-efficiency envelope and exterior metal-panel cladding with punched window openings and bird-safe exterior glazing.

Currently, construction crews are gaining speed after a slow start that included additional excavation after the discovery of waste underneath the parking lot.

“We had an old building that they had torn down, and they buried quite a few things that we had to dig through and dispose of in the right manner,” Andersen Construction superintendent Paul Rovianek said. “It was nothing really crazy – just some roofing material, some bricks and different things like that. It’s surprising they buried all of that, but we sent it off and put it in the right spot.”

The new building will feature seven stories of post-tensioned concrete decks and reinforced concrete columns constructed around double building cores housing elevators and stairwells. The first two levels will feature oversized spaces, with ceilings ranging from 20 to 25 feet on the ground level and 16 feet on the second floor. Ceilings on levels three through seven will be 12 feet.

Andersen’s subsidiary, Andersen Structures Inc., is performing all of the project’s concrete work, and the firm’s carpenters are constructing formwork, installing shoring systems and stripping old formwork as the project moves forward.

“We just have the typical guys right now for this stage of the project,” Rovianek said, noting that concrete was being poured for the third level. “We have concrete and (mechanical, electrical and plumbing workers); the electricians and plumbers are here full time and the fire sprinkler guys are just in and out putting in sleeves and blue bangers.”

Excavation work is also wrapping up with installation of a communications vault, while ironworkers from Local 29 and R2M2 Rebar and Stressing are laying down rebar for the concrete decks.

“It’s a lot of the usual suspects,” Rovianek said with a laugh.

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Designers of the new child development center at Portland Community College‘s Rock Creek campus, in Washington County, had to account for two very different groups: children and college students.

“It’s a fun, energizing, open and friendly space,” PCC project manager Zahava Jones said. “We wanted to see that and I think we accomplished that. It’s a simple, house-style design, but it still fits with the college atmosphere.”

The $7 million, bond-funded facility is now substantially completed. It features a single story of wood-framed construction atop a slab-on-grade foundation. The 7,800-square-foot building will be able to hold up to 88 children, in separate infant, toddler and preschool classroom areas.

Efforts to secure a third-party vendor to manage and operate the child care center are ongoing, Jones said, but added that Portland-based Fruit & Flower is one of the leading contenders.

Ground was broken in spring 2018, and officials expect the facility to open by the start of the 2019 fall semester. Child care will be reserved for parents enrolled at PCC, but may be opened to the public in the future.

Scott | Edwards Architecture designed the building, while Shapiro Didway handled design of the exterior grounds. Kirby Nagelhout Construction is the general contractor.

“The challenge I think for the design on this project was to create a building that’s appropriate for a college campus,” said Bob Smith, a project manager for Scott | Edwards Architecture. “With the exterior we used very durable materials, and we tried to blend it with the palette of the rest of the campus with its concrete and metal and wood accents.”

The goal for the interior was to create a “playful, enjoyable and exciting” environment, Smith said.

“We tried to do that with colors and accents,” he said. “But we’re recognizing that it still is a campus building, and it needs to be resilient and durable.”

The facility was designed to resemble a family residence. It features gable ends and a pitched roof, with large bay windows adorning the main hallway.

Composite siding, with a surface manufactured from rice husks, dominates the exterior. The siding is sustainable, but also durable and able to effectively absorb paint and other finishes.

The external cladding is a limestone plaster formulation that comes with an alkali- and UV-resistant permanent finish.

“We approached this looking at the durability and quality of the materials for everything we selected,” Smith said.

Metal panels were used near the entrance to provide a waterfall effect in combination with an ADA-mandated wheelchair ramp.

Special attention was given to the outdoor play area.

“We tried to vary an outdoor learning environment and give the kids play on a variety of different surfaces,” said Carl Liebhardt, a landscape associate with Shapiro Didway. “There are seating areas for outdoor education and there are stepping services for motor skills play. We tried to allow the outdoor area to be a fluid environment for the kids to run around and play in.”

Honey locust trees will provide shade, and ginkgos, dogwoods and maples will serve as accents.

The outdoor play area was also carefully landscaped with sand and other native species along with a host of wooden play features carved from Oregon white oak.

The project team is aiming for Earth Advantage gold certification. Brightworks provided early energy modeling.

“We have a very robust envelope, and we’ve worked closely with PCC to design it as resilient as it can be,” Smith said. “We haven’t really done anything exceptional with over-insulating, but we made some upgrades along the way as part of the Earth Advantage transition.”

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Portland Community College is set to host a workshop and networking event for small minority-owned, woman-owned, service-disabled-veteran-owned and emerging small business contractors.

The event will take place from 5:30-7:30 p.m. on Feb. 28, in the Community Hall Annex at PCC‘s Southeast Campus, 2305 Southeast 82nd Ave.

In collaboration with industry and workforce development partners, PCC is directly targeting disadvantaged contractors. In addition to presentations of contract opportunities at PCC over the coming year, the event will offer “speed networking.” Participants will have approximately 10 five-minute networking rounds to “sell” listeners their services.

Participating firms include Lease Crutcher Lewis, Maxximo Insurance Services, Mortenson Construction and Robert Evans Company. PCC’s Small Business Development Center and its offices of planning and capital construction, and facilities management services will also take part, as will the Oregon Certification Office for Business Inclusion and Diversity (COBID).

Additionally, representatives of several financial institutions will be present to answer questions.

The event is free, and light refreshments will be served. Free parking is available on site, in Lots F and D.

Prospective attendees can learn more by contacting Tyrone Henry at 971-235-8763, Heidi Van Brocklin at 971-722-4263, or Kate Chester at 971-722-8233.

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The 4th & Montgomery project led by Portland State University has shrunk in response to escalating construction costs.

Conceived as a nine-story building, the downtown proposal has shrunk to seven stories. It’s now 174,000 square feet, down from approximately 200,000 square feet.

That makes for increasingly tight quarters for PSU and its project partners – the city of Portland, Oregon Health and Science University and Portland Community College.

The four parties are moving forward with the $102.5 million project. The City Council will consider a development agreement Wednesday, and the project team is scheduled to go before the Design Commission on Aug. 2 for a type III design review.

“In PSU and OHSU‘s case, we each had a set amount of funds for the project,” said Dan Zalkow, PSU’s associate vice president for planning, construction and real estate. “The size decreased due to some higher-than-expected cost escalations.”

Private developers say competition for contractors, skilled labor shortages and increasing materials costs are making projects unaffordable.

As a result, instructional space has been cut, from nine classrooms to four. Office space for PSU’s Graduate School of Education and its School of Public Health has been reduced too.

The design is from SRG Partnership. Andersen Construction is on board as general contractor. Bora Architects conducted an initial programming study.

At one point, the project team considered using mass timber in the building. That proved impracticable, Zalkow said.

“It was considered and it was evaluated as an option, but it was determined not to work well economically or programmatically for this project,” he said. “It had some limitations to how the space was laid out that were challenging for us to work with.”

Instead, the building will feature concrete and steel.

The building will devote approximately 50,000 square feet to the joint OHSU-PSU School of Public Health. Another 30,000 square feet will be city of Portland offices. PCC will have 30,000 square feet for a dental clinic. PSU will also own approximately 14,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space, and the ground floor will have some common lobby space.

The property is bounded by Southwest Fourth and Fifth avenues and Montgomery and Harrison streets, near PSU’s main campus.

The building should have space for five or six retailers on Fourth and Fifth avenues and Montgomery Street, Zalkow said. The building’s Harrison Street side will have a loading area.

The retail spaces could include casual restaurants offering lunch fare in the college neighborhood. But other uses would be welcome, Zalkow said.

“We hope to have a mix that includes more than just places for lunch,” he said.

The city and PSU laid the groundwork for the 4th & Montgomery project in 2015, when the Portland Development Commission (now Prosper Portland) agreed to convey the property to PSU for the project. The city has also referred to the project as the “Jasmine Block,” a name dating to when the PDC owned the property.

If design review goes smoothly, the project team hopes to break ground in early December, Zalkow said. Completion is slated for Oct. 31, 2020.

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