PROJECT: Fountain Place Apartments

LOCATION: 929 S.W. Salmon St., Portland

SIZE:��74 units

COST:��not provided

START DATE: April 2020

ANTICIPATED END DATE: October 2021

OWNER/DEVELOPER: Home Forward

ARCHITECT: Peter Meijer Architect

ENGINEERS: KPFF (structural), Glumac (mechanical, plumbing)

CONTRACTOR:��Lorentz Bruun Construction

CONSULTANT: Salazar Architect Inc. (affordable housing design specialists)

NUMBER OF WORKERS EMPLOYED: 100

SIGNIFICANCE OF PROJECT: Work is drawing to a close on Home Forward’s renovation of the Fountain Place Apartments. Built in 1911 by local millionaire and salmon cannery owner Frank M. Warren, who died the following year as a passenger on the Titanic’s doomed maiden voyage, Fountain Place is one of the earliest examples of high-end apartment construction in downtown Portland. It also is one of the area’s first U-shaped buildings.

Each floor has approximately 7,500 interior square feet, for a building total of 45,000 square feet. The building features a wood structure and a brick exterior. The contractor is dropping in six seismic braces on top of about 60 micro piles placed below the slab on grade for attachment to the walls to provide seismic safety. The additions of two layers of plywood to the existing diaphragm will also provide a more seismically resilient building.

As part of the project, on March 4, 2020, the building was added to the National Register of Historic Places. The renovation was made possible with financing from Oregon Housing and Community Services, Banner Bank and U.S. Bank.

A major goal of the project was to retain the 100-year-old building’s historic character while adding several future-proofed improvements, said Halla Hoffer, an associate principal with Peter Meijer Architect. The seismic upgrade will not only improve safety for occupants, but also extend the building’s useful life at least 50 more years, according to the design team.

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

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Years ago, Home Forward put into motion its “85 Stories Initiative” to improve much of its low-income housing stock. Several buildings in Portland have received attention, and now Williams Plaza, a nine-story building at 2041 N.W. Everett St., in the Nob Hill neighborhood, is finally getting some.

A tight budget has forced project designers and engineers to become creative, but they have been meeting the challenge.

“This project is design-build, which yields a lot of benefits from the start,” said Matt Bokar, a senior associate at Salazar Architect. “At the start, a lot of that just goes into scoping. So it’s about getting a handle on the stuff we have to do and then the stuff we want to do and then the stuff we hope to be able to do.”

Permits for building alterations and mechanical alterations at Williams Plaza total slightly more than $7 million. Budget constraints exist for any affordable housing project, Bokar added, so Salazar Architect is working very closely with general contractor Walsh Construction to ensure as many upgrades as possible are completed.

“From the start we are working to really organize the scope into those three buckets,” he said. “Then as the design process unfolds you try to make space in the budget and the schedule for the stuff you want to do.”

Much of the investment is going into renovating units’ bathrooms and kitchens. Williams Plaza has 101 apartments (a mix of studios and one-bedroom units) occupied by tenants who are age 55 or older, or have a disability.

“This one is really systems-heavy,” said Leslie Cretan, a Home Forward senior project manager. “It’s a heavy plumbing job, and even though it started mainly as a bathroom remodel we had to pretty much gut the bathrooms to do the replacement of the plumbing.”

The building’s security systems, corridor lighting, mechanical systems and rooftop generator all are being upgraded or replaced. An old boiler is being replaced by individual water heaters, and the ground-floor community room, lobby, mail room and garbage room are being expanded and improved. And while the building’s electrical wiring will remain for now, dilapidated baseboard heaters are being replaced by more efficient wall heaters.

“With this project the timing was just perfect,” Cretan said. “We were already having water leaks all over the place and shut-off valves that wouldn’t shut off.”

New shut-off valves were installed to allow better control of water flow.

“Now you’ll be able to shut it down at the unit and not affect anyone else’s water and go in and fix whatever you need to fix,” said Brian Ames, the project superintendent for Walsh Construction.

Other work taking place includes: abatement of flooring and joint compound containing asbestos; installation of new rooftop exhaust fans and roofing as well as new exhaust fans in each bathroom unit; installation of new stove tops and splash guards; and more. A lot of these touches, including new luxury vinyl plank flooring, came via suggestions from residents.

“Community meetings were held during design, and we were blessed to have an active and engaged population,” Bokar said. “We held three meetings to walk residents through scoping and sequencing of the work.”

Tenants are remaining in the building while improvements take place. In this case, the work is being done one floor at a time, with residents being shifted to a “hotel” floor (the sixth) on a temporary basis. The sixth floor will then be the final level to be renovated.

“We just moved everybody back from the sixth floor into the fifth floor,” Ames said. “That took us two days. And then we go through and clean the hotel floor and make sure it’s ready for the next group.”

Work is proceeding from the top down, with floors 9, 8, 7 and 5 already completed. Crews currently are working on the fourth floor and the ground floor.

“We’ll go back at the end to the hotel unit, which just got new bathrooms, and we’ll do the remaining scope items there at the tail end,” Ames said.

The project schedule calls for completion by September.

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A historic apartment building in downtown Portland is undergoing a seismic retrofit, and general contractor Lorentz Bruun Construction is seeking subcontractors for work on the project.

Fountain Place, at 929 S.W. Salmon St., is a five-story (plus a basement) unreinforced brick masonry structure owned by Home Forward. The 45,336-square-foot building is listed in the city’s Historic Resource Inventory for its architectural significance.

The proposed scope of work includes seismically upgrading the entire 105-year-old building, providing a new, rated egress stair, a new elevator, a new community room, and office space for residential services and property management.

Peter Meijer Architect is designing the retrofit, which is awaiting issuance of a building permit from the Bureau of Development Services. Other members of the project team include KPFF Consulting Engineers, Reyes Engineering, Glumac and Salazar Architect Inc.

According to the design team, Fountain Place was built in 1914 in Second Renaissance Revival style. The raised basement, bracketed sheet metal cornice and belt course with brick corbels all correspond with the style.

Nonmandatory job walks for prospective bidders will take place at 10:30 a.m. on Oct. 31. Any questions about the project are due by 5 p.m. on Nov. 1. Bids are due by Nov. 12.

For more information on this project and others, visit the 91��Ƶ Project Center online at www.djcoregon.com/projectcenter/.

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The 93-unit Vibrant! affordable housing project is being touted as another example of Portland’s penchant for building public-private partnerships.

The 12-story mixed-use tower opened last week on a quarter-block at the northwest corner of Northwest 14th Avenue and Raleigh Street in the Pearl District. A celebration was held for project team members from general contractor Bremik Construction, design firms LRS Architects and Salazar Architect, and nonprofit developer Innovative Housing Inc. (IHI), which will manage the building.

“It’s a really cool example of affordable housing integrated into a vibrant neighborhood,” Portland Housing Bureau Affordable Housing Director Karl Dinkelspiel said Thursday. “It’s an apropos name, for sure.”

The Housing Bureau teamed with Home Forward to procure a developer, and also contributed $11 million of city dollars. Roughly $20 million more in private funding was secured, Dinkelspiel said.

Vibrant! features post-tensioned concrete slabs with just over 104,000 gross square feet of floor space. The building will offer ample community space, a roof deck, an indoor/outdoor play space for children that opens to a second-floor courtyard with play equipment, a large bike room on the second floor, and a ground-floor bike lounge with a washing station. The ground floor will also host a coffee shop.

The city acquired the site from Hoyt Street Properties for just $1.3 million as part of an agreement between the development firm and the city to develop at least 35 percent of the 34 acres owned by the firm in the Pearl District as affordable housing.

IHI was selected as developer through a competitive bidding process. Ground was broken on the project in June 2017.

Because of the acute need for family housing, Vibrant! has 32 three-bedroom units and 31 two-bedroom apartments in addition to 30 one-bedroom units. Forty of those are subsidized and reserved for houseless families. The others are reserved for individuals and families with incomes at 30 percent, 50 percent and 60 percent of the area median income. Preleasing began in November, and rents currently are from $350-$775 for a one-bedroom unit, $422-$932 for a two-bedroom unit, and $487-$1,022 for a three-bedroom unit.

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A Northeast Portland building that for years hosted a complex of adult entertainment businesses is undergoing demolition. An affordable housing facility to be built in its place is the result of years of work by Cully neighborhood residents and nonprofit organizations to transform the site into a positive community asset.

Located on a triangular lot at the intersection of Northeast Cully Boulevard, Killingsworth Street and U.S. Route 30, the site was formerly home to the Sugar Shack strip club, which was a haven for prostitution and human trafficking.

A team of community nonprofits, including Hacienda CDC, Habitat for Humanity Portland/Metro East, Verge and the Native American Youth and Family Center, formed a coalition called Living Cully and purchased the property in 2015. Hacienda CDC bought the property from the partnership two years later and is planning to redevelop the site with a 140-unit affordable housing complex.

Much of the building’s interior has already been demolished: Oregon Tradeswomen Inc. used it in years past to teach hands-on demolition skills to pre-apprenticeship students. Before structural demolition commenced last month, the ReBuilding Center held a community giveaway for salvaged materials and furniture reclaimed from the site.

General contractor LMC Construction is overseeing the demolition. Abatement contractor IRS Environmental of Portland removed asbestos roofing and interior materials, and demolition contractor Lauzon Contracting last week began structural demolition work.

The 67-year-old building’s exterior walls are made of 18-inch-thick cast-in-place concrete formed with dimension lumber.

“It’s actually a pretty stout old building,” said Art O’Leary, a project superintendent with LMC Construction.

The 26,000-square-foot building will be taken down to the slab by next week. The new affordable housing project is still in the development phase. Salazar Architect is designing a four-story, 140-unit apartment building with three floors of residential units over at-grade parking, community space and residences. Plans also call for food cart vendors involved in Hacienda CDC’s Micro-Enterprise programs and an urban plaza/green space.

In an effort to honor women and bury the exploitive nature of the site’s past, the new development will be named Las Adelitas in homage to a group of women who participated in the Mexican Revolution as soldiers, medics and spies.

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Innovative Housing Inc. last week celebrated crews topping out its 12-story affordable housing project at Northwest 14th Avenue and Raleigh Street with the announcement of the building’s name: “Vibrant!” According to Sarah Stevenson, IHI’s executive director, the name was chosen to not only reflect the building’s bright orange exterior, but also embody what it will mean to residents.

“That’s kind of what we hope we are: a vibrant spot for people to come and live their lives,” Stevenson said. “It’ll be pulsating with life when it’s full with 93 families a year from now. We think this will be a great foundation for success for people in all aspects of their lives, and we want to help elevate their resonant voices and help them engage and tell their truths.”

Vibrant! will feature 93 units, ranging in size from studios to three-bedrooms; 40 of those units have been set aside for homeless families. In keeping with input provided by the Pearl District Neighborhood Association, the developers are seeking a local coffee shop to occupy the ground-floor commercial space.

“The neighborhood told us that’s what they’d like to see, so that’s what we’re working on,” Stevenson said.

Crews with Bremik Construction, the project’s general contractor, poured the 105,000-square-foot building’s roof deck earlier this month. Salazar Architect and LRS Architects are the designers of the approximately $30 million project. Completion is slated for early 2019; pre-leasing will begin this fall, and IHI is hoping to have the building filled by next June.

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Crews with Bremik Construction and Van Lom Concrete last week poured the ninth-floor post-tensioned concrete deck for an affordable housing building in the Pearl District.

About 220 cubic yards of concrete were poured on for the building, which is sited on a quarter-block parcel at the northeast corner of Northwest 14^th Avenue and Raleigh Street. When the building is topped out later this spring, it will reach 12 stories in height and contain 93 apartments ranging in size from studios to three-bedroom units.

Bremik Construction is serving as the project’s general contractor and is self-performing the concrete work, while Van Lom Concrete is the concrete finisher. The building was designed by Salazar Architect and��LRS Architects for Innovative Housing Inc. The project is slated for completion in early 2019.

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Portland City Council has granted an appeal by the architects of a Pearl District affordable housing building against conditions imposed on the project by the city’s Design Commission. The proposed building will be located at Northwest 14^th Avenue and Raleigh Street and is being designed by Salazar Architect and LRS Architects for affordable developer Innovative Housing Inc.

The 12-story project was approved by the design commission in September with multiple conditions of approval, one of which was the subject of the appeal on the grounds that it would add significantly to the project’s cost. Commissioners wanted a set of oriel windows at the building’s fifth and sixth floors moved up to connect with another group on the upper three floors, creating a singular oriel.

“This comes down to a difference of opinion about two design choices,” Stevenson said. “One of the options presents a real increase in cost to an affordable housing development that is struggling to stay on budget. We’re appealing to you, our city council, to ask that you prioritize affordable housing over aesthetic nuance, and let us move forward with a project that will provide crucial affordable housing to families in Portland that need it today.”

Speaking for the design commission, member Julia Molinar read from a letter prepared by commissioners arguing that the project should be held to the same standards as others.

“It’s significant that the proposal fell short across width and breadth of its response to design guidelines,” she said. “It is the design commission’s decision that the proposed development does not need to be a model citizen, but it does need to demonstrate a willingness to participate in civic life.”

In a 4-0 vote to grant the appeal, with Commissioner Steve Novick absent, Mayor Charlie Hales and city commissioners were quick to praise the Design Commission for its work.

“I’m going to be very glad to support the appeal,” said Commissioner Amanda Fritz, “while also honoring the good work that the design commission is doing.”

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The Portland Design Commission on Thursday gave its approval for a 12-story mixed-use project (including affordable units), but the decision may be appealed to Portland City Council because of two conditions the commission imposed.

The planned building at Northwest Raleigh Street and 14th Avenue was approved unanimously after about two hours of discussion, but Sarah Stevenson, executive director of developer Innovative Housing Inc., said she and her team will decide this week whether to appeal the conditions.

One condition concerns the design team’s groupings of oriel windows at the fifth and sixth floors with another grouping at the top three floors. City planner Grace Jeffreys said that staffers recommended moving all of the oriel windows to the top five floors.

As submitted, the design by Salazar Architect and LRS Architects shows a gray and white checkerboard pattern on one side of the building with the oriel windows on the other side. The groupings of oriel windows would be orange and the spaces between them, at levels two through four and levels seven through nine, would be white.

But in addition to lumping the oriel windows at the top of the building, city staffers also recommended bringing the checkerboard pattern around the building to fill in all the white spaces.

After the meeting, Stevenson said she was surprised that city staffers created a new rendering showing the changes they recommended. She said she would meet today with her staff and the design team to decide whether to appeal the two conditions to City Council.

The conditions attached to the approval could make a big difference in what happens next, Stevenson said.

“If their changes were purely aesthetic, we could move forward,” she said. “But these changes aren’t purely aesthetic and we need to talk about what’s the cost and impact of doing that redesign.”

The building’s design calls for 93 affordable units at the top 11 levels, ground-floor retail space, a lobby connected to bike parking and ground-level parking for 16 vehicles. Exterior materials include metal siding and vinyl windows over ground-floor brick and aluminum storefronts.

The redesign required by the city could impact costs and construction schedules.

“For me, it comes down to time,” she said. “We need to get started on this project and I’m feeling a lot of pressure to not delay on new affordable housing.”

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to clarify the roles of the architecture firms involved in the project.

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A 12-story affordable housing tower is planned for the north end of the Pearl District.

The 160-foot-tall, quarter-block development will contain 93 affordable units, community rooms, a small rooftop deck and a second-floor outdoor play area. The building will feature brick at ground level and metal-panel cladding above.

The project by Innovative Housing – still unnamed – is being designed by Salazar Architect and LRS Architects. Bremik Construction is the contractor and KPFF is the structural engineer.
It’s being funded by a combination of sources: a mortgage, money from the Portland Housing Bureau and low-income tax credits. There is also a chance that energy trust rebate dollars could factor in, said Julie Garver, housing development director for Innovative Housing.

Innovative Housing, a private nonprofit founded in 1984, has developed 1,000 units in the Portland area.

The project is scheduled to go back before the Design Commission on May 12.

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