Alaska Airlines is expanding its aircraft maintenance with a new 125,000-square-foot hangar facility at Portland International Airport that will allow maintenance technicians to work on up to three narrowbody aircraft or two widebody aircraft at a time.

On June 16, Alaska Airlines broke ground on the building, which will be adjacent to the airline’s Horizon Air Ops Center & Maintenance Hangar. It will be on Port of Portland-owned land, at 7646 N.E. Airtrans Way.

According to city of Portland records, the estimated project cost is approximately $135-150 million. The facility will add about 125,000 square feet of indoor aircraft maintenance space for Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines’ fleets and 60,000 square feet of space for offices, engine, machine and sheet metal shops and support areas.

According to the city of Portland, once built, the facility is projected to create at least 100 new living-wage jobs for maintenance workers, engineers and service professionals.

“The new hangar embodies our strong partnership with Alaska, and our mutual commitment to making our region a place where everyone can thrive,” Port of Portland’s chief aviation officer, Dan Pippenger, stated in a press release. “It’s a smart investment in our local talent that’s sure to boost our region’s economy and strengthen our future.”

The project team includes architect JNG Architects of Anchorage, Alaska; civil engineer DOWL of Bellevue, Washington; structural engineer Schneider Structural Engineers, headquartered in Tucson, Arizona; MEP/fire protection Coffman Engineers of Anchorage; and general contractor Swinerton Builders of Concord, California.

The facility will be LEED certified. It will also feature EV charging stations, water conservation features and sustainable building materials. Other design details have not been shared.

Construction is expected to be complete in the second quarter of 2028.

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Amazon‘s massive PDX9 distribution center in Troutdale has sold to a San Diego-based real estate investment firm for $113.5 million.

At 857,379 square feet, the distribution center is one of the largest buildings in the Portland metro area to ever change hands, according to CBRE. It represented the seller, Clarion Partners, a major investor based in New York City.

The buyer was CIRE Equity. The California firm owns several other Oregon properties, including 829,087 square feet at 224 Logistics Park in Milwaukie, and others in Hillsboro and Eugene.

The property “is one of the most significant industrial transactions in Oregon this year — if not the largest,” CBRE’s Brett Hartzell, who along with Chris Reeves represented Clarion Partners, stated in a news release. “With few comparable assets in the region, its scale, strategic location and modern design set it apart. The long-term lease at favorable rates further enhances its value, making this a truly exceptional investment opportunity in the Portland market.”

The sale equates to $132.38 per square foot. The property, developed by Trammell Crow Co. and built by Sierra Construction Co., is part of the Troutdale Reynolds Industrial Park. Amazon’s neighbors at the former brownfield development include FedEx, C&S Wholesale Grocers, Bonneville Power Administration and NextEra Energy Resources.

“We’re certainly looking forward to working with them,” Port of Portland Development Manager Chris Damgen said of the new ownership.

The industrial park still has three undeveloped lots.

CIRE Equity did not respond to a message seeking comment. The firm operates the CIRE Real Estate Income Trust. CBRE’s news release stated that the acquisition “reflects CIRE’s ongoing commitment to strategic growth and its ability to capitalize on opportunities that deliver long-term value for investors by combining income generation with capital appreciation.”

The building is on a 73.7-acre lot and features 41-foot clear heights, ample parking and electrical resources.

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With more than a century of experience, Schwabe, Williamson & Wyatt has built a legacy as a leader in construction and real estate law. Known for its forward-thinking approach, the firm helps clients navigate the evolving landscape of construction challenges, from complex disputes to innovative development projects.

At the heart of Schwabe’s success is its ability to provide comprehensive legal solutions that balance risk management with opportunity. The firm’s attorneys handle everything from large-scale construction litigation to intricate zoning and land use matters, ensuring projects move forward with confidence. Whether advising on environmental compliance or managing contract negotiations, Schwabe is a trusted partner at every stage of construction and real estate development.

A notable example of the firm’s expertise is its representation of ICTSI Oregon Inc. in a landmark labor case. In 2019, a jury awarded ICTSI $93.6 million in damages due to illegal labor slowdowns that led to the shutdown of Terminal 6 at the Port of Portland. Schwabe’s attorneys played a key role in securing this outcome, demonstrating the firm’s strength in high-stakes litigation.

With a commitment to collaboration, innovation and industry leadership, Schwabe remains a key player in shaping the future of construction and real estate law.

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An effort to build a mass-timber manufacturing facility for affordable, modular housing at the Port of Portland has received a major boost from the Oregon Legislature and a federal grant program.

The Hacienda Community Development Corporation and the port were awarded $5 million from the Legislature during a special session on Monday night.

Earlier Monday, the Oregon Mass Timber Coalition received a $500,000 grant from the U.S. Economic Development Administration to create a strategy for a mass-timber manufacturing facility at Marine Terminal 2. The coalition advances as a finalist to compete for up to $100 million in federal funding from the American Rescue Plan.

The local group is aiming to jump-start housing production and support Oregon’s emerging mass-timber industry, officials stated.

“This partnership with the Port of Portland fills a gap for modular housing developed right here in Oregon, providing not only new housing options but job opportunities and new markets for Oregon wood products,” Hacienda CDC CEO Ernesto Fonseca stated.

Fonseca added that modular homes “could offer rapid response options to address housing shortages created by emergencies like wildfires.”

The coalition comprises the Port of Portland, Business Oregon, the Oregon Department of Forestry, the Department of Land Conservation and Development, and the Tallwood Design Institute – a Corvallis-based partnership between Oregon State University and the University of Oregon.

The Oregon Department of Forestry plans to use the grant to partner with federal land managers to restore forests devastated by the 2020 Labor Day wildfires and provide wood fiber for mass timber construction, Deputy State Forester Kyle Abraham stated.

Oregon has quickly grown into a U.S. hub for mass timber. Riddle-based D.R. Johnson is a major manufacturer, and several Portland-based developers, architects and construction firms specialize in cross-laminated timber buildings.

Portland is home to the tallest CLT building, Carbon12, as well as major CLT commercial buildings such as District Office and Albina Yard. More are coming, including Sturgeon Development Partners‘ Flatworks building on Southeast Grand Avenue.

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The single largest project in the overhaul of Portland International Airport – creation of a new main terminal – is well under way.

But instead of a typical ground-up building process, construction of the most striking and eye-catching portion of that new structure – its roof – is taking place in the northeast corner of the airport property, next to the Port of Portland Fire Department headquarters.

Designed by ZGF Architects to emulate Oregon’s lush forestlands, the mass-timber roof is an ode to the local environment. The undulating structure consists of a skeleton of enormous steel girders fabricated by Evraz in Portland. Those are connected by a series of massive, arching glulam beams made from Douglas fir by Zip-O-Log Mills of Eugene. Topping it off are hundreds of two-inch mass-plywood panels made by Freres Lumber of Lyons.

“It was very important to Port of Portland leadership, so they worked strategically with ZGF on developing the specifications on this prescribed sourcing,” said Katrina Day, a senior project manager with Hoffman Skanska Joint Venture, the project’s general contractor. “It’s intended as a nod to the local community and making sure that we’re reinvesting in Oregon for the project.”

The prefabricated roof is an ingenious solution to some unique construction problems.

First is the building site: a busy international airport that before the pandemic was serving nearly 20 million travelers per year. The sheer volume of people moving though PDX and the importance of the airport as a travel hub means it cannot be shut down for construction – and assembling the roof in place would have required that for safety and security reasons.

“If you stick-built this over the terminal, these members are too big,” Hoffman Skanska senior superintendent Jason Koski said. “You couldn’t build anything like this and have an occupied building. So, by doing these large modules, we’re able to keep the terminal open at all times during construction.”

Instead, the project team took over a 20-acre site next to the near the fire department headquarters and poured a reinforced concrete pad engineered to support the weight of not only the roof structure, but also the massive hydraulic jacks and self-propelled modular transporters that will be used to move the finished roof segments across the airport’s north runway to their eventual home.

“We’ll set those at night in roughly a six-hour window where we can shut the building down,” Koski said.

The full roof will be assembled in spring 2022 from 20 separate pieces. Of those, 16 will be “super modules” featuring arched glulam beams topped with mass-plywood panels fabricated by Freres Lumber and milled into shape by Swinerton subsidiary Timberlab at its Northeast Portland plant. The other four will be smaller “cassettes” to fill in spaces left over.

“Nobody has ever made them to this standard, and nobody has ever made an arched glulam this large,” Day said. “In fact, in the design, they were spliced halfway through because there was no standard for designing to know whether they were constructable. So, Zip-O (employees) took it upon themselves to build a full-size mockup to ensure we could eliminate the splice.”

That effort was successful, and the resulting 80-foot-long beams are up to 9 feet tall.

The wood for the glulams was sourced from local forestlands managed by the Yakama, Coquille and Skokomish tribes as well as other landowners practicing responsible forest management.

“We’re putting our first layer of roofing on,” Koski said. “And we’re putting in all the lighting conduit, the fire alarm conduit, the sprinkler system, the roof drains, and then acoustical panels.”

About 60 percent of the lattice that decorates the interior part of the structure in graceful curves will be installed beforehand, according to Swinerton superintendent Brendan Kelly.

A lot of work was needed in the design and engineering phase to come up with the plan, Port of Portland Construction Services Manager Brad Harrison added.

“We started from scratch, but to stick-build this thing it became apparent that it would almost shut down the airport,” he said. “The contractor was like, the more modular construction you can do, the better, from a whole cost perspective and a safety perspective.”

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PDX Next – the ambitious, five-year, $2 billion effort to improve and expand Portland International Airport – is now in full swing. While construction of a new main terminal will surely stand out, some smaller projects – relatively speaking – also are taking place to expand passenger concourses on both the north and south sides of the airport.

Concourse E, home to Southwest Airlines, is complete. And work is moving quickly on Concourse B for Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air. A Hoffman Construction/Skanska USA Building joint venture is serving as the general contractor for both the main terminal project (“T-Core”) and Concourse B. The latter will feature 11 new passenger gates – five with raised, enclosed walkways connecting to aircraft, and six ground-level ones for smaller commuter planes.

“Normally CCB (Concourse B) would be a giant project for the Port, and it’s dwarfed by T-Core,” said Scott Sparman, a construction manager for the Port of Portland. “It’s a long overdue upgrade for these particular customers.

“The old structure was more of a temporary structure. There were some B gates up here in the existing part of the concourse that served the larger aircraft, but now we’re going to have more capacity here.”

Concourse B was designed by ZGF Architects, and crews broke ground in early 2020. The structure will feature a massive amount of glazing wrapped around a stout, seismically enhanced steel framework erected by ironworkers with By Design Steel. The two-story concourse will largely function as a single story, with a wraparound upper-level walkway on the north side allowing access from the main terminal. From there, people will reach the lower level via stairs or an elevator. Food and drink will be available from businesses such as Screen Door and specialty coffee roaster Good Coffee.

“We’re still going to have the main processing of passengers in the old room there,” Sparman said. “And then passengers are going to flow down here and get on their gates.”

Right now, the new concourse is still open to the elements. But Snyder Roofing is installing the roof and Western Partitions is quickly framing the exterior walls; mechanical, electrical and plumbing work is ongoing throughout the space. Work on the building envelope is expected to finish over the summer. The Port expects the new terminal to be ready for use sometime in November.

The narrow, ground-level gates for Horizon Air that extend eastward almost seem separate from the rest of the project. But those, too, are now enclosed and undergoing MEP work.

“There are a lot of things opening this fall, so we’re going to sequence that,” Sparman said. “It does look like there’s a lot to do, but we have the hard part done. The rest of it is finishes, building envelope, and that’s coming in May. In another month this is going to look like something you could just hang out in.”

Concourse B will eventually have a custom art installation crafted by Ryan Feddersen, a Native American artist based in Tacoma, Washington. Crafted entirely from wood, the installation will cover the concourse’s south wall at ground level.

So far, Sparman said, the most difficult aspect of the Concourse B project is its location. It sits between an active taxiway on the south side and TriMet‘s MAX light-rail infrastructure on the north side. Those transportation corridors have remained in full service during construction.

“Erecting steel (and) bringing in materials through a security checkpoint, that’s the biggest thing,” he said.

“It’s not dissimilar to Concourse E, where it’s between a taxi area and a roadway,” Port of Portland spokeswoman Kama Simonds added. “There are similar constraints, just on the other side of the airport.”

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A lot of work is under way at Portland International Airport, including construction of a new main terminal, a new office building for Port of Portland officials and a new parking garage and rental car complex.

One recent endeavor involved the 700-foot-long concourse connector, a post-security hallway that formerly allowed airport visitors to move between the north and south wings. The structure needed to be removed in order to accommodate future construction.

“Rather than simply demolish the building, we decided to split it in half and reuse it,” Kama Simonds, the Port of Portland’s media relations manager, stated in a news release.

One half of the concourse connector was moved to the south side of the airport during the week of March 15-19, and then the other half was moved to the north side the following week.

Each half of the concourse connector weighs around 9,000 tons. Both were moved by five self-propelled modular transporters synchronized to a single remote control. A single operator walked next to each connector as it crawled across the tarmac to its new home. Additional spotters were on hand to avoid any potential collisions.

“Each half of the building becomes a bypass to help people move safely around the construction area at the airport’s core,” Simonds stated. “The bypasses will be in place for several years to help travelers easily get to their gates while the construction continues behind insulated walls.”

Also taking place at the airport these days is underground utility work for the new main terminal. Meanwhile, crews are preparing for the closure of the Clocktower Plaza that holds pre-security shops and restaurants. That closure will allow installation of enormous Y-shaped columns to support the new roof.

The main terminal will expand 150 feet beyond its western border. The roof, with a distinctive wooden ceiling made of locally sourced timber, will be installed beginning in 2022.

Elsewhere at PDX, crews are continuing to expand and upgrade Concourse B, which will serve Alaska Airlines. That work is on track to finish later this year.

In addition, the new ground transportation hub is scheduled to open in November.

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It will take three nights to move each of about 20 massive roof modules into place as part of the Portland International Airport‘s $1.5 billion main terminal project.

A self-propelled modular transporter able to haul submarines and bridge spans will move the roof modules from a 20-acre concrete slab to the lay-down position at the jobsite. Moving each module into place will take one night.

“Remember the old NASA when they roll the rockets out? It kind of looks like that,” said Brad Harrison, senior manager of construction services for the Port of Portland.

On the second night, the columns will be raised and placed on the first part of large Y-columns and sliding towers. They’ll reach their final positions on the third night.

Erection of the roof is only one part of the $2 billion package of airport projects known as PDX Next. The main terminal renovation, led by a joint venture of Hoffman Construction Co. and Skanska USA, is the largest individual project. It involves unusual construction methods and techniques seen only in some of the largest projects in the U.S.

The PDX Next projects are intended to modernize the airport. PDX is the nation’s 30th-busiest airport, with about 9.8 million passenger trips per year. the best U.S. airport for six consecutive years before it narrowly ceded the top spot in this year’s ranking to Indianapolis.

The main terminal project is in an enabling phase. Retail tenants and airlines are being moved to make way for construction.

The roof alone will have 1,000 tons of steel. The structure also will have 2.5 million board feet of timber. At its peak, 660 craft workers will be employed on the project.

Erection of the roof modules and Y-columns will begin in 2022. The main terminal project is expected to be completed in 2025. All of the work must be done while allowing the airport to continue normal operations.

ZGF Architects designed the main terminal project. Sharron van der Meulen, a ZGF partner, stated in a news release that the design is “inspired by the forests of the Pacific Northwest.”

Wood is the major material used on the roof’s interior. It’s being sourced by Swinerton Mass Timber for the Hoffman Skanska joint venture. The glulam beams are being manufactured by Zip-O-Laminators of Eugene in swooping, curved single pieces, the longest of which are 80 feet. Calvert Co. of Vancouver, Washington, is manufacturing flat beams.

The long beams simplify the structure, both from a construction and aesthetic perspective, said Katrina Day, the Hoffman Skanska project manager for the main terminal roof.

“It really simplifies the design and aesthetics as far as not having additional spliced components at the halfway point,” she said.

Freres Lumber Co., based in Lyons, is supplying the 2-inch mass-plywood panels that serve as the roof diaphragm.

The project leadership, including the client and architects, “prescribed a very specific sourcing story for the wood,” Day said. Wood materials are being sourced regionally, with specific segregation and sorting. All of the wood in the project comes from the Pacific Northwest, Day said.

Choosing sustainable, regionally sourced materials was important to the project, Harrison said.

“When you think of Oregon, you think of the Northwest, you think of wood,” he said.

Regional sourcing extends to the steel. EVRAZ steel mill in North Portland is rolling the steel, and Greenberry Industrial in Vancouver, Washington, is manufacturing the steel girders that will hold the mass-timber pieces.

The new roof is being constructed over the existing one, and the old roof will be demolished in phases as the new roof is built and waterproofed.

Seismic concerns are among the project’s driving motivations. The roof is designed to travel 24 inches in any direction during an earthquake, Day said, reducing the chances of structural failure.

KPFF is the engineering firm for the project, and HNTB is providing civil infrastructure support. Mammoet USA North Inc. is the transport company that performs the jacking, transport and sliding of major roof components.

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Specht Development and Colas Development Group are teaming up to develop a 48-acre section of the Gresham Vista Business Park.

The Port of Portland Board of Commissioners on Wednesday approved a master development agreement with the two local companies. The partnership has the option to buy or lease Gresham Vista Lot 5 from the port, which owns the property.

“We have the option to buy; the port would prefer a long-term lease,” said Greg Specht, CEO of Specht Development. “Every deal is different. We have the flexibility to go in either direction.”

The Specht-Colas partnership will seek a user – ideally a manufacturing business, Specht said. “This deal with the port does not provide for speculative development,” he said. “It’s build-to-suit.”

The companies have formed a joint-venture entity, GV5, a limited liability company.

Specht Development and Trammell Crow previously built projects in Gresham Vista Business Park. The property also includes a synthetic diamond manufacturing plant built for De Beers Group by U.K.-based Gardiner & Theobald.

Colas Construction previously worked for Specht Properties on the renovation of the 220 NW 2nd Building to accommodate Prosper Portland‘s new offices.

“They did a bang-up job,” Specht said.

Andrew Colas, president and CEO of Colas Construction, did not return a message seeking comment. In a news release, he stated, “We are thrilled to partner with Specht, the Port of Portland and the city of Gresham on this unique development project. We believe this project will set a new standard in the importance of BIPOC Development Corporation inclusion in large-scale developments and could not be more excited to partner with Specht in this pursuit.”

The project will have strict diversity targets and require high-wage jobs. The average wage target is $53,890.

“That’s a high bar,” Specht said.

Predevelopment of the project comes as the industrial sector has been a bright spot in a weakening commercial real estate market. Specht, who has long maintained that a dearth of available land restricts industrial development in the Portland-metro area, believes Gresham Vista Lot 5 is special.

“It’s one of the best remaining greenfield sites for industrial development in the Portland metropolitan area,” he said.

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Ambitions for a new parking garage and rental car center at Portland International Airport grew with a change in scope. The price tag grew along with it.

The Parking Additions and Consolidated Rental Car (PACR) project is now expected to cost $282 million, up from $246 million as conceived originally. That represents a 14.6 percent increase.

The design changes were driven by a desire to provide a single rental car facility, and eliminate the need for customers to take shuttle buses to some agencies’ locations.

“The fundamental thing is we decided to bring all of the rental car agencies on site,” said Vince Granato, the Port of Portland‘s project manager overseeing the portfolio of projects known as PDX Next. “We needed to make the facility bigger to accommodate that.”

An extra bay was added to the facility. The toll plaza was moved. And the project now includes a separate, stand-alone rental car center.

“It’s better customer service,” Granato said.

For now, five rental agencies are located on-site and three are off-site. When the rental car center is complete, 12 rental car companies plan to operate there.

JE Dunn Construction is building the 2,225-space parking garage, which was designed by YGH Architecture. Site work began in early 2018. The garage and rental car center are on track to open in fall 2021.

The COVID-19 pandemic led to additional unexpected costs, Granato said. Two positive virus tests slowed work, he said.

“There have been COVID costs that have put pressure on the budget,” he said.

The parking garage is being funded by revenues from the airport’s parking operations. The rental car building is being funded by user fees paid by rental car customers and bonds issued for the project. To provide stability for both the Port of Portland and tenants, the rental car agencies agreed to 20-year leases in the new facility that will begin when they move in.

The project team saved costs in other ways, Granato said. JE Dunn locked in a steel purchase early on. The project has also benefited from stable costs for some materials.

That’s part of a wider trend, said Mike Salsgiver, executive director of the Associated General Contractors‘ Oregon-Columbia chapter.

“We’re still seeing some uptick in basic materials, but it’s kind of flattened out, because the industry’s kind of flattened out,” Salsgiver said.

The PACR project is part of the larger PDX Next initiative to modernize Oregon’s major airport. A $1.65 billion makeover of the main terminal building has begun with a joint venture of Hoffman Construction and Skanska USA Building in the pilot’s seat. ZGF Architects is designing the terminal.

The terminal project calls for replacing the roof with a seismically sound one and radically redesigning the interior.

“The floor will be the same,” Granato said, “but that’s about it.”

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