In East Portland, where Interstate 84 meets Interstate 205, offers 25 acres of parkland – an opportunity for respite from hustle and bustle. And now it’s even better.

A $5.75 million project concluded recently. It produced a gravity-oriented mountain bike trail, an asphalt pump track nearly 600 feet in length, a playground, a grassy area for gatherings and performances (when public health conditions allow), improved utilities including restrooms and a drinking fountain, and more.

“Gateway Green is finally the park we always dreamed it could be,” Paul Dickow, chairman of the Friends of Gateway Green board, stated in a press release. “This is a huge day for East Portland, Portland Parks, and off-road cyclists!”

The park now features two miles of single track, two pump tracks, gravity-oriented flow trails, and a bike park with an adaptive course for people in wheelchairs. Also, the habitat was diversified via additions of plants.

The project was paid with Portland Parks & Recreation system development charges and a $1 million Nature in Neighborhood grant from Metro. In addition to Friends of Gateway Green, project partners included Northwest Trail Alliance, The UNPavement Project and Sasquatch Trails.

Design consultants included GreenWorks PC, PBS Engineering & Environmental, and C2 Recreation. Minority-owned Raimore Construction served as the contractor.

“We didn’t want to reduce the quality of the bike experience out there but with added advancements improved upon them,” GreenWorks landscape architect Ben Johnson said.

Johnson worked to make sure people could access all of the trails in the park without disrupting the existing bike trails.

Because Gateway Green differs in elevation by approximately 100 feet from its top to its bottom, design and construction were challenging. A key design aspect was ensuring accessibility for all potential park users.

GreenWorks also improved the habitat to keep wildlife and recreational use in mind. For example, trees were planted in areas to provide shade for cyclists. The whole habitat was designed with native trees except for a few by the hub to give the area separation and prominence.

Upon the park’s opening in 2017, it had only a single track and bike park. It was “bare-bones,” Chris Bernhardt, of C2 Recreation, said. “(It) didn’t feel like a park.”

Now Gateway Green is expected to become a regional destination for cyclists of all skill levels as well as an attraction for many others.

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The consensus became clear among Oregon construction leaders during a recent panel discussion about ending discrimination and racism within the industry. They want to make their industry better, and they recognize that the effort is a marathon and not a sprint.

More than 400 people attended Wednesday’s event via Zoom. It was led by both Nate McCoy, executive director of the National Association of Minority Contractors‘ Oregon chapter, and Mike Salsgiver, executive director of Associated General Contractors’ Oregon-Columbia chapter.

“(We are here to) bring a closed-end to 2020 and a renewed interest in 2021 all premised on ending and eradicating discrimination and racism in the construction industry,” McCoy said.

The discussion focused on four pillars: zero tolerance, workforce education, recruitment, and institutional advancement and mentorship. Inroads must be made in these areas, speakers said. Also, business challenges need to be addressed, and a culture change needs to take place, they said.

Molly Washington, one of the panelists and of counsel at Schwabe, Williamson & Wyatt, noted that the Black Lives Matter protests might have been a reawakening for some, but for others, it has been their lives and their families’ lives.

“We have to move forward from the idea that ignorance is even an option,” she said. “We have to be informed.”

Throughout the discussion, each panelist mentioned that general ignorance of the BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and people of color) community has been stifling the industry for too long.

The discussion established that educating the workforce about the history of injustices in the BIPOC community is an important step. Education at all industry levels serves to create a respectful environment and teach what will no longer be tolerated, speakers said.

In May, Andersen Construction executives didn’t learn that a hate crime had occurred on one of the company’s job sites until 20 days later. Only a social media post brought to light the appearance of a noose at the site, CEO Joel Andersen said.

“What it started to register immediately was how ill-prepared we were as an organization and really quite frankly as an industry,” he said. “All of the safety guards put in place in the industry to protect the workers failed. The foreman, out of sheer ignorance, didn’t understand the magnitude of this situation.”

Andersen said the industry is predominantly white, heterosexual men – people who have rarely been marginalized. That has led to a lack of understanding of when issues occur on job sites.

Instead of a zero-tolerance policy being one strike and you’re out, Andersen Construction is looking at a more educational approach. The focus will be on educating workers on what is not tolerated and helping them understand marginalized communities.

One of the ways workers can become educated is through bystander intervention and harassment prevention training. Providing this at every level of the industry will cause a shift away from discrimination, Oregon Tradeswomen Inc. Executive Director Kelly Kupcak said.

“We need bystanders to be front-liners and not sideliners,” McCoy said of workers who observe racism or harassment on job sites.

There has to be a commitment to inclusivity in order to achieve zero tolerance, said Jeff Moreland, president of Raimore Construction. The BIPOC community represents 40 percent of Raimore’s field staff and 70 percent of its management staff. That helps foster an environment of zero tolerance, he said.

One of the first steps to create an inclusive industry, Colas Construction President and CEO Andrew Colas said, is in recruitment. Conversations at that stage go hand in hand with the values a company holds, he said. If companies want to recruit from the BIPOC community, he added, it’s important for them to show people who look like them at different levels.

But to get there, recruitment strategies might need to change. Dave Drinkward, president and CEO of Hoffman Construction, said firms need to do a better job of making the industry more attractive. For a long time, Hoffman Construction’s leader of recruitment was a middle-aged white man, which Drinkward said probably turned away more people than he thought.

There has to be more focus on how people can make a career out of the industry, Drinkward said, noting he’s looking at institutional advancement and mentorship programs.

“I think the best way we learn is to teach and grow together,” he said. “And if we’re not in it to build competitors, then we’re not in it for the right reasons.”

The NAMC and AGC chapters plan to continue conversations on the topic monthly.

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Jeff Moreland has led Raimore Construction through two decades of growth, from a small trucking and flagging outfit to a formidable heavy civil contractor that recently was awarded an approximately $60 million contract – the largest ever in Oregon for a minority-owned contractor – for transit improvements.

Despite his prominence within Portland’s building industry, Moreland – who is Black – still experiences racism on jobsites. Oftentimes, he said, it’s from people who don’t even realize that it’s going on.

“I can walk into a trailer as the owner of Raimore Construction with one of my project managers who’s white, and they talk to him the whole meeting until they realize that I’m the decision maker,” Moreland said. “This is just systemic.”

Robert Camarillo, an ironworker who now serves as executive secretary of the Oregon State Building and Construction Trades Council, has experienced similar discrimination during his 25 years in the industry.

“Some of us are just used to being invisible,” he said. “It’s not just what is said, but it’s the actions that are hurtful. This is an industry issue that’s plagued not just the construction industry, but all levels of the business, from the developers to the engineers to the architects. All levels.”

Racism in the building industry takes many forms, including the implicit bias experienced by Moreland and Camarillo, discriminatory practices and a lack of opportunities for minority workers and business owners, and symbols of racial violence being placed on jobsites in Portland and other parts of the country.

As the nation comes to a reckoning on racism and discrimination in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd, leaders in the local building industry are working to create a dialogue to address causes and potential solutions to racism in construction. Moreland and Camarillo were among multiple panelists who spoke Tuesday during an that drew more than 300 participants. The session was held by the National Association of Minority Contractors‘ Oregon chapter.

The first step to prevent continuing racism and discrimination on jobsites, Moreland said, is to acknowledge that it is a widespread problem, and not try to sweep it under the rug. An open dialogue is necessary, he added, because minorities in the industry often don’t feel safe speaking out for fear of being penalized or ostracized.

“You have to realize that this has been cultivated over a long period of time, and the discriminatory, racist behavior that you see has become normalized,” he said.

Andrew Colas, president of Colas Construction, said the industry needs to adopt a zero-tolerance policy for racist behavior and prioritize enforcement in the same manner that it has for safety. Decades ago, injuries and deaths were considered an acceptable risk to construction work before the industry took a stand and decided to make a change. Now, it’s common to see companies with multiple safety directors.

“I don’t think we’ve ever stopped and assessed how bad it is in regards to racism in this industry, and really decided that we’re going to make a fullhearted effort to change,” Colas said. “You have to put time into it, just like you spend time on making sure safety is important, we have to put time and focus into this.”

Forming bias incident response teams could make victims of jobsite racism more likely to report the abuse, said Willy Myers, executive secretary-treasurer of the Columbia Pacific Building Trades Council. Then workers experiencing racial harassment could work directly with the general contractor and would have an intervenor to turn to who is not a direct supervisor or business representative.

“A lot of times there’s a fear of being excluded from the next job or being excluded from a team that’s already built on a jobsite because they’re the person pointing out a problem,” he said.

Further, penalties are needed for people terminated for bias issues, Myers said. Moving them to another jobsite or placing them on the out-of-work list and allowing them back after a short suspension isn’t fixing the problem, he said.

Diversifying the ranks of those working in the industry is crucial, Colas said, calling for labor unions to recruit minorities who are already in their ranks to fill leadership roles on jobsites. Young people of color need to see people who look like them not only in roles as tradespeople, but as foremen and women, estimators, project managers and executives.

“If you can’t see it, you can’t be it,” he said.

Investing in local, minority-owned businesses needs to be a priority for banks and governments that are funding projects, said Alando Simpson, CEO of City of Roses Disposal & Recycling. Using public resources to elevate minority-owned firms and hire more people of color would mean those dollars stay local and benefit the overall community and create a more self-sustaining economy in the Portland-metro area, he said.

Colas agreed, calling on public agencies to help create an atmosphere that is more inclusive and allows everybody to achieve the American Dream, which he argued isn’t as accessible as people believe. Colas Construction is one of the largest Black-owned companies on the West Coast, he said, but their revenues pale in comparison to those of their peers.

“I can tell you five companies that do double our revenues that we’ve been in business 15 years longer than,” he said. “The reality is there are barriers. When you look the way I look, there are barriers. And we need to work to get rid of those.”

To view a video of the forum, visit

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The Oregon Department of Transportation has selected a construction manager/general contractor to lead a controversial Portland freeway expansion effort. The agency announced Monday an intent to award a contract to Hamilton Sundt a Joint Venture, in association with Raimore Construction, for the I-5 Rose Quarter Improvement Project.

The joint venture teams Springfield-based heavy civil specialists Hamilton Construction and Arizona-based Sundt Construction. Raimore Construction, a minority-owned firm certified by the state’s Certification Office for Business Inclusion and Diversity, is based in Portland.

Estimated to cost up to $795 million, the project will widen a 1.8-mile stretch of Interstate 5 between Interstate 405 to the north and the Morrison Bridge exit to the south. A request for proposals issued in April listed a guaranteed maximum price of between $575 million and $635 million for the CM/GC contract.

The project lost the support of key backers earlier this month when Albina Vision Trust announced it would no longer support the project due in part to a lack of freeway caps included in current plans. The interstate was built through historically Black neighborhoods in the 1960s, and Albina Vision Trust has advocated for the caps as a means to restore communities displaced by the freeway’s construction.

After Albina Vision Trust pulled its support for the project, public officials including Gov. Kate Brown, Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler and Commissioner Chloe Eudaly followed suit, saying they would not endorse the project without the backing of communities of color.

According to an ODOT press release, involving a CM/GC early in the design process will help meet the project’s emphasis on providing “restorative justice for communities harmed by previous government actions.”

The contractor will work with community members to help shape the project’s design, identify subcontracting and procurement opportunities for COBID-certified firms and build capacity for minority workers. According to the RFP, ODOT anticipates Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) participation goals of about 18 to 22 percent; the project also includes workforce goals of 25 percent minority male workers, 14 percent female workers, and 20 percent apprentice workers.

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The Black Lives Matter movement has spurred corporate America into action, prompting donations, statements of solidarity and public reexaminations by some of the nation’s most recognizable companies.

The construction industry, however, has been noticeably quiet.

“It’s been shocking to me,” said Andrew Colas, president of Portland-based Colas Construction. “The CEO of Warner Bros. made statements. The CEOs of Fortune 500 companies have made statements. There’s just been complete silence on the local level, on the national level, in our industry.”

Colas Construction is the largest Black-owned construction firm in Oregon, and one of the largest on the West Coast. The company has tackled large public projects, including a sizable renovation of the Oregon Convention Center.

“Change is on all of us, and the chance to lead it comes in the choices we make every day,” Colas wrote in a statement posted to the company’s Instagram page on June 3. “Speak up, stand up and disrupt the cycle.”

Colas said he decided to say something after hearing little from others in the construction industry.

“A $650 billion industry has had nothing to say,” he added in a text message. “So we had to speak up.”

The death of George Floyd, a Black man, in Minneapolis after he was held under the knee of a police officer for 7 minutes and 46 seconds has galvanized protests and forced a fast-moving reckoning of racism in American life. So far, there have been few immediate repercussions in the construction industry.

Some organizations connected to the building industry have embraced the Black Lives Matter movement. Prosper Portland posted a Black Lives Matter webpage. Several architecture firms have posted supportive statements. Lever Architecture, for instance, issued one that read in part, “It is incumbent on us as architects to engage communities of color and to listen with humility.” Lease Crutcher Lewis also posted a supportive statement to Instagram.

Statements are good, but require follow-through, said Nate McCoy, executive director of the National Association of Minority Contractors-Oregon.

“Statements mean nothing if there are no real efforts or change behind them,” he said.

As for Associated General Contractors‘ Oregon-Columbia chapter, it has taken a low-key approach to the moment.

“During this time, we have quietly chosen to continue the work we have started and been part of for many decades,” Executive Director Mike Salsgiver stated in an email message. “The AGC Oregon-Columbia Chapter condemns the murder of George Floyd – and the behaviors that led to his death and to the deaths of many others – in the strongest possible terms. We fully understand the deplorable and unacceptable effects these crimes against our fellow citizens have had, and continue to lead and support initiatives that will eliminate racism in our society and our industry.”

The local AGC chapter has worked for many years with NAMC-Oregon, the Oregon Association of Minority Entrepreneurs, LatinoBuilt, the Professional Business Development Group and others, Salsgiver stated.

“We continue to stand with these and other organizations to ensure that this work will continue,” he added.

Locally, the construction industry remains overwhelmingly white in ownership as well as in executive and managerial roles, despite a diverse entry-level workforce. But public-sector work has helped Black-owned firms grow. Contracting preferences that favor minority-owned contractors have boosted companies including Colas Construction, Raimore Construction and O’Neill Construction Group in winning major contracts from local public agencies such as Prosper Portland, Metro and TriMet.

Colas Construction in 2017 landed the largest public contract awarded to a minority-owned firm in Oregon at that time: a $32 million deal to perform interior renovations at the Oregon Convention Center.

That was exceeded in March by with TriMet for the Division Transit Project in Southeast Portland. Raimore co-founder Jeff Moreland could not be reached for comment.

But contracting preferences haven’t done nearly enough to compensate for the advantages of white-owned firms that have decades of accumulated wealth and business relationships as well as large-scale bonding capacity, Colas said.

“It’s about economic development for Black people,” he said. “There are a lot of Black businesses out there that are fully capable, that do great work and just don’t get the opportunities others do.”

Portland should have many more successful Black-owned construction firms, according to Colas.

“Until we start seeing more Raimores, more City of Roses, more Colas’, you’re not going to see that (economic development) piece,” he said. “Can anybody tell me five Black-owned companies that have more than 50 employees? You can’t. It’s not working.”

McCoy echoed those sentiments.

“It’s shameful that it’s only Colas and Raimore that are getting contracts at the level that they’re at,” he said. “Why is that? I think there’s still a systemic problem.”

McCoy and others are pushing public agencies to move away from race-neutral policies to race-conscious policies that take into account historic discrimination.

Black-owned firms and other emerging contractors typically begin as subcontractors. More must be done to help them grow, said Daniel Drinkward, vice president of Hoffman Construction, a major general contractor.

“It’s got to go beyond hitting the contracting and workforce targets,” he said.

Hoffman mentors minority-owned contractors on business aspects such as insurance and accounting that sometimes prove challenging for new firms, Drinkward said.

“We spend a lot of time working with minority-owned firms to make sure that when they do get contracts on our projects that they are successful and that it helps build their business,” he said.

Hoffman Construction stands with its Black workers, Drinkward added.

“Hoffman is committed to providing an anti-racist and inclusive workplace,” he said. “The status quo is not acceptable and we have to do better.”

The widespread protests have generated some optimism in the fight against racism, Colas said.

“It has been heartening,” he said. “It’s nice to see all shades of people standing up and saying this isn’t working. What’s been happening the last 400 years is wrong, and we need to acknowledge it.

“You get to the point as a Black person where you just feel helpless,” he added. “Our struggles are serious and they’re real.”

McCoy said he’s had conversations in the industry where others say “all lives matter” as a counterpoint to the Black Lives Matter message. Such race-neutral language accomplishes nothing, he said.

“Absolutely all lives matter,” he said. “Black lives have to matter more, and have to be called out individually because things have to change.”

Correction: This story earlier referred to an incorrect timeline for the Minneapolis incident. Media reports have since indicated George Floyd was pinned by an officer’s knee for 7 minutes, 46 seconds, not 8 minutes, 46 seconds.

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The Federal Transit Administration on Thursday officially awarded TriMet $87.4 million in funding for the Division Transit Project.

The project is intended to create new, high-capacity bus service between downtown Portland and Gresham. New, 60-foot-long articulated buses will serve the route, which TriMet hopes will reduce travel times up to 20 percent over current options.

The project budget is $175 million – half will come from the federal government and the rest from local sources, including $40.7 million from TriMet and $17.7 million from the city of Portland.

“The Division Transit Project will not just improve public transit; it will deliver vital pedestrian and biking improvements, prioritize accessibility, and make Division safer for all Portlanders,” Portland City Commissioner Chloe Eudaly said at a media event on Thursday morning.

The contract awarded to Raimore Construction, the project’s general contractor, is the largest ever given in Oregon to a minority-owned firm or disadvantaged business enterprise.

Construction is scheduled to begin in coming weeks on up to 42 new bus stations in four different configurations as well as 28 blocks of dedicated bus/business access lanes at key locations, including an 11-block stretch between Southeast 111th and 122nd avenues.

Traffic and pedestrian signals and lighting along the route will be upgraded with transit signal priority, and 4.5 miles of protected bicycle lanes will be constructed.

Twenty new marked crosswalks with stop lights, median islands or flashing lights will be installed along with improvements to existing pedestrian crossing signals.

Finally, around 81,000 square feet of new sidewalks – 59,000 square feet in Portland and 22,000 square feet in Gresham – will be built along the corridor.

The project also is anticipated to generate more than 1,400 jobs, including 650 construction jobs.

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It’s indisputable that women and people of color are underrepresented in the architecture, construction and engineering industries. However, regional government agency Metro is engaged in efforts to help change that by bringing on a number of minority-owned firms in important projects.

One notable example is the current to modernize the 30-year-old building’s public areas and establish a better visitor experience. A in 2017 to Colas Construction to serve as construction manager-general contractor; it was the largest public contract in Oregon ever earned by a minority-owned firm.

“We competed against some of the biggest teams in town,” Colas Construction CEO and President Andrew Colas said in reference to Hoffman Construction and Walsh Construction. “That in itself was an exciting win.”

Colas Construction is a family affair. The firm was founded in 1997 by Andrew’s father, Hermann Colas Jr., who moved to the United States from Haiti in 1969. Andrew’s sister Aneshka Colas-Dickson serves as vice president and chief financial officer, and their brother Alex Colas is a project manager.

Another minority-owned firm, Raimore Construction, is also involved in the Oregon Convention Center project. It’s primarily working on the exterior.

“We’ve been able to start breaking that glass ceiling,” Andrew Colas said. “There’s no reason there can’t be 100, 200 other firms like us.”

Two others are serving Metro. When Portland’5 Centers for the Arts sought a roof replacement for Hatfield Hall, a building that contains several theatre venues, general contractor Pacificmark Construction and roofing/waterproofing company Sterling-Pacific, both minority-owned businesses, earned the contracts.

Nancy Strening, a Portland’5 project manager, said the organization has been trying to find ways to get more minority-owned firms involved in its projects, and has recently been working with the National Association of Minority Contractors (NAMC) in this regard. Historically, one of the hiring challenges, she said, has been that Portland’5 has had to abide by government regulations to accept the lowest bidder.

Strening said there was an argument to be made that using minority-owned firms is still in the public interest, because having diverse perspectives on a project is always beneficial. The hiring process was very competitive, and the two firms that earned the contracts were the best choice, she said.

“Price and value aren’t always the same thing,” she said. “I think we are getting better results; I don’t think we are sacrificing anything.”

One of the main barriers to entry for minority-owned contractors, Strening said, is that many of the older, larger and more established firms (mostly white-owned), have entire teams of administrators able to secure subcontractors and bid on many projects. Nascent minority-owned firms might not have staff dedicated to outreach, and might not even know about some of the projects available.

Nevertheless, Metro’s efforts have been noticed by at least some members of Portland’s building industries.

“I would put them kind of at the top,” Andrew Colas said. “It’s been really important for us to have a strong partnership.”

Ray Leary, commissioner of the Metropolitan Exposition Recreation Commission (MERC), a division of Metro, said the agency does perhaps more than any other government entity in Oregon to increase opportunities. MERC’s job is to protect investment in the Expo Center, the Oregon Convention Center, and Portland’5, which he said is especially important right now.

With more conventions scheduled than ever before, Metro’s venues are a welcome mat to the rest of the world, Leary said, and there is a responsibility to utilize Portland’s diverse workforce when improving these spaces.

“Historically, the city of Portland does not have an enviable record in terms of opportunities,” he said. “I believe (Metro) will ultimately be the leadership in integrating people of color into the economic opportunities that our government manages and facilitates.”

Nate McCoy, executive director of NAMC-Oregon, said Metro has been making huge strides in the past few years. While he would like to see greater diversity in the agency’s leadership, he said the kind of projects they’ve been contracting for are what take minority-owned firms to the next level in terms of business and size.

NAMC-Oregon has partnered with Metro on many of its biggest contracts, and McCoy echoed Strening when commenting on the difficulty smaller firms have in marketing themselves to subcontractors. NAMC’s partnership with Metro has alleviated some of that, because NAMC-Oregon can brings its members directly into contact with the agency.

McCoy said the partnership with Metro has been strong, and the fruits of their labor have already begun to show.

“They’re willing to take risks and be bold about these concerns,” he said. “They’ve taken those steps to show that they’re listening and responding.”

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A major project to upgrade the Oregon Convention Center is under way and on pace for completion at the end of this year to coincide with the opening of the 600-room Hyatt Regency hotel one block to the north.

The $39 million renovation will modernize public areas of the 30-year-old structure, providing an enhanced guest experience while establishing better connections to entries and improving wayfinding for hotel guests and transit users disembarking from the adjacent MAX platform.

The $27 million contract awarded by Metro to Colas Construction to serve as construction manager-general contractor is the largest public contract in Oregon history to go to a minority-owned business. Raimore Construction, also a minority-owned firm, is heavily involved in the project, and handling most of the exterior work.

Work on the three-phase project began last fall with renovations of a lobby, pre-function areas, exhibit halls and meeting rooms at the building’s northern end. The southern end was re-carpeted, while demolition work was conducted on the exterior plaza at the property’s northeastern end.

A second phase that began earlier this month includes demolition of structural canopy and erection of new cantilevered canopy at the main entrance along Northeast Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard. The MLK lobby, a pre-function hall and concourse are all being renovated as workers continue to update the northeast plaza and improve pedestrian connections and wayfinding.

Work will commence this spring on the project’s third phase, which will include the renovation of the main ballroom and a pre-function area serving the space. A structural upgrade to the ballroom will include new steel beams with pick points that will expand the capacity for rigging.

According to Alex Colas, project manager with Colas Construction, the biggest challenge of the project has been working around the venue’s busy programming schedule. The contractor has created a sound calendar to identify days when noise must be limited, and has worked to get buy-in from subcontractors while holding weekly meetings with the center’s events staff to coordinate schedules.

The landmark contract is a chance to prove what is possible to young minorities coming up in the trades, Colas said. The firm has utilized upwards of 50 percent minority subcontractors on the project to date.

“Our focus is to bring people together and build a pipeline and a future so that other minority contractors can have these kind of opportunities, and not get looked at with a stigma that in the past you’ve generally seen,” he said.

The renovations were designed by Seattle-based LMN Architects. Merryman Barnes Architects is the associate architect, and Mayer/Reed is the landscape architect and environmental graphics designer. Glumac is the MEP engineer, Seattle-based Magnusson Klemencic Associates is the structural engineer, and KPFF is the civil engineer.

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Since starting 3 Diamond Construction, a small Portland company, in 2014, owners Ofelia Lara and Dionicio Fernandez grew interested in bidding for public projects.

The company at first had tackled mostly small residential projects. That changed when 3 Diamond joined the city’s Prime Contractor Development Program, which coordinator Stacey Drake Edwards got off the ground in 2013. Since joining the program, 3 Diamond has won several city contracts, including work on Lents Park and the Springwater Trail.

“This program helped us,” Lara said. “We had no clue. Thanks to Stacey’s program, we were able to get into those projects.”

The program works to help women-owned, minority-owned and emerging small businesses bid on city contracts valued at $5,000 to $1 million. In fiscal year 2017-18, via the program, 42 contracts totaling $29.3 million were awarded to such firms. That was an increase of $2.3 million from the previous fiscal year.

The PCDP, part of the city’s Procurement Services office, aims to create a roster of contractors with capacity to bid on public projects. Once part of the program, contractors are encouraged to grow so that when they graduate, they can go on to bid on progressively larger contracts.

“The market right now is really hard,” Edwards said. “Everybody is really busy, and because there’s a lot of public projects going on, you’re competing for these small contractors to bid on your projects.”

The PCDP provides ongoing technical assistance to the small, emerging contractors that take part. As obstacles crop up during projects, the city helps contractors work through the issues. That can involve anything such as invoices, project forecasting or foreman certification. A technical assistance officer will visit project sites and sit it on progress meetings.

“One of the things I always say is I’m not teaching the contractors how to do the work; they know how to do that,” Edwards said. “The key is to get them to understand how the city works and how we do things on our end.”

More agencies are turning to alternative contracting methods that don’t simply accept the lowest bid, said Nate McCoy, executive director of the National Association of Minority Contractors-Oregon.

“Agencies are starting to lean more into these conversations, and look at new and innovative procurement policies for (minority-owned business enterprises) at the sub- and (general contractor) level,” he said.

McCoy praised the program’s emphasis on providing on-site technical assistance.

“As a contractor, who has the time to be in workshops instead of running their businesses?” he said.

City projects larger than $1 million are bid in the open market. Some minority-owned contractors have made significant strides in getting those too.

A $27 million project to renovate the entries and interiors at the Oregon Convention Center isn’t one of the city’s. But it is a public project, and Metro chose a team of Colas Construction and Raimore Construction over Hoffman Construction, a larger and more established firm.

“Some of our members who have worked alongside some of the bigger (general contractors) now are beating them out on projects,” McCoy said. “That’s not a new trend, but the fact that a Colas and Raimore (team) is capable of beating out one of our partners in Hoffman is kind of exciting.”

McCoy said the Convention Center contract was a particularly poignant example because the site was once home to a largely African-American neighborhood that was cleared to make way for the development.

Women-owned firms are also playing increasingly visible roles in programs such as the PCDP and groups like NAMC-Oregon. Examples include Chick of All Trades, a company owned by Valerie Solorzano that provides flagging and traffic-control services, and T Edge Construction, owned by Tammy Edgerly.

“We do really look at ourselves as a program that supports building in the current climate with increasing the number of certified firms,” Edwards said.

The PCDP will be accepting applications in November for its next class.

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TriMet is continuing to improve its MAX light-rail system, and on Monday an overhaul of tracks and infrastructure began in Hillsboro.

Crews with general contractor Stacy & Witbeck Inc. started demolishing asphalt and concrete along Southwest Washington Street in preparation for the replacement of old track, switches and other items. The work is taking place along approximately a mile of the blue line track, from the Hatfield Government Center station to the Fair Complex/Hillsboro Airport station.

The scope of work in Hillsboro will include upgrading five electrical switches for better functionality in cold weather, and replacing signal equipment and sections of track bed at three crossings.

However, the main focus of the Hillsboro work is the replacement of a switch that allows trains to change tracks as they enter or leave the Hatfield Government Center station at the blue line’s western end. For several weeks, crews will be demolishing old asphalt and concrete around the embedded tracks, as well as preparing for replacement of a curved section of track that leads into the station.

“The track and signal replacement is almost two blocks long,” TriMet project manager David Sauter said. “It’s especially complicated beca

use it’s an embedded double crossover. This is why they’re going to be doing preparatory work over the next four weeks, so when the 15-day shutdown begins they’ll have demo’d all the asphalt and concrete from around the rails.”

Four MAX stations – Hatfield Government Center, Hillsboro Central/SE 3rd Avenue Transit Center, Tuality Hospital/SE 8th Avenue and Washington/SE 12th Avenue will be closed from Oct. 13 through Oct. 27. During this time, the bumpy safety tiles along the edges of the stations’ platforms will be replaced. That work will be performed by Brown Contracting and Raimore Construction.

When that closure comes, Sauter said, a race against the clock will begin for work in the entire section.

“During that time they’ll come into this area,” he said. “And they’ll start ripping out all the rails. They’ll start digging and getting everything prepped for new signal connections, new drainage connections, and then eventually the new base layer and track comes in.”

Once the new sections of track are welded into place, rubber “boots” will be placed on sections of embedded track not pre-encapsulated.

All sections of new track procured for this project are coming from steel mills in Romania, where firms still have the ability to produce the girder rails used in TriMet’s system. The rails are shaped to provide a protective flange-work and allow the tracks to be embedded in city streets.

“We don’t have any (manufacturers) in the U.S. that can do that lateral rail,” Sauter said. “So all of the girder rail switches had to be machined outside the U.S. The materials are very similar with the metallurgy, but it’s something we just can’t get here.”

Once work on the tracks is complete, concrete pours will take place along the sections of new track. Regular MAX service is expected to resume on Oct. 28.

“This was the last piece of blue line to be built,” Sauter said. “It was turned over in the mid- to late ’90s, so if you think about that, we’ve gotten about 20 years of service from that. And we’re expecting to get 20 or 25 years more service on this.”

The work is part of a series of TriMet initiatives over the past several years to improve MAX infrastructure. In 2016 and 2017, major track, rail and switch improvements were performed on Southwest Morrison and Yamhill streets at First and 11th avenues in downtown Portland and the Rose Quarter Transit Center. Then, earlier this year, switch improvements and other work was carried out around the Providence Park station.

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