Despite some challenges, crews are approaching completion of the mixed-use Sky3 tower in downtown Portland.

Workers of various trades – around 150 on Monday – added exterior siding and interior finishes and framing to the 15-story prefabricated steel-framed building at Southwest 11th Avenue and Jefferson Street. Absher Construction project executive Blaine Wolfe said the $42 million project, which began at the start of 2015, should wrap late this year.

The quarter-block mixed-use building employs a unique modular frame system. The structure is the tallest ever to feature steel framing by Innovative Green Business System, Wolfe said, though Absher does have experience using IGBS on a larger (but shorter) project in Ballard, Wash.

“The system just being as tall as it is, and the fact that it’s the first of its kind, has been a bit of a challenge,” he said.

But “by far” the biggest challenge faced by the Puyallup, Wash.-based contractor has been a shortage of skilled workers, Wolfe said. Crews lately have been working Saturdays and select trades have been staying late.

“There’s just not enough labor to go around,” he said. “We’ve been challenged with subcontractor participation, and also maintaining a workforce. It’s a finite resource, and there’s infinite opportunity. Some of the key subs are able to keep up with us, but some of the smaller trades are having trouble.”

The good news for Absher is that it has almost completely eliminated hand injuries on the project, safety manager Tyler Robinson said, by requiring all employees to wear gloves. The company reduced annual payouts related to hand injuries from $80,000 to $7,000.

“We haven’t seen a hand injury out here in a long time – over a year,” Robinson said.

Sky3 is Absher’s largest Portland project to date. It was designed by Ankrom Moisan Architects and developed by Molasky Group of Companies, the Las Vegas-based developer of the FBI Portland building. With amenities like a library, a game room, a large bike area, a rooftop “sky lounge” with an indoor-outdoor fireplace and a test kitchen, and car stackers in the two-level garage – Molasky hopes to provide “a little bit of everything,” Wolfe said. The developer is even designing a wine room to go above the garage in a space originally planned as a stock room for retail tenants.

“They have a level of quality that they expect to hit,” Wolfe said. “So I think this is going to be a pretty cool project when all is said and done. And the views are amazing.”

Sky3 has 196 residential units, including three penthouses, and ground-floor retail space. One tenant, Coava Coffee, has signed on.

Subcontractors include Steel Panel Supply Inc., Bergelectric, J.E.T. Plumbing, Hunter-Davisson, Cascade Acoustics, Corona Steel, Insulpro Projects, Marion Construction, Coffman Excavation, Snyder Roofing and Innotech Windows. Innotech supplied unique windows with multiple tilt-out functions.

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Developers of a 15-story, mixed-use building in downtown Portland are preparing for construction of the foundation. They received the go-ahead from the Portland Design Commission earlier this year.

Sky3 Place – spearheaded by Las Vegas-based Molasky Group of Companies in partnership with Portland-based E&F Properties LLC – will feature 196 apartments (including three penthouses), 96 underground parking spaces and 10,615 total square feet of retail space on the ground floor and mezzanine levels.

Plans for the building indicate that the ground floor will hold five separate retail spaces each between 1,110 and 2,100 square feet. The mezzanine level will have one retail office space nearly 1,400 square feet.

The building will be a mix of concrete and prefabricated steel panels, according to Abe Samani, project manager with Puyallup, Wash.-based Absher Construction Co., the project contractor. The two below-grade parking levels and the first two floors, including the ceiling of the second floor, will be concrete. Upward from there, prefabricated steel panels will be used, Samani said.

“This method saves quite a bit on cost and scheduled construction time,” he said. “Instead of bringing the materials to the construction site and erecting them there, they’ll do the fabrication off-site and we assemble the panels.”

Demolition crews in August razed an existing half-block structure on Southwest Jefferson Street between 11th and 12th avenues to make room for Sky3 Place. If all goes according to plan, the building should be delivered sometime around late March 2016.

Portland city code limits wood-frame buildings to five stories, so using metal framing allowed the architects to increase density on the site without making construction too costly. But Samani said the technique presents some unique challenges.

“Any time you have prefabricated panels it’s important to make sure it fits,” he said. “It takes a tremendous amount of engineering before you get the panels on site to make sure it’s built correctly.”

Construction with prefabricated components allows less room for error, Samani said. The goal is to have as few on-site modifications as possible.

This will be Ankrom Moisan Architects‘ first prefabricated metal-framed project in Portland, but it has designed two in Seattle. The firm found it cuts construction costs on midsize buildings (between 12 and 16 stories) from about $220 per square foot to between $160 and $170 per square foot.

The Portland City Council in May approved an application by Sky3 Place developers to participate in the city’s Multiple-Unit Limited Tax Exemption program. Via MULTE, building owners are exempted from paying an estimated $690,000 in real property taxes during the first year of operation. The exemption will continue for 10 years and may be extended thereafter if the building owners are willing to reserve 20 percent of the units as affordable housing, meaning tenants would make less than 80 percent of the area’s median family income.

Sky3 Place is located just around the corner from The Jefferson, a mixed-use building constructed in 2008 with 80 apartments reserved for households making at or below 50 percent of the area’s median family income.

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As The Molasky Group of Companies planned for Sky3 Place – a 15-story building with 195 apartments above ground-floor retail space in Southwest Portland – the team discovered that typical framing materials wouldn’t be feasible.

“Our conclusion was it didn’t make sense to build either a stick-built (structure) or high-rise because steel prices were too high,” said Peter Wenner, vice president of the Las Vegas-based developer.

The Molasky Group found a solution: a prefabricated metal-panel framing system that allows for accelerated construction and reduced costs. That opened a door for Puyallup, Wash.-based Absher Construction Co., which has a long history working with Innovative Green Building System LLC of Kent, Wash. Its internationally patented system is set to frame the $42 million Sky3 Place building at 1101 S.W. Jefferson St.

Now Absher Construction, which has used IGBS in the Seattle area, is bringing it into Portland.

“We looked at who’s built with this system before and there were only a couple of contractors who have done this,” Wenner said.

Blaine Wolfe, a project executive for Absher Construction, said that before it began using IGBS it had to find the right system, create a reliable supply chain and grasp how to navigate the licensing process.

“Understanding all the patents and royalties is important,” he said. “Otherwise, you can step in the wrong direction.”

Once Absher Construction hammered out the details of using IGBS, crews put the system to work.

“We were offered an opportunity five years ago to construct an eight-story project above grade,” he said. “We just jumped in with both feet and just figured it out.”

The system can be built twice as fast as a post-tension concrete slab and metal-framed building, said Sean Robinson, Absher Construction’s superintendent for Sky3 Place.

“It’s a pretty simple system,” he said. “We’re basically erecting a panel that’s pre-done and lifting it off the truck.”

The system proved 20 percent to 25 percent cheaper than post-tension concrete would have cost for a similar-size structure, Wenner said. Cost savings come through material costs and labor costs because most of the work is done off-site, he said.

Such savings could convince more project owners to use IGBS or one of several other lightweight-gauge steel systems available in the marketplace. Absher Construction is now targeting commercial and residential projects that are between eight and 18 stories, Wolfe said.

“We’ve actually seen a number of projects in the Portland and Seattle areas that are targeting above five-over-two wood structures to a true high-rise structure,” he said. “This is a product that sits right in between.”

The city is still reviewing building plans for Sky3 Place, which was designed by Ankrom Moisan Architects and received unanimous approval from the Portland Design Commission in March. Demolition and excavation has begun, but new construction has not.

Portland’s Bureau of Development Services will look at the building system over the next several weeks, said Amit Kumar, the bureau’s senior structural engineer.

“As long as they’re designed properly, I don’t think there are structural concerns,” he said.

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Demolition began last week on a half-block structure in downtown Portland, drawing a crowd of curious spectators. Konell Construction & Demolition Corp. will spend about six weeks clearing the site, located on Southwest Jefferson Street between 11^th and 12^th Avenues.

Puyallup, Wash.-based contractor Absher Construction Company will build a 15-story, 196-unit mixed-use project, called Sky3 Place, on the site. The Ankrom Moisan Architects-designed building will contain around 10,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space and two levels of underground parking. The project’s developer is Las Vegas-based Molasky Group of Companies.

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The Portland Design Commission on Thursday unanimously approved plans for a 15-story mixed-use building on Southwest Jefferson Street.

Sky3 Place, planned at 1101 to 1401 S.W. Jefferson St., will have 195 units and ground-floor retail space. Ankrom Moisan Architects presented plans for the Molasky Group of Cos. project to the Design Commission for the third time on Thursday. Commissioners reviewed plans in January and February, but declined to issue approval until revisions were made.

Also on Thursday, commissioners offered design feedback for the 1420 Pearl Apartments, a mixed-use building that would step down from nine stories to seven. SERA Architects staffers are scheduled to return April 3, city planner Chris Caruso said, to again seek design approval for the 290-unit development at 1420 N.W. 14th Ave.

Plans for the Mill Creek Residential Trust project call for 223 below-grade parking spaces, a central courtyard and a green roof with a deck, she said.

Commissioners on Thursday suggested that revisions be made to the building’s northeast pedestrian entry, which also includes bicycle parking and loading access, Caruso said.

“There is a lot going on there. It needs to be reworked a bit so it feels more like a front porch to the building,” she said.

Lastly, commissioners gave design advice on a renovation planned for the Lloyd Center mall. Plans that Waterleaf Architecture, Interiors & Planning submitted to the city for the project call for new pedestrian entrances along south and east faces, and improvements to the garages on Northeast Multnomah Street. An additional storefront on Multnomah Street is being considered too.

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