The first project within the OMSI District has a green light. The Portland Design Commission on Thursday approved the design of a five-story, 100-unit affordable housing development, Los Colibris, on tract A of the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry campus.

Holst Architecture designed the approximately 86,500-square-foot building planned at 1701 S.E. Water Ave. The project is being developed by Hacienda CDC and Edlen & Co. OMSI is the landowner. The project team also includes civil engineer KPFF, landscape architect PLACE, and Colas Construction.

Portland Permitting & Development values the project at $36 million. No specific construction schedule exists at this time, Holst Architecture principal and owner Dave Otte stated in an email. The project team will next look to secure funding.

Previously, the project team received design advice during a hearing in November 2025.

The site’s primary challenge is its location adjacent to Interstate 5. A large, multiuse courtyard on the east side faces away from the freeway to give residents a space shielded from traffic noise, the project’s narrative states.

Landscaping will be intense closer to the building, Holst Architecture senior associate Dustin Furseth said, adding that color will also be a key component.

“We think something bright and colorful next to OMSI adds to the beauty of that area,” he said.

The building’s name, Los Colibris (“The Hummingbirds”), ties into the design, Furseth said.

“Hummingbirds have a neutral palette often with highlights of color, which I think is a nice way of thinking about how to add color and vibrancy to a project,” he said.

Overall, the building will have a neutral color with hints of color at the windows and more vibrancy on the massing at the courtyard and entry.

Building materials will include primarily fiber cement with options for texture and paneled direction. Metal panels might have deeper texture folding like chevrons able to reflect color, Furseth said. The design team is exploring custom accent colors for fiber cement.

Layers of glazing are planned at the front entrance and the community room.

The roof will hold heat pumps and mini splits. Most of the rooftop equipment will be relatively low in sightlines, Furseth said.

Commissioner Brian McCarter added that he’d like to see a buffer around the children’s play area.

The commission’s approval came with five design modifications and 12 master plan amendments. One condition requires a landscape buffer of at least 10 feet maintained for the length of the building’s south elevation, at the northern side of the western half of the Bull Run pathway. Alternative configurations would be considered through a staff-level type II design review. This will preserve existing trees to screen the ground-floor units as the Bull Run pathway develops.

Modifications were approved for zoning code standards. These include providing approximately 57.5 percent of frontage and a wide courtyard to create active public space, creating an arcade along the east façade, modifying window standards and uses on the ground floor, and using 50 percent of the roof area for solar panels.

Master plan amendments include changing the timeline of development of open space 2, reducing the extent of the Bull Run improvements associated with tract A, removing the 20-foot building setback above 50 feet in height for tract A, removing the building pass-through at tract A and shifting vehicle access to the north, relocating the private wastewater treatment plant to a location to be determined, delaying provision of the OMSI identity framework, transferring 2,000 square feet of floor area to tract A from other tracts, removing the building line requirement from the north side of tract A, reducing the ground floor height requirement for tract A, and adjusting the Southeast Old Water Avenue right of way.

The wastewater treatment plant will likely be relocated to the south on tract A or tract F, according to OMSI.

Artwork will be included in the project; OMSI plans to be involved in the process.

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PROJECT: New Road Ahead (Oregon Humane Society expansion)

LOCATION: 1067 N.E. Columbia Blvd., Portland

SIZE:��two buildings on 4.25 acres

COST:��$39.5 million

START DATE: March 2020 (site work); June 2021 (construction)

ANTICIPATED END DATE: summer 2022

OWNER/DEVELOPER: Oregon Humane Society

CONSTRUCTION/PROJECT MANAGER: inici Group

CONTRACTOR:��Lease Crutcher Lewis

ARCHITECT: Scott | Edwards Architecture

ENGINEERS: Humber Design Group, KPFF, PAE Consulting Engineers

LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE/PLANNING: PLACE

SIGNIFICANCE OF PROJECT: After more than seven years of planning, the Oregon Humane Society’s most ambitious expansion project in its 153-year history – New Road Ahead – has begun. One new building will house a Behavior Rehabilitation and Rescue Center, and a second building will house an Animal Crimes Forensic Center and a Community Teaching Hospital. They will rise on land adjacent to the group’s existing campus in Northeast Portland. The project is intended to address some of the most pressing animal welfare issues: keeping pets and people together, and preventing animal cruelty and neglect.

The first building will hold 21,498 square feet on two stories. The Community Teaching Hospital will occupy the first floor. It will be the first clinic in Oregon dedicated to providing accessible veterinary care to low-income clients and their pets. The Animal Crimes Forensic Center – the first facility of its kind on the West Coast – will occupy the second floor. It will facilitate collection and analysis of evidence to build strong cases against animal abusers.

The second building will be one story and hold 13,876 square feet. The Behavior Rehabilitation and Rescue Center will be dedicated to helping traumatized pets heal in a safe environment.

Both buildings will feature specialized HVAC systems able to increase air circulation and prevent the spread of disease.

Excavator operators have already removed 2,875 tons of rock, asphalt and concrete from the site, which formerly was designated for industrial use. Crews will construct a tranquil landscape with bioswales, a rain garden and a dog walking path.

The New Road Ahead project will create more than 60 jobs.

The Oregon Humane Society is providing $3.5 million for the $39.5 million project; fundraising is under way for the remaining $36 million. To learn more and donate, visit www.oregonhumane.org/new-road-ahead.

“Building Blocks” spotlights noteworthy projects either under construction or approaching the start of construction. To submit a project for consideration, please visit: djcoregon.com/building-blocks.

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As green roofs proliferate atop new buildings in Portland, landscape architects are learning lessons about what works and what doesn’t.

In July 2020, the Portland City Council adopted the Central City 2035 plan. Among sweeping changes to the zoning code, new rules require eco-roofs atop buildings of 20,000 square feet or more in commercial zones within the Central City.

Eco-roofs aren’t exactly new, but their widespread adoption is. The city required its own large-scale buildings to have eco-roofs beginning in 2015.

The rooftop gardens are also called green roofs, but the city of Portland uses the term “ecoroofs.” They have many benefits, according to boosters, but also some costs.

Foremost among the benefits is stormwater management. Eco-roofs filter stormwater and keep it from reaching waterways, particularly the Willamette River.

Eco-roofs also reduce the urban heat island effect, in which a city’s built surfaces absorb heat and raise temperatures in the area.

Eco-roof-like features can be an aesthetically pleasing amenity for residents, as at the Mirabella building in the South Waterfront. There, they appear on terraces.

For developers and project owners pursuing Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design and similar certifications, eco-roofs are often awarded hefty point totals.

Increasingly, eco-roofs are also a steady stream of revenue for landscape architecture firms.

“We are seeing an uptick in it,” said Jeramie Shane, a Mayer/Reed principal who designs eco-roofs. Other landscape architecture firms including PLACE, which is responsible for designing the eco-roofs on the Block 216 tower, and Lango Hansen, which designed a prominent eco-roof for Hyatt Unbound, have benefited from the wider adoption of eco-roofs.

A study by Reed College researchers identified 384 eco-roofs in Portland as of 2019; they totaled nearly 1.4 million square feet.

As new buildings rise in coming years, central Portland from the air will increasingly look like a series of small green spaces. Densely packed districts with eco-roofs will encourage pollinators to flit from rooftop to rooftop.

Green roofs, Shane said, “create and maintain habitat districts. We see the connectivity of green roofs being really vital to provide habitat.”

Shane recalled that he recently visited Oregon Health & Science University’s Knight Cancer Institute when a hummingbird appeared.

Among the issues landscape architects have discovered is that solar panels compete with greenery for rooftop space.

“(Photovoltaic) panels want to occupy the same space as the green roof does,” Shane said. “We’ve been testing planting green roofs under them, and in some cases they’ve been successful.”

Techniques such as planting shade-tolerant plants have helped. Landscape architects also tend to favor drought-resistant plants that can make it through Portland’s dry summers. “Right plant, right place” is a goal for successful eco-roofs at Mayer/Reed, Shane said. Often, on rooftops exposed to sun and wind, that means sedum and other succulents.

“Generally, the summer months tend to be gaps” in rainfall, Shane said. “That’s one challenge that we’re always trying to build some resiliency toward.”

Eco-roofs can be “intensive” – marked by deeper soil and greater plant variety, or “extensive” – tending to be wider but with shallower soil. Extensive eco-roofs seldom have irrigation, but intensive installations sometimes do.

“The intensive ones, we can get more creative, because we’ll use irrigation on them,” Shane said. “We can get rich, robust landscapes out of them.”

It can also be tough on buildings with smaller footprints to provide an eco-roof of a meaningful size, Shane said.

Eco-roofs do require ongoing maintenance that adds cost to any project. That makes it best for a building owner that is willing to put in greater costs up front, and in the long run, for a major building amenity.

“The developer has to acknowledge the benefits for a longer investment,” Shane said.

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PROJECT: Parkview at Terwilliger Plaza

LOCATION: the full block bounded by Southwest Fifth and Sixth avenues and Sheridan and Caruthers streets.

SIZE:��10 stories (plus one level of underground parking), 374,000 square feet, 127 units

COST:��$110 million

START DATE: May 2021

ANTICIPATED END DATE: August 2023

OWNER: Terwilliger Plaza Inc.

OWNER’S REPRESENTATIVE: MHS Consulting

OWNER’S REPRESENTATIVE/CONSTRUCTION MANAGER: BC Group

ARCHITECT: LRS Architects

ENGINEERS: IMEG Corp. (structural), DOWL (civil), PAE (mechanical, passive house consultant), GEODesign (soil), PBS Engineering and Environmental (environmental)

LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT: PLACE

CONTRACTOR:��Walsh Construction

OTHER TEAM MEMBERS: DeWitt Construction (shoring design/build), Merit Electric (electric), Tapani Plumbing (plumbing), Ocean Park Mechanical (mechanical), Patriot Fire Protection (fire sprinkler design/build)

SIGNIFICANCE OF PROJECT: Parkview at Terwilliger Plaza will be a not-for-profit continuing care retirement community for residents 62 and over. The independent-living facility will feature 127 units. Each one will have one or two bedrooms and full kitchens as well as balconies. Thirteen floor plans will range in size from 1,095 square feet to 2,310 square feet.

Designed for passive house certification, the highly energy-efficient building is projected to use 50 percent less energy than a current energy-compliant building. With 100 percent continuous preconditioned fresh air circulation, interior spaces will be substantially more healthy, quiet and thermally comfortable than those in conventional buildings. There will be green roofs, green living walls and solar panels. Features will include: improved wall R values; triple-pane windows; lighting power reduction; eco-friendly appliances; outdoor air systems with heat recovery; high-performance HVAC-VRF; heat pump water heaters; low-flow fixtures; photovoltaic solar generation; and significant thermal bridging details at balcony connections, balcony edges, parapet connections and exterior walls to concrete slabs.

The commons will include stone terracing, a wood-paneled cocktail lounge and a sports bar. The building’s architectural features will include handcrafted wood paneling and a blown-glass chandelier.

One of the goals of the Parkview project was to encourage movement throughout the campus with plenty of opportunities for residents to gather and socialize. There will be a variety of multipurpose rooms, public living rooms, lounges, sunrooms and lobbies. The building’s U-shape will allow for an outdoor courtyard and amenity space as well as views of the adjacent Terwilliger parkway hills, downtown and mountains. A landscaped rooftop also will provide additional space for gatherings.

One of the most critical elements for this project was approval for a sky-bridge across Southwest Sixth Avenue between Caruthers and Sheridan streets. It will link the new Parkview at Terwilliger Plaza with the existing Terwilliger Plaza building. The connector will double as an art gallery space, in response to community building goals.

“Building Blocks” is a 91��Ƶ feature that spotlights noteworthy projects either under construction or approaching the start of construction. To submit a project for consideration, please visit: djcorprod.wpengine.com/building-blocks.

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Portland landscape architecture firm PLACE recently was named the Architecture MasterPrize landscape and urban design Firm of the Year for 2019.

The honor, in the medium (10-49 employees) category, was for PLACE’s total body of work. The firm was founded in 2010.

An international jury of architects, designers, curators and academics selected honorees from among more than 1,000 entries representing 65 countries. Recognition from a broad group of peers meant a lot, PLACE principal Mauricio Villarreal said.

“For us it’s kind of a way of understanding that the values we practice here in Portland, Oregon, translate worldwide,” he said. “Having people that understand the value of involving the community in the design process, which is something Portland is notorious for, and the community worldwide is not as involved with, that translates those opportunities into great landscape pieces. It’s just really exciting to see that is visible to people all over the world.”

In addition to being named Firm of the Year, PLACE earned a Public Award for its work on the��Edith Green-Wendell Wyatt Federal Building��in downtown Portland; an Outdoor Award for its work on the Swarovski Kristallwelten World Museum in Wattens, Austria; and an Educational Award for its work on the University of Oregon’s Hatfield-Dowlin Complex in Eugene.

Those three projects effectively represent the firm’s overall portfolio, Villarreal said.

“Our work in Austria is a very good example of collaboration with artists and architects, and the landscape really brings it all together,” he said. “The award for University of Oregon Hatfield-Dowlin Center – that was an award for educational design and it’s very much the work that happens when you work with universities. And Edith Green, it’s an award about sustainability and it’s the work that you do with civic work. It really starts touching the different elements of working with the public and working on campuses and working with private institutions.”

PLACE received honorable mention for its work on the Hassalo on Eighth project in Lloyd.

“That’s a really interesting project in the sense of landscape architecture and private investment and the public sector can come together,” Villarreal said. “It was really three parking lots with a tower, and now it’s a building that has created a community.”

Hassalo on Eighth also received a 2019 ASLA Honor Award for residential design, Villarreal added.

2019 Architecture MasterPrize winners were honored Oct. 14 at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in Spain.

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LeBron James’ name – though not his basketball talent – is scheduled to soon arrive in the Portland-metro area.

The latest building at Nike‘s headquarters in Beaverton will be named for the NBA star, the company announced Thursday.

The building will house Nike’s Advanced Innovation Team and a Sport Research Lab. Among the amenities will be a full-size basketball court, a 200-meter endurance track and a training ramp outside the building sloped at a 15.63 percent incline.

The building’s design is led by Olson Kundig of Seattle. Mortenson Construction is the general contractor. PLACE, of Portland, is the landscape architect.

The LeBron James Building is slated to open in 2020, along with the previously announced Serena Williams Building. James’ building is the sixth new one constructed at Nike since the company began its Nike World Headquarters project in 2015.

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