The city of Portland will extend the North Park Blocks in a project that will help lay the groundwork for the Broadway Corridor.

Portland Parks & Recreation is allocating $8 million to transform a city-owned parking lot into a public green space. The lot currently forms the northern terminus of the Park Blocks that extend through downtown and Northwest Portland. The property is next to the Pacific Northwest College of Art, and is bounded by Northwest Glisan and Hoyt streets, and Northwest Eighth and Park avenues.

The new park will transition into another new park on the redeveloped U.S. Postal Service site.

“Extending the North Park Blocks will add valuable green space to the Central City and give Portlanders additional access to the housing, offices, shops and transportation routes which the Broadway Corridor project will offer,” Mayor Ted Wheeler stated in a news release. “Parks are an integral part of this new neighborhood that is adding thousands of new households and offices.”

The Broadway Corridor is a master plan to redevelop 33 acres of Northwest Portland led by developer Continuum Partners of Denver.

Creation of the park will be paid for via system development charges, which are assessed to new developments.

“The newest North Park Block will provide an important place for neighbors and visitors to relax, to play and to reflect,” Portland Parks & Recreation Director Adena Long stated.

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J. Douglas Macy, a prominent landscape architect who influenced some of Oregon’s most beloved public spaces, died Nov. 10. He was 72.

In a decades-long career after co-founding Walker Macy with Larry Walker, Macy advocated for and influenced the design of Pioneer Courthouse Square, the Vietnam Veterans of Oregon Memorial and Portland’s Willamette riverfront, among many other projects.

Macy was one of the most important landscape architects in shaping the Pacific Northwest, said Tim Eddy, principal at Hennebery Eddy Architects. Macy was also widely liked.

“He was a fantastic guy,” Eddy said.

Macy had a significant role on the design team for Pioneer Courthouse Square, which often is considered Portland’s “living room.”

“Several aspects of (the square) were things he championed in the design collaboration,” said Paul Dickow, marketing director and associate at Walker Macy.

Macy also supported the founding of the square, which had been a parking lot.

“He championed for it when it was open to political debate,” Dickow said.

Macy was an active civic participant, serving on the boards of the Portland Japanese Garden, the Pacific Northwest College of Art and Northern Arizona University, among others.

He often advocated for state parks and other open and public spaces.

“Doug was a real force for the profession and for the community in his career,” Dickow said, “and he constantly sought to explore what sorts of problems landscape architecture in Portland could tackle.”

Macy was born in Caldwell, Idaho, in 1945 and grew up near Madras. He graduated from Madras Union High School, and then earned a bachelor’s degree in landscape architecture from the University of Oregon.

Macy is survived by three siblings and their families.

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One of the loudest voices for Preserve the Pearl LLC, an opponent of Security Properties‘ Pearl Block 136 project, is no longer a spokesman for the organization. Burton Francis did not want to discuss specifics, but said that the Preserve the Pearl “directors wanted to take it in a direction I didn’t want to go in. I declined and stepped down from any position I had.”

Even though Francis, an Edge Lofts resident, is no longer affiliated with Preserve the Pearl, he was dismayed by the Land Use Board of Appeals‘ decision to uphold the city’s approval of the Pearl Block 136 project. Two buildings – a five-story office building and a 15-story residential tower – are planned on property formerly occupied by the Pacific Northwest College of Art. The developer is Seattle-based Security Properties, and the designer is Seattle-based Mithun.

“It was an unfortunate opinion in the sense that the plain language of the zoning code says there should be step-downs toward the Willamette River, in order to preserve our connectedness to the river,” Francis said. “To gloss over it and say, ‘The provisions of that particular zoning code are not singular in their enforceability; they’re just to be interpreted generally with the respect to that overall zoning code provision,’ weakens the code and weakens the design guidelines that everybody thought were the basic rules of the game.”

Security Properties did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

The only remaining possible challenge of the project would be before the Oregon Supreme Court. The appeal could be brought by Preserve the Pearl, or any other interested parties. Preserve the Pearl did not respond to a request for comment.

“As a lawyer, I have much more faith in the courts and the court system enforcing issues of procedural due process than I do with administrative bodies,” Francis said.

Francis believes that Pearl Block 136 is an example why action needs to be taken that changes the development process in the city.

“The public needs to be more involved,” he said. “Maybe there needs to be a referendum, or some sort of ballot initiative or some sort of direct action process that occurs where Portlanders are asked, ‘What direction do you want your city to go in? Do you want Portland to retain its character? Do you want to ‘keep Portland weird?’ I would just wish that the voice of Portlanders can be heard through a direct democracy vehicle. Let the people decide.”

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Portland Development Commission officials will soon seek public input on potential redevelopment of a 14-acre property off of Northwest Broadway, between Lovejoy and Hoyt streets.

The PDC is still in negotiations with the U.S. Postal Service to purchase its mail processing facility, but recently hired ZGF Architects and Skidmore, Owings & Merrill to lead a team developing the Broadway Corridor Framework Plan. The plan will offer a preferred development concept for the USPS site and examine potential redevelopment opportunities for the approximately 24-acre Broadway Corridor area, which includes several PDC-owned properties.

To kick off the planning process, the PDC and the consultant team will host three open houses. The first is set for Tuesday at the Pacific Northwest College of Art, 511 N.W. Broadway, from 5 to 7 p.m. Later meetings will take place July 21 and Sept. 8 at locations not determined yet.

HR&A Advisors and ECONorthwest are contributing real estate strategy and market analysis for the plan. Nelson\Nygaard Consulting Associates will provide multimodal transportation planning and evaluation services. Cogan Owens Greene is facilitating the public involvement process.

Work on the framework plan is anticipated to be completed and presented to the PDC board and Portland City Council in October. If the PDC purchases the USPS site, the agency will commission a more detailed master plan for the Broadway Corridor area.

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A full Pearl District block previously used by the Pacific Northwest College of Art may soon be redeveloped as apartments and retail space.

The property, at 1241 N.W. Johnson St., was purchased in 2013 by Seattle-based Security Properties for $11.75 million. The firm plans to demolish the existing 40,000-square-foot building and replace it with a residential high-rise and a five-story commercial building.

Seattle-based architecture firm Mithun in late September requested a design review hearing with the Portland Bureau of Development Services. The firm is seeking approval for a revised design of the two buildings, totaling 280,000 square feet, with underground parking for 222 vehicles.

“I don’t believe there has been a significant revision of the design,” said Jeanne Muir, spokeswoman for Security Properties. “They will be seeking the height bonus on the residential building, making it 150 feet.”

Muir said that because the site has a set floor area ratio (FAR), a height bonus would allow the developer to shift some of the FAR.

“They’re trying to make two very different buildings,” she said. “By shifting the FAR to the taller building they can really keep the office building in the historic style.”

Redevelopment plans call for a 15-story apartment tower with about 220 units and a five-story building with 15,000 square feet of retail space and 60,000 square feet of office space.

“Keeping the office building low helps keep a vision corridor along 13th (Avenue),” Muir said.

The buildings would be connected by a central courtyard running the length of the block, north to south, from Northwest Kearney to Johnson streets.

“The buildings are connected by a 50-foot-wide plaza,” Muir said. “It’s truly a public, at-grade space that has seating and brings in a lot of light.”

When the firm went before the Portland Design Commission in July, Pearl District residents voiced concerns about the proposed height of the residential tower. Design commissioners said they didn’t have a problem with the height, saying that it’s necessary to keep up with demand for housing in the Pearl.

Ross Caron, spokesman for the BDS, said no hearing date has been set.

A call to Mithun was not returned by press time.

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Two Portland-based architects and an architecture professor next month will help judge a furniture design competition hosted by lighting and furniture manufacturer Rejuvenation.

Jurors for the Development Award competition include Works Partnership Architecture principal Carrie Strickland, Skylab Architecture principal Jeff Kovel and Portland State University assistant architecture professor Margarette Leite, among other Portland-area design professionals.

Rejuvenation, founded in Portland, is offering the Development Award for the first time this year, to an exhibitor at the . The will take place Oct. 1 at 380 N.W. 13th Ave. and include displays from more than 60 furniture designers.

An awards ceremony is set for 7 p.m. during the show, and the Development Award winner will receive marketing and manufacturing support from Rejuvenation to sell its products.

The Development Award ties into Rejuvenation’s participation in Design Week Portland, Oct. 4-11.

Also in honor of Design Week, the company next month will host an event to discuss collaborating with Pacific Northwest College of Art students interested in learning about lighting design. Rejuvenation designer Kristine Morich and participating students will speak about the design process and show their work during the “PNCA BridgeLab + Rejuvenation Fireside Forum” event on Oct. 5 from 1 to 3 p.m. at Rejuvenation’s office, 1100 S.E. Grand Ave., in Portland.

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Pearl District residents on Thursday voiced concerns to the Portland Design Commission about the height planned for a new 15-story residential tower in the neighborhood.

Neighbors and others who testified at a design advice request for Seattle-based Security Properties‘ Block 136 development said a 150-foot tower would be inconsistent with shorter surrounding buildings.

“It will dominate the neighborhood,” New Traditional Architecture principal John Czarnecki told the commission.

Seattle-based architecture firm Mith?n sought the commission’s advice on preliminary designs for a two-building, mixed-use development on the block bound by Northwest Kearney and Johnson streets and 12th and 13th avenues. The block currently is home to the Pacific Northwest College of Art, which is planning to relocate to the 511 Federal Building later this year.

The two new buildings planned for the property would be separated by a public courtyard connecting Kearney and Johnson streets. A five-story building with ground-floor retail space and either office or residential space on the upper floors would be located on Northwest 13th Avenue. A neighboring residential tower, also with ground-floor retail space, would be located on Northwest 12th Avenue. The proposal also calls for below-grade parking for 222 vehicles.

The two buildings will have distinctly different designs, Mith?n associate principal Heidi Oien told the commission. The shorter building will share elements with historic Pearl District structures nearby while the tower will be more like new developments in the neighborhood’s north end, she said.

“Those two areas have really inspired our design,” she said.

In response to the public testimony, design commissioners said they were OK with the height of the taller building and the overall concept for the development. Commissioner Ben Kaiser noted that taller buildings are being proposed in the Pearl District to keep up with demand for housing there and meet city desires for urban density.

“I think the general idea is fantastic,” he said. “I think it’s a good idea to have height when you can have it. I think the neighborhood will be just that much more livable because of the diversity (of buildings).”

Commissioner David Wark advised the design team to better define the relationship between the two buildings.

“I keep looking for the binding element between them,” he said. “They’re so different, but should they be that different?”

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Like any renovation of a historic building, the $33 million project to update the 511 Federal Building for the Pacific Northwest College of Art has been a creative leap of faith.

After several months of demolition work, the project team is starting to see formerly hidden portions of the 95-year-old building come into view, said Chris Bixby, associate principal of Allied Works Architecture, which designed the renovation on Portland’s North Park Blocks.

“One of the primary actions we’re taking with this building is to remove the layers of history that blocked the natural light that originally illuminated the work space,” he said. “What we’re really doing is peeling those layers away and bringing the natural light back into the building.”

That involved redesign of the building’s north end to become a more connected, communal space. The north end previously served a variety of uses, including mail sorting for the U.S. Postal Service to daytime detention for U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement.

Crews are now completing form work and pouring slabs for the new mezzanine that will help define four major public spaces on the ground floor – a library reading room, an atrium, a multiuse space and an object study library. The mezzanine will be supported by thin cables.

“It was the major move we did to the building,” Bixby said. “The rest of the project is about editing out 60 years of bad renovation work.”

For PNCA President Tom Manley, the project will stand out because contemporary architecture and a historic building are being fused.

“The way the (renovation) was designed was to create unity in (a) building in a way that respected the historic architecture,” Manley said. “I think they did a fantastic job.”

Many unknowns were uncovered, said Doug Greenwalt, senior project manager for Howard S. Wright, the project’s general contractor.

Most of those surprises have come from a demolition process to restore some of the building’s original look and open large, functional spaces that had been buried by two previous renovations. Workers had covered transom windows and north-facing sawtooth skylights, which were common in industrial buildings and now are highly coveted by studio artists.

Additionally, marble-paneled walls and terrazzo-style flooring were revealed in the Grand Corridor and each of the six floors in the tower. They were hidden for years by old plaster and orange carpeting removed during demolition.

Howard S. Wright had performed a similar job at Portland State University’s Lincoln Hall, so it knew what it was getting into with the PNCA project, Greenwalt said.

“We put hours and hours into cleaning this up,” he said. “It was pretty hammered when we got it.”

Wading into the unknown meant creating various mock-ups for building elements including classroom spaces, windows, doors and the air conditioning system. A new HVAC system will be installed to improve energy performance.

Also, a new viscous damper system will provide greater seismic strength. Only a few structures in Portland feature viscous dampers, which are chevron-shaped devices that absorb the shock of an earthquake rather than resist it. The dampers had to be purchased 40 weeks in advance; they will be delivered in August.

Installation of the system will require precision at a micron level, Greenwalt said. Using Building Information Modeling will allow Howard S. Wright to test exactly what the system will look like and ensure that pins fit perfectly through the holes, he said.

“The tolerances are very small for each damper,” he said.

The contractor also created a 3-D model using BIM to ensure that all mechanical and electrical elements would not clash with the original structure, Greenwalt said.

“We need to keep the duct work as tight as possible,” he said. “It’s nice to have clash detection because we want to be certain at installation time.”

Arlene and Harold Schnitzer Center for Art and Design

Location: 511 N.W. Broadway, Portland

Cost: $33 million

Construction start date:��January 2014

Anticipated construction completion date:��January 2015

Owner:��Pacific Northwest College of Art

Developer:��Gerding Edlen

Architect:��Allied Works Architecture

Engineer:��KPFF Consulting Engineers

General contractor:��Howard S. Wright

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Demolition is slated to start this week on the 511 Federal Building, which will undergo a $32 million renovation to become the new home of the Pacific Northwest College of Art. The building opened as a federal post office in 1919, and in more recent years was home to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and�� U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Carpets, acoustical ceilings, and drywall installed during a 1960’s renovation will be removed to reveal original wood and terra cotta flooring, massive arched windows, and decorative millwork. Partitions added to the ground-floor grand corridor will be removed to allow light to fill the large space. The project’s designer is Allied Works Architecture, and the contractor is Howard S. Wright.

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A renovation of the 93-year-old 511 Federal Building designed by will let the consolidate most of its facilities and give it a presence in downtown.

Construction of the $19 million project is expected to start in January 2013 and finish in August 2014. The location will help the school grow, said Chris Bixby, senior associate at Allied Works.

“Being by the park blocks is going to be huge,” he said. “They really want to become the north anchor in the way (Portland State University) captures the south park blocks. There will be a symbiotic relationship between the park and the school ultimately.”

Also, a vacant property on the western side of the building, owned by the city, is expected to be developed into a park, according to Bixby.

The renovation will give PNCA students more space to operate. Presently, the school leases multiple spaces around town – and the total square footage isn’t sufficient to accommodate the school’s growing student population.

The bulk of the PNCA’s curriculum will be taught in the 129,000-square-foot 511 Federal Building, though the school will continue to operate out of its facility on Johnson Street in the Pearl District. The former post office will be fitted to hold painting studios, a multiuse theater space and a gallery space. The building’s center will feature a large atrium where students will be able to gather and socialize.

Because the building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, its exterior will not change in appearance and only be restored and cleaned.

“We are doing a sensitive infusion of new architecture to contrast the old with a light touch,” Bixby said.

The project is presently in the design review process.

“On the Boards” is a weekly feature that spotlights local firms’ best design work. Submissions from architectural and engineering firms are encouraged. Please call 503-802-7240 or email ontheboards@djcOregon.com.

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