A creative agency has signed a lease for a 19,489-square-foot space at Field Office in the North Pearl District.

The lease by Instrument is the third lease at Field Office since October, totaling approximately 35,000 square feet, according to Colliers, which represented the landlord. The building, completed in 2018, is owned by a joint venture of Goldman Sachs and Lincoln Property Co. through a limited liability company.

“Field Office continues to attract innovative companies looking for a high-quality office experience,” said Trevor Kafoury, vice chair of Colliers, in a news release. “Instrument’s decision to relocate here reflects the building’s premier location, top-tier amenities and the increasing demand for thoughtfully designed workspaces in Portland.”

Colliers said the lease reflects the “flight to quality” seen in the office market, whereby newer, more expensive Class-A office space is attracting tenants ahead of older Class-B and below office stock.

Vacancies have continued to grow in Portland’s office market, reaching 24.9 percent in the first three months of the year, according to Colliers.

Field Office comprises more than 300,000 square feet in twin six-story buildings. It was developed by Project^, designed by Hacker Architects and built by Lease Crutcher Lewis as general contractor.

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A new indoor aquatic center for North Portland is in the process. Portland Parks & Recreation is spearheading the project, which includes a focused outreach on underserved communities. The multi-phase project, currently in Phase II, is expected to take five to seven years to complete.

When complete, the center is expected to serve about 22,000 households. Currently, North Portland residents have a low level of access to indoor aquatic facilities based on the Parks 2020 Vision’s defined level of service goals – to provide a full-service community center within 3 miles of every resident. As the Charles Jordan Community Center lacks indoor aquatic programming, the new aquatic center will complement the existing community center and will fulfill the Vision Plan’s level of service goal for North Portland.

Working with North Portlanders, Portland Parks & Recreation will plan the site and develop a facility that meets the community’s needs for the entire North Portland peninsula.

In 2021, Portland City Commissioner Carmen Rubio directed Portland Parks & Recreation to begin planning for an indoor aquatic center for North Portland.

ELS Architecture and Urban Design has been authorized by Portland City Council for design services for site selection, programming, schematic design and land-use permitting. Capital Project Manager Robin Johnson Craig provided in an email that a subsequent request for proposal for design development, construction documents and construction administration will be released at a future date. This will be an open invitation for firms to propose for the separate design contract later in the process. Timing for the RFP has not been determined at this time.

In October, Rubio designated an additional $5 million in Parks System Development Charge (SDC) funding to go to the design and construction of the North Portland Aquatic Center. This brings the total SDC funding to $16.7 million, as Rubio had previously allocated $11.7 million toward the project. The project has also secured $15 million from a state grant. This brings the current allocation to $31.7 million.

The project is estimated to cost around $50 million. That estimate could vary depending on the final site selected, programming and cost and availability of materials.

The future indoor aquatic facility could have spray and play features, a competitive lap pool, a therapy pool, a spa, lockers and reserved party rooms.

The project is in four phases. It is currently in the second phase, which includes site determination, programming selection, schematic design and land-use permitting. The project will enter Phase III in winter 2024 through winter 2027. This phase includes selecting the design team, construction manager/general contractor, design development and construction documentation.

Construction is estimated to begin during phase IV, which begins in winter 2027 and will run through winter 2029.

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The Earthquake Ready Burnside Bridge project has received a $5 million Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity (RAISE) grant.  It’s the first successful funding award for the project. Multnomah County applied for the grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation in April.

U.S. Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeffrey Merkley and U.S. Reps. Earl Blumenauer and Suzanne Bonamici submitted a joint letter of support for the project.

The Burnside Bridge replacement project is expected to cost $895 million. The $5 million grant will “go towards advancing the design phase,” project manager Megan Neill stated in a press release.

Multnomah County has identified $300 million to contribute through its vehicle registration fee. Other funding opportunities are being sought to fill a $500 million-$600 million funding gap for construction. The county earlier this year applied for two large federal grants; it’s expected to receive responses in the fall and winter, respectively.

Multnomah County maintains the Burnside Bridge and leads the Earthquake Ready Burnside Bridge Project. The environmental review phase is on track to wrap up late this year. Design work will begin in spring 2023 and construction could begin as early as 2025, pending funding.

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The winning proposal to develop Portland’s Williams-Russell block calls for affordable rental and ownership housing, low-cost retail and office space, and a central plaza and garden.

How the project team gets there is perhaps as interesting as the development itself. The effort is led by Black-owned firms, including an experienced local developer who recently went out on her own.

The project team is largely composed of firms based in North and Northeast Portland. They will answer to a newly created nonprofit corporation made up of local community leaders, most of whom are Black.

All the $71 million project must do is offer restorative justice to a Black community torn apart by decades of displacement, gentrification and neglect, provide affordable housing in an increasingly expensive urban environment, and reactivate a keystone block that was left vacant for decades by the same organizations whose wrongs are now being righted.

Enter Anyeley Hallova, who is coordinating the project team.

Hallova, founder of Adre, is leading the project alongside two affordable housing developers – Community Development Partners and Portland Community Reinvestment Initiatives. Many of the principals involved have worked with each other before, but it is Hallova who must bring them all together.

According to her admirers, she’s uniquely suited to that task.

“She’s kind of masterful at coalescing disparate groups of people and galvanizing people around a vision,” said Tom Cody, managing partner at Project^. “She’s an incredibly good manager and coordinator, and she’ll bring those skills to something so collaborative and vision-based.”

Hallova founded Adre last year after 12 years as a partner at Project^. There, she earned a reputation for socially driven development projects, often with sustainable elements such as cross-laminated timber construction and strict energy performance goals. Hallova led development of the Meyer Memorial Trust headquarters project, and was part of the team that delivered the Oregon Conservation Center for The Nature Conservancy.

The Williams-Russell project, also known as the Hill Block development, is part of Hallova’s mission to develop projects that benefit the wider community.

“I specifically started this company with mission-oriented projects in mind,” she said.

Hallova is quick to deflect attention to other project team members – housing developers CDP and PCRI, Colas Construction, LEVER Architecture and Hood Design Studio. Only Hood Design Studio – a Black-owned landscape architecture firm in Oakland, California – is not based in North-Northeast Portland. That means most of the project team is within walking distance of each other’s offices, and they share a sense of place.

“This is also our community, too,” Hallova said.

The vision for the development is set out in the project team’s response to a request for proposals from Prosper Portland and the project working group. The Adre-led team is proposing affordable rental and ownership housing, office and commercial space, and a public plaza and garden.

The project team’s plan calls for a five-story, 94-unit multifamily building. Rents would be restricted to levels affordable at 30 percent to 80 percent of area median income. The project team is also looking into state funding for a possible early education center on the building’s ground floor.

Separately, 22 for-sale homes would be available in attached one-, two- and three-bedroom configurations. Homebuyers would be required to complete education and counseling.

The housing developers plan to seek out persons who were displaced by the construction of Interstate 5 and what is now a sprawling Legacy Health campus.

“The goal of the preference policy is really trying to reach out to the community that was impacted by the local policy,” said Jessica Woodruff, director of development for Community Development Partners.

Gap financing from the Portland Housing Bureau and affordable-housing tax credits are expected to help finance the project, Woodruff said.

The commercial building would comprise approximately 41,000 square feet, conceptualized as a “communal office,” Hallova said. The building would function as a business incubator, with workforce training also possibly included.

“What’s great about this project is that we can create a beautiful new building, Class-A office space, but figure out a way to have affordable rents,” Hallova said.

The aim is to “create an ecosystem” for emerging businesses – particularly those owned by people of color and other historically marginalized groups, Hallova said.

“We see this not just as a place for established businesses to be in, but for new businesses to incubate and grow,” she said.

A measure of restorative justice is being sought for the Black community in North-Northeast Portland, where 171 families – 74 percent of whom were Black – were displaced by urban renewal projects in the early 1970s. Those projects were led by the Portland Development Commission (now Prosper Portland) and Emanuel Hospital (now Legacy Health), according to a Prosper Portland history.

The Hill Block site held a commercial center for the surrounding Black community during the mid-20th century before it was condemned and demolished. In the decades since, the 1.7-acre block has sat empty.

In 2017, Prosper Portland officials rediscovered a 1980 deed provision requiring Legacy to develop the site. That kick-started discussions on what should be done with the block.

Prosper Portland continues to provide support to the project working group and the project team. Legacy has agreed to convey the property to the Williams-Russell Community Development Corporation at no cost. The CDC will serve as the project team’s client.

“The powers that be have recognized this historic injustice and are giving the land back to the community and supported development on the site,” Hallova said.

The firms involved with the project are keen to right past wrongs.

The project team is “dedicated and poised to honor and represent those individuals that had land, property and generational wealth-building opportunities taken away from them when the development of the hospital and the interstate corridor occurred in the areas,” said Kymberly Horner, executive director of PCRI. “It is our mission and our goal to try to restore those injustices that occurred, and that is why we put our name in the ring to develop the site to honor the past and secure the future for those individuals and families to have a place to come back to and call home.”

The project team is aiming to create a model for restorative-justice development not just in Portland, but in other American cities where Black neighborhoods were displaced.

“If you came to the city of Portland to visit, you might want to come and visit and learn the history,” Hallova said.

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Officials hosted a brief ceremony Monday to celebrate the start of construction on a new headquarters for an influential philanthropic organization.

Meyer Memorial Trust will occupy a three-story, 20,000-square-foot building due to rise on a 0.46-acre lot at 2045 N. Vancouver Ave. Project^ is developing the project, which was designed by LEVER Architecture. O’Neill/Walsh Community Builders is serving as general contractor.

Currently, Meyer Memorial Trust’s 42 employees work in 11,000 square feet of leased office space in the Gregory Lofts building, at 425 N.W. 10th Ave.

The new headquarters will have a 50-kilowatt photovoltaic solar array and other features expected to help gain a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design platinum rating. A unique roofline is intended to provide as much south-facing area as possible for the solar array, LEVER Architecture project director Chandra Robinson said.

“With a focus on environmental sustainability, the building has been designed to use 30 percent less energy than if it was built to minimum code standards,” Project^ partner Anyeley Hallova said Monday. “In addition, we’ll be sourcing materials that were originally harvested and/or locally manufactured. This includes the mass plywood that will be sourced from a Central Oregon lumber mill and manufactured there.”

Freres Lumber, based in Lyons, southeast of Salem, is the manufacturer of the mass plywood panels. The veneer-based products are customizable, and can be as large as 12 feet wide, 48 feet long and 24 inches thick. Freres Lumber previously worked with LEVER Architecture on the Mass Plywood Pavilion built in 2017 at the Portland Art Museum as part of an exhibition.

The new building’s design, Robinson said, is intended to reflect the late Fred G. Meyer’s values. The team sought to create connections with the community and the natural surroundings, and ensure the building would be sustainable and equitable. There will be a prominent front porch, a plaza, bicycle parking and landscaping.

“It’s creating an asset that doesn’t currently exist in the neighborhood,” Robinson said. “The other thing about the ground floor of the building is it’s very transparent; you can really see through the building and see the activity happening inside.”

Light-colored, metal, folded panels accent the building façade and offer “simple yet dynamic visual interest throughout the day,” Hallova said.

Even the landscaping will bolster the design themes, with plants of significance to native Columbia River tribes.

Inside, a library, an educational garden, gathering space and other amenities will contribute to the same themes, Hallova added.

Officials expect construction to wrap up in about a year. One of the project goals is for at least 43 percent participation by minority-owned or women-owned firms. A similar percentage is being sought for participation by apprentices.

“Meyer has asked us to do much more than just meet goals for equity and inclusion,” O’Neill Construction Group President Maurice Rahming said. “We’re not interested in lip service.”

Meyer Memorial Trust, founded in 1982, is now one of Portland’s largest nonprofits. Since its inception, the organization has awarded grants totaling nearly $800 million to more than 3,300 recipients around the Pacific Northwest.

The group purchased the Vancouver Avenue property for $4.96 million in January 2018 and demolished an old cinder block and sheet metal building previously used by Sergeants Towing. Timber supports from the old building were salvaged for use in the new one.

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Multnomah County is seeking a builder to renovate the Bushong & Co. building, in downtown Portland, so it can be used as a social service center.

Officials on Tuesday issued a request for qualifications for the project, estimated to cost $12 million to $15 million. The competitive bidding process will be expedited with compressed administrative procedures, according to the county. The goal is for the facility to open as soon as summer 2021.

The builder will join Carleton Hart Architecture, which is providing design and preconstruction services.

The planned four-story Behavioral Health Resource Center will provide approximately 27,000 square feet with a day center “living room” space, laundry and shower facilities, a social service resource center, a mail room and a computer lab. The upper floors will provide shelter beds and transitional housing.

The original structure at 333 S.W. Park Ave. was completed in 1907.

The county purchased the building for $4.34 million in April from Portland developer Project^. The developer had earlier allowed the county to use the building as an emergency homeless shelter.

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When it came to reimagining and expanding The Nature Conservancy‘s Oregon headquarters in Southeast Portland, it was important for the project to reflect the environmental organization’s values.

So a pavilion expansion was built with Northern California cross-laminated timber and glulam beams certified by the Forest Stewardship Council and manufactured by D.R. Johnson of Riddle.

Juniper wood cladding and cedar decks came from conservation areas. “We worked closely with the folks that were harvesting it,” said Thomas Robinson, LEVER Architecture‘s founding principal.

The Nature Conservancy considered ground-up construction before opting to expand the existing three-story, 12,462-square-foot building with a 2,000-square-foot pavilion. The original building at 821 S.E. 14th Ave. was constructed in 1979.

“At a really basic level, one of the most sustainable things you can do is re-use something,” Robinson said.

Now called the Oregon Conservation Center, the project was recently completed. The project team expects the building will achieve a LEED gold rating from the U.S. Green Building Council.

The pavilion will provide space for board meetings, as well as conferences and events with allied organizations.

“They’re looking to solve major, long-term issues that impact Oregon, and this space is designed around allowing those types of conversations to happen,” Robinson said.

A second-floor terrace provides visual connection to the Buckman neighborhood. A rooftop photovoltaic system was installed, which will supply about a quarter of the building’s energy needs.

Project^ was the development manager, and Lease Crutcher Lewis served as general contractor. The project team also included KPFF Consulting Engineers,��PAE Consulting Engineers, and Lando and Associates Landscape Architecture.

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For Portland developer Project^, sustainability is part of every development.

Project^ is one of many local developers that still place value in environmental building certification programs even as energy codes and market expectations have raised the baseline, making nearly every project more energy efficient and environmentally responsible.

For Project^, third-party certifications such as the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, better known as LEED, ensure that everyone on a project team, including the architects and contractors, keep sustainability goals at the forefront.

“Sustainability is one of our core values as a company,” said Anyeley Hallova, a partner at Project^. “Especially in strange construction markets, with the cost of construction and the difficulty of development, it’s very easy when you get into a complex project to lose sight of the values you have if you don’t have a scorecard you’re tracking throughout the process.”

The firm’s Field Office, a two-building, 300,000-square-foot complex in Northwest Portland, in October 2018 received a LEED platinum rating – the highest attainable.

Project^ is pursuing a LEED gold rating for an addition and renovation of The Nature Conservancy‘s offices in Southeast Portland. And Meyer Memorial Trust‘s new headquarters in Albina will have a “high level of LEED certification,” Hallova said. Both projects include solar arrays.

As developers, architects and contractors have made progress reaching basic levels of sustainability, the U.S. Green Building Council has repeatedly raised the bar, requiring projects to do more to meet the same rating levels.

“People see LEED as a static certification program, but every time they come out with a new version, it gets harder and harder,” Hallova said. “It’s constantly pushing the envelope with regards to sustainability.”

Mill Creek Residential Trust, a major developer based in Dallas, continues to use LEED for all of its Portland projects. Sam Rodriguez, the firm’s senior managing director in Portland, said it’s “not crazy expensive” to attain a basic LEED rating. Most recently, Mill Creek’s Modera Belmont in January received a LEED gold rating.

Multifamily projects already must have high levels of energy efficiency, low levels of volatile organic compounds and recycling of construction materials to meet regulatory and market expectations, Rodriguez said.

“A lot of it is already baked in, because either Portland requires it, or it’s something that’s already done by the local subcontractor community,” he said.

Developers must balance cost when deciding which rating to pursue.

“We strive to get (LEED) gold and quite readily achieve silver,” Rodriguez said. “Sometimes we’re able to get gold, but to try to get platinum is crazy expensive, so we generally don’t do that. When you want platinum, it starts getting really exotic. You have to push the envelope.”

Investors like to see a LEED rating to have some assurance as to building performance and energy efficiency, Rodriguez said. Renters like it too.

“It’s good PR, right?” Rodriguez said. “People like to think they’re living in the building that has taken care.”

A LEED rating does not command higher rents or sale prices when a building comes to market, Rodriguez said.

LEED is hardly the only environmental building certification, and competitors have proliferated, including Green Globes, WELL Building and Earth Advantage.

Green Globes and WELL Building have attracted governmental and other large institutional customers.

In Oregon, 48 projects have been certified by Green Globes, most recently in 2017. Many of the certified projects are apartment buildings.

WELL Building has five projects in Oregon, including three at Portland Community College.

Earth Advantage, based in Portland, has gained some industry buy-in. Project^ is pursuing Earth Advantage platinum certification for its Origami townhomes project on North Vancouver Avenue.

“We choose different certifications based on the size of the project,” Hallova said.

Hallova expects to continue pursuing certifications for its new construction projects.

“In Oregon, for the developers who care about sustainability, it’s the norm,” she said. “It’s the baseline in our buildings.”

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The Nature Conservancy in Oregon could have redeveloped its office property in Portland’s Buckman neighborhood. Going that route likely would have yielded a five-story, 75,000-square-foot office building. Or the conservation nonprofit could have sold the valuable real estate and moved elsewhere.

Instead, the organization opted to gut its existing 1970s office building and let developer Project^ and LEVER Architecture reimagine the space. The result is a thoroughgoing reinvention of the existing three-story, 12,462-square-foot building, and the addition of a single-story, 2,000-square-foot pavilion featuring cross-laminated timber.

Lease Crutcher Lewis is constructing the expansion and renovation at 821 S.E. 14th Ave. The building will be known as the Oregon Conservation Center.

“The building had become very outdated, and it was highly inefficient,” said Jim Desmond, state director of The Nature Conservancy in Oregon. “It was a 15,000-square-foot building that had five HVAC systems. We weren’t really walking our talk there.”

When Tom Cody, managing partner at Project^, first evaluated the property, he quickly came to the conclusion that it would not be a teardown.

“At first glance you wouldn’t think it had any merit … but it had some integrity,” he said. “It was a very simple timber-frame building that we saw a future for.”

Cody recommended The Nature Conservancy sell 10,000 square feet of the lot to finance the project rather than build a five-story project to the property lines.

“The most sustainable thing you can do is to reuse what you have versus demolish it,” Cody said.

Reusing the existing building also will maintain its scale with the surrounding neighborhood, Desmond said.

“We’re the last building before it becomes entirely residential,” he said. “I was uncomfortable saddling a neighborhood that’s been good to us with a 75,000-square-foot building.

The project team is targeting a LEED gold rating from the U.S. Green Building Council. The existing building will gain a rain-screen facade made from weathering steel and larger windows with high-performance glazing. The pavilion will be topped by a rooftop deck planted with native flora.

The project is using regionally harvested Oregon juniper and cedar along with locally sourced boulders and river rock, and weathering steel manufactured locally. Some of the timber comes from land managed by The Nature Conservancy. The mass timber was certified for sustainability by the Forest Stewardship Council. Also, a new rooftop photovoltaic system will provide 25 percent of the building’s energy needs.

In addition to housing The Nature Conservancy, the Oregon Conservation Center will serve as an event space, conference center and venue for partner organizations. The space is designed to be flexibly used for board meetings or reconfigured into theater-style seating for events.

“Nobody’s doing anything alone anymore, and we wanted a space that was conducive to that,” Desmond said.

The project team had no hesitation in using CLT from D.R. Johnson in Riddle, Desmond said. The southern Oregon manufacturer was linked to CLT panels that delaminated in March at Oregon State University‘s Peavy Hall project.

The team is confident the OSU incident was caused by a one-time error with a particular run of the material, Desmond said.

“I didn’t want to have this milled in British Columbia,” he said.

CLT uses about 60 percent less carbon than concrete and steel construction, Desmond said. The frame has already been constructed.

“It’s in now, and it’s just fantastic,” he said. “It really looks great. It functions great.”

Besides the Oregon Conservation Center, projects including Block 76 West at the Burnside bridgehead, District Office and the Flatiron building are all using CLT materials from D.R. Johnson.

The Oregon Conservation Center project team also includes KPFF Consulting Engineers, PAE Consulting Engineers, and Lando and Associates Landscape Architecture.

Construction is on track to finish around Feb. 1, Desmond said. The Nature Conservancy expects to spend several weeks getting systems up and running. For now, the nonprofit organization is using a temporary office at 1634 S.W. Alder St. The conservation group will move back in April, Desmond said.

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The Portland Design Commission‘s role has grown as development has boomed in the city center.

In 2017, the commission approved 37 Type III cases, up from eight in 2010.

Type III cases are generally larger buildings where the Design Commission approves or denies the proposal. Type II cases are decided by staff in the Bureau of Development Services.

Design advice requests, where commissioners critique architectural plans but do not issue a decision, rose to 23 in 2017, up from five in 2010.

The Design Commission, composed of volunteers who are typically architects or developers, meets most Thursdays. The commission met on 42 days in 2018.

Commission Chairwoman Julie Livingston presented an annual report to the City Council on Wednesday.

The commission’s workload prompted Bert Gregory, an architect at Seattle design firm Mithun, to suggest the city consider splitting the workload with a neighborhood design review commission that would review projects outside the Central City.

The Design Commission’s decisions can be appealed to the City Council. That happened in seven cases in 2017. Of those, only the denial of the Ankeny Apartments proposal was reversed by the council. In three cases – the Next Hotel, Vibrant! Apartments and the Studio and Guild Theatre buildings – conditions of approval were removed or modified by the council.

In three cases, neighborhood associations’ appeals of projects approved by the Design Commission were denied. Those were the Press Blocks tower, the Fremont Place Apartments and the Block 290 apartments.

Livingston warned the council to expect more appeals.

“Appeals are commensurate with our workload,” she said. “When we hear more cases, there is more risk of appeal.”

BDS makes a greater effort to reach neighbors than in the past, she added.

“It’s not unreasonable to assume that moving forward there may be more appeals because there is more public participation in the process,” she said.

Design review has improved over time, said Anyeley Hallova, a partner at Portland developer Project^. She asked city officials to give staff members more discretion to grant changes after design review approval to account for fluctuations in materials’ costs and availability.

Commissioner Nick Fish said the Design Commission’s work helps ensure quality architecture and permanent building quality.

“We have our critics,” he said, “but thank you for reminding us we’re building a city for future generations.”

The Design Commission currently has a vacancy. Tad Savinar’s term expired Sept. 30. He is not being reappointed, Sophia June, spokeswoman for Mayor Ted Wheeler, stated in an email.

The city is accepting submissions expressing interest in the vacancy. Forms can be submitted at the Office of Community and Civic Life.

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