The Vera is gaining a neighbor.

BRIDGE Housing‘s 203-unit affordable housing structure opened in Portland’s South Waterfront District in June 2020. Now, general contractor Walsh Construction is building for the real estate developer a similar structure at the corner of Southwest River Parkway and Moody Avenue.

RiverPlace Phase II will have 178 apartments – a mix of studios and units with one, two or three bedrooms. The units will be available to residents with incomes up to 60 percent of the area median income.

“We’ve got 50 units of family housing, which is always desirable,” said Nicole Peterson, a BRIDGE Housing senior project manager.

Also, 20 units reserved for veterans will be rented out through Veterans Affairs via project-based vouchers.

The Phase II building will have five stories of wood framing over two levels of post-tensioned concrete. The ground floor will have a mixture of office space, retail space and residential space, while the upper stories will hold apartments and community spaces. A second-level outdoor courtyard will be enclosed on three sides and open to the south, where a Pacific Power facility exists.

“We’re targeted to be done in the fall of next year, and it’s been going pretty well,” Walsh Construction project manager Brian Johnson said. “The biggest limitation being it’s the last block to build in this space. It’s about as tight as it gets. You’ve got the streetcar on two sides, you’ve got The Vera, and then PP&L doesn’t really want us to put stuff in their yard.”

The RiverPlace Phase II building, like The Vera, was designed by Ankrom Moisan Architects. A Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design gold rating will be sought through the LEED for Homes program. Johnson said the intent is to lean on the energy component to reach that goal. Even without an active photovoltaic array, the efficient building envelope (designed by RDH Building Science) and judicious use of high-quality windows and materials, insulation and brick masonry cladding should allow that to happen.

“How many bike racks you have – OK, that’s helpful,” Johnson said. “But if you really want to talk about the intent of sustainability, figuring out a way to reduce energy usage in buildings is number one. So, you start there.”

The material usage aspect of LEED is “pretty straightforward,” he added.

“We’ve got a lot of great local supply, and wood framing helps us out there,” he said. “And then you get points for the location. Just by virtue of using this site, the transit-oriented development, the amenities, you chalk up a whole bunch of points. It’s a good place to build, and it’s challenging, which is probably the reason it’s the last block to get built here. But it’s compelling.”

Because of site constraints, the building will feature panelized wall systems built by Pacific Wall Systems of Olympia, Washington. Also, motorized scaffolding will be used on all four sides of the building for installation of cladding.

“It would be nice to have a panel company a little closer, but capacity is also an issue,” Johnson said. “There is so much work going on right now, getting a partner is everything. They’ve been taking wood material for two months and have started putting the panels together, so we should see them middle of August.”

Nobody has inventory of almost anything, Johnson added. That has become a fact of life for teams tackling projects of all sizes during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It’s funny in a way because it’s kind of followed the flow of construction,” he said. “For a while there you couldn’t get form ply, you couldn’t get a bunch of wood material, you couldn’t get engineered wood material, you couldn’t get dimensional wood material.”

These days, flooring materials are difficult to procure because the cost of international shipping has tripled in recent months, according to Johnson. Also, there is a dire shortage of paint caused by a lack of polymer compounds normally manufactured in Europe and Asia. Even overhead doors suddenly experienced a 25 percent price increase overnight.

Currently at the RiverPlace Phase II site, carpenters with Whitaker/Ellis are building formwork and preparing to pour the second concrete deck, while mechanical, electrical and plumbing subcontractors Tapani Plumbing, Affordable Electric and American Heating are starting to work on the ground floor.

“We are finding ways around it and that’s where we have to work as a team,” Johnson said. “We have to be open with communication and say here’s what’s available now. And let’s look at options and see if we can be flexible. We certainly knew we would face challenges, but we couldn’t know where.”

The project’s financial partners include: the Portland Housing Bureau, Prosper Portland, Oregon Housing and Community Services, Home Forward, Metro, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Veterans Affairs, Bank of America and Barings Multifamily Capital.

The post ‘It’s challenging … but it’s compelling’ appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

By Josh Kulla
Special to the 91��Ƶ

The largest ongoing building project in Portland’s South Waterfront District keeps chugging along, despite the ongoing pandemic and over 100 days of protests, some of them at the nearby Immigration and Customs Enforcement building.

The eight-story apartment project is located at 3838 S.W. Macadam Ave., Portland, just two blocks from the ICE building, where protesters have clashed regularly with federal agents. The project has not experienced any significant damage as a result of the protests, and building crews under general contractor Andersen Construction continue going about their work relatively unimpeded.

“At this point, we’ve got all of the main concrete work finished,” said Senior Project Manager Mike Carrigg. “You can see the first level, the second and third level, where we’re doing our first wood framing. They’re just getting going on the first level, and our third level up there is our last transition deck from concrete into wood framing, so, we’re making that move, getting ready to roll joists and start building up.”

Architectural firm Hensley Lamkin Rachel Inc. of Dallas, Texas, designed the 232-unit project, which replaces a single-story, 37,000-square-foot warehouse that formerly served La Grand Industrial Supply Co. on the 1.07-acre site.

The project also includes construction of a public plaza on the Southwest Lane Avenue right-of-way adjacent to the site’s north side.

Block 40 is part of a two-block development from development firm Alamo Manhattan that received Portland Design Commission approval in 2018. A seven-story, 190-unit mixed-use building is still planned for construction on the adjacent property to the north at 3714 S.W. Macadam Ave.

Because of the steep grade of the property, the building will present eight stories fronting Moody Avenue on the east side and seven stories fronting Macadam Avenue on the west side. A single level of below-grade parking will be provided.

Andersen has used a traditional approach to construction.

“Ordinarily we do panelized wood framing projects,” Carrigg said. “But this one is atypical; we’re actually stick building this one. We’re kind of going old school, traditional framing.”

In part, this is because carpenters from Portland-based Time Frame Inc. are using a relatively new type of fire-retardant treated lumber to construct the building’s exterior walls.

“It’s different than what we’ve normally done,” Carrigg said. “With other projects, at least the last five or so that I’ve done, they’ve been conventional wood framing and our exterior wall assemblies keeps its two-hour (fire) rating through brick, a couple of layers of drywall and DensGlass. Here, we have an additional measure of fire-retardant treated lumber, and it’s used on the exterior walls.”

He added that this type of treatment is becoming quite popular. And, while more costly than untreated lumber, the savings realized from eliminating other exterior fireproofing materials results in a net win for a project utilizing the material.

“It has a function of potentially replacing a layer of DensGlass,” he said. “So I think a lot of people are realizing this and looking to that as an option. If you can delete an entire layer that you don’t have to install, I would say that’s a savings overall to the project.”

Other current milestones include the recent completion of foundation work, with masons from Los Angeles-based Superior Gunite finishing the last scheduled shotcrete work on ground floor walls. On the horizon, Carrigg said, work on the main building power vaults is under way along with installation of gas and other utilities.

Other active subcontractors include Delta Drywall, of Tualatin, which is performing metal stud framing; Portland’s Exteriors Design will be installing weather resistant barrier, windows and cement cladding; and Klinger Masonry will be installing brick masonry on the exterior. Current MEP team members include Tapani Plumbing, Porter Electric and Vanport Mechanical.

“Going forward,” Carrigg said, “when the wood framing gets about two more floors up, they’ll start installing windows, a (weather resistant barrier) and waterproofing the building in and getting ready for the winter.”

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When excavation work at Portland’s Block 40 this past fall turned up lead and other soil contaminants, progress slowed to a crawl. Substantial personal protective equipment was required for personnel on site and a decontamination container was installed for workers handling the tainted soil.

“In a weird way, we were kind of preparing for COVID-19,” Andersen Construction project manager Mike Carrigg said.

Andersen Construction is serving as the general contractor for the project to erect an eight-story mixed-use building for developer Alamo Manhattan.

“Like most of Portland, it seems, there’s all this dirt down there from dredging the Willamette (River) back in the 1920s,” Carrigg said. “It ended up having a high concentration of polycarbonates and lead, actually. That was fun, and we ended up having to dig it all out.”

Carrigg estimated that crews needed around a month to complete mitigation. But then it was full steam ahead.

“We were able to get rid of everything and have a clean bill of health,” he said. “The job’s going forward, and as you can see now we’re doing the concrete.”

Hensley Lamkin Rachel Inc. of Dallas, Texas, designed the 232-unit project located at 3838 S.W. Macadam Ave. A single-story, 37,000-square-foot warehouse that formerly served La Grand Industrial Supply Co. was removed from the 1.07-acre site prior to excavation.

The project also includes construction of a public plaza on the Southwest Lane Avenue right-of-way adjacent to the site’s north side.

Block 40 is part of a two-block development from Alamo Manhattan that received the Portland Design Commission’s approval in 2018. A seven-story, 190-unit mixed-use building is planned at 3714 S.W. Macadam Ave.

Earlier this month, crews from R2M2 Rebar and Stressing and ASI Structures completed monolithic slab-on-grade concrete pours for the Block 40 building’s foundation and footings, which sit one level below grade. Crews simultaneously assembled the shoring and tables for another post-tensioned concrete deck at ground level.

Because of the property’s steep grade, the building will feature eight stories on the east side and seven stories fronting Macadam Avenue on the west side. Each side will have five stories of wood framing atop the concrete decks.

The pandemic has had less of an impact on materials and workforce than it might have during later scopes of work, Carrigg said.

“We’re kind of in a fortunate time frame in that we’re not dealing with finishes right now,” he said.

Nevertheless, Andersen Construction is taking measures to account for potential delays.

“We did get these table forms early,” Carrigg said. “We’re using rented equipment from PERI, and some of their yards were closing a couple of weeks ago. We were like, ‘Let’s get the material here now so we have control over our own destiny.’ That’s been a big help. We’re saying, ‘Have a storage problem; don’t have a no-supply problem.’”

That’s a relief, he added, after losing another week trying to source adequate supplies of waterproofing materials for the foundation and parking-level walls.

“We’re still OK,” he said. “We’re still tracking schedule, but man, it makes you nervous.”

The post South Waterfront project team marching onward appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

Portland design commissioners on Thursday suggested significant revisions to two South Waterfront towers proposed by a Dallas-based developer.

The proposal represents the latest iteration for Southwest Portland blocks owned by Prometheus Real Estate Group. Alamo Manhattan won design approval in August 2017 for two multifamily buildings, but did not move ahead at that time.

Five buildings are proposed on four riverfront blocks between Southwest Lane and Lowell streets. The parcels north of the Old Spaghetti Factory restaurant have long sat vacant. The new buildings would bring 1,232 residential units, 20,000 square feet of retail space and more than 700 parking spots, along with new streets and river access.

In December 2019, the developer withdrew its application and resubmitted the proposal under a new land-use case based on a 2017 subdivision of the property. The maneuver makes the Alamo Manhattan proposal subject to the city’s inclusionary housing requirements for affordable units. However, the move frees the Dallas developer from meeting requirements that are part of Central City 2035 zoning updates, including those for bird-safe glazing, eco-roofs and low-carbon building performance.

Avoiding the requirements is likely to save Alamo Manhattan substantial money, because the premium for bird-safe glazing on only one large building can run several hundred thousand dollars. An eco-roof likewise is a costly requirement for space that brings building owners no revenue.

The development would fill in a section of the South Waterfront Greenway that is currently broken. Alamo Manhattan has been unable to reach agreement with city officials regarding funding to build a high-quality greenway in the area.

“We’re excited to have this stretch of the greenway come into development,” said Brett Horner, planning manager for Portland Parks and Recreation. “We were unable to reach agreement with them on public assistance for enhanced greenway. We would really like to see an enhanced greenway that would more closely match the built greenway to the north.

“All the bureaus worked together, and we were represented by Prosper Portland for some potential public involvement, particularly in the greenway. Those talks did not end result in any agreement,” Horner said.

The design is from the Dallas office of WDG Architecture, and Dallas landscape architect Linda Tycher and Associates. The Design Commission dealt with 250-foot-tall towers proposed on blocks 41 and 44. Plans call for a largely light-colored design on Block 41 and a reddish-brown metallic treatment on Block 44 to the south.

Commissioners and Bureau of Development Services staffers praised the glassy, river-facing design for Block 44, which would feature a small notch mid-building. They had serious concerns, however, about the L-shaped tower. The staff report even suggested revisiting the building’s footprint, which would be a major step.

For both buildings, commissioners suggested simplifying the façade treatments for a consistent design language.

The land-use case is one of the most complex the Design Commission has faced in recent years, with multiple buildings on multiple blocks, river access, transportation issues and the greenway all playing a role.

In response to earlier criticism, the design team moved the buildings back from the greenway. Linda Tycher and Associates’ landscape design fills in a required 2,500 square feet of space largely with shrubbery. Commissioners said the space needs to provide a greater public benefit.

“It’s just kind of a leftover space that nobody wants anyway,” Commissioner Don Vallaster said.

Chairwoman Julie Livingston agreed.

“The 2,500 square feet needs to make a place,” she said. “It is all about having space for the public to occupy.”

The current design, Livingston added, “is negative space for the building. It seems more about providing privacy for residents of the building.”

Designs for the interior blocks are scheduled to be reviewed on March 12. After that, at least one more review hearing will have to be scheduled before the Design Commission can issue approval.

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A Dallas-based developer’s plans for a five-building redevelopment of property in the South Waterfront District have a long way to go to gain approval, the Portland Design Commission indicated on Thursday.

The development would sit on four blocks near the Willamette River. Portland Bureau of Development Services staffers raised questions regarding access to the Willamette River, traffic impacts and the layout of a greenway through the area.

The project’s first review hearing before the Design Commission was Thursday. Commissioners were nonplussed by Alamo Manhattan‘s proposal, saying they were unsure how to even begin evaluating what one commissioner described as an incomplete land-use application for a massive redevelopment.

Alamo Manhattan proposes to build approximately 1,232 residential units, 20,000 square feet of retail space and 965 parking spots. The design would locate two high-rise buildings closest to the river, with three mid-rise buildings on the two western blocks, in contrast with city guidelines that call for building heights to step down to the river. The buildings closest to the river would rise to 244 feet, 9 inches, just below the 250-foot maximum height. The interior block buildings would be approximately 72 to 73 feet tall.

“This is very unusual that we’re reviewing five massive buildings and a greenway,” Commissioner Zari Santner said. “How come the bureau accepts an application that is so insufficiently complete?”

“The applicant can deem it complete,” BDS planner Staci Monroe replied. “There is nothing in the code that prohibits it.”

Monroe agreed that it was not typical to review several buildings and related infrastructure at once.

“It’s an insane amount of work to put this into one land-use case,” she said.

Santner suggested the developer’s plans were not close to meeting guidelines.

“There’s nothing that stops us from asking the applicant to keep coming back until we get to something that’s approvable,” she said.

Alamo Manhattan President Matt Segrest offered no indication that the developer would break up the land-use application into smaller parts.

“I recognize this is a huge chore here,” he said. “It is. There’s no way around that. We want to get this approved as soon as we can as well.”

The staff report did not recommend approval – a routine stance in the early stages of a land-use application. However, the staff report details at least 29 distinct guidelines not yet met by the proposal. Furthermore, the city’s environmental services and transportation bureaus, as well as the BDS site development section, stated they were not able to support the application.

The design team includes WDG Architecture, HLR Architects, landscape architect Linda Tycher and Associates and engineering firm Otak.

The property is slightly north of The Old Spaghetti Factory, and bounded by Southwest Bond Avenue, Southwest Lane Street, Southwest Lowell Street and the river.

Two design advice hearings for the project took place in February and August. The project team is scheduled to return before the Design Commission on Feb. 6, 2020.

Also on Thursday:

OHSU expansion wins approval

The Portland Design Commission unanimously approved plans for Oregon Health & Science University’s 14-story hospital expansion on Marquam Hill.

Commissioners praised the proposal presented by the design team of NBBJ, based in Seattle, and Mayer/Reed, which handled the outdoor plaza.

“The response that we’re looking at today is significantly stronger than when this building (design) came into the room,” Design Commission Chairwoman Julie Livingston said at Thursday’s hearing.

The building will be located slightly west of the Elks Children’s Eye Clinic, which was also designed by NBBJ.

The plaza and outdoor spaces were a focus of the Design Commission’s attention throughout the review process. The designers responded to earlier criticism that the plaza’s pathways weren’t well integrated and lacked separation between pedestrians and cars. The final design expanded outdoor seating, added street trees and also created a landscape buffer between the sidewalk and street.

“Your collective feedback has greatly improved the hospital design as well as the public plaza,” said José Sama, a principal with NBBJ, which recently opened a Portland office.

The post Work remains for South Waterfront redevelopment appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

A proposal for a two-building mixed-use development that could add 289 residential units to Portland’s South Waterfront District is set to go before the Bureau of Development Services on Tuesday for a pre-application conference.

TriMet owns the 2.33-acre parcel on Southwest Moody Avenue, and is working with TVA Architects and Portland developer Phil Morford to convert the narrow property, known as the Tilikum Moody site, into a transit-oriented development. As proposed, the development would be constructed on the property’s southern end – between the Ross Island Bridge and Southwest Harbor Avenue.

“It’s a little early, but this is probably the most exciting project that we’ve ever done,” Morford said. “We look at it as being a very public project.”

TriMet earlier this year hired Cushman & Wakefield to market the property without a stated asking price. Floor area ratio regulations allow construction of a total of 944,574 square feet; also, the property is subject to Portland’s Central City 2035 Plan.

According to a sales flyer, the property contains roughly 36,446 square feet of usable land area and is located in an opportunity zone. Zoning is central commercial. Maximum building height in this area is 250 feet.

Morford and TVA Architects have worked together on a number of developments, and are doing so on four projects – including this one – in Portland.

Early documents submitted to the BDS suggest that both buildings would feature residential units above ground-floor retail space and at-grade vehicle parking. The proposal calls for a total of 40 parking spaces.

Two vehicle access points to the property from Southwest Moody Avenue would be constructed.

Project plans are subject to change, Morford said, as development continues and stormwater management issues are explored more fully.

“It’s going to be in the middle of a lot of OHSU medical buildings and mass transit,” Morford said. “All that is going to affect our unit type and design. We hope to have at least 300 units, and at this time it would comprise two buildings, but whether or not we can do all this is largely up to the infrastructure restrictions and parameters.”

Among those are stormwater issues as well as street easements that were replaced on Moody Avenue when Portland Streetcar tracks were constructed.

Morford said that he and TVA Architects lead designer Robert Thompson believe this project can be great.

“Bob and I are extremely excited about this project,” he said. “Of all the things we’ve been involved with, due to its special location, we’re very excited about its potential.”

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A new multistory mixed-use building is due to rise on Block 40, in Portland’s South Waterfront District, but demolition must take place first.

Hensley Lamkin Rachel Inc. of Dallas, Texas, designed the 232-unit project at 3838 S.W. Macadam Ave. for Alamo Manhattan, also of Dallas. Andersen Construction is serving as the general contractor.

Right now, crews are dismantling a single-story, 37,000-square-foot warehouse – formerly the home of La Grand Industrial Supply – built on the 1.07-acre site in 1956. The building was constructed with concrete tilt walls and a wooden post and beam structural framework. Because of its age, there was asbestos insulation and fireproofing material that required extensive abatement.

“We started demolition on Thursday last week, so now we’re pretty far along,” Andersen Construction project manager Mike Carrigg said Wednesday. “We did have asbestos, but all that work took place before we started demolition. It was a very effective product; that’s why they used it on everything. But in the remediation world it’s terrible.”

Westech Construction is working with Staton Companies of Eugene to perform this scope of work.

“That whole process is about a four-week process to demo and remove everything, and then we start on the excavation,” Carrigg said.

On Wednesday a Staton crew was on-site with a team of excavators knocking down concrete walls, roof trusses and other parts of the old warehouse. The building is now mostly demolished except for a storefront section along the Macadam Avenue frontage.

The new building will have seven stories of wood framing above a concrete podium and a parking garage partially below grade. The ground floor will have three separate retail spaces while the rest of the building will feature residential space and a rooftop amenity deck.

Because of the steep grade of the property, the building will present eight stories fronting Moody Avenue on the east side and seven stories fronting Macadam Avenue on the west side, Carrigg said.

The scope of work also includes construction of a public plaza on the Southwest Lane Avenue right-of-way abutting the project site’s northern portion. The of the two-block site with two seven-story buildings. According to Kimberly Lan, a development associate with Alamo Manhattan, the firm currently does not have a construction timeline for the second building: a seven-story, 190-unit structure at 3714 S.W. Macadam Ave.

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NBP Capital‘s ambitious plans for a mixed-use neighborhood in the RiverPlace area in Portland will have to overcome issues with the site and transportation challenges, in addition to complaints from hundreds of current residents who would be displaced.

The Portland developer proposes for the 8-acre site near the South Waterfront District a series of towers that would have thousands of new housing units, perhaps a hotel, retail shops and public spaces. The Portland Design Commission held a design advice request hearing on Thursday.

GBD Architects of Portland is working with Kengo Kuma and Associates, a well-regarded Japanese architecture firm on designs for the massive project. A Central City master plan is required.

NBP Capital’s plans would result in the demolition of existing buildings, including The Douglas apartments and townhomes. Dozens of residents overflowed the hearing room to give their thoughts on the project.

Much of the public testimony was organized by the Portland Downtown Neighborhood Association and residents of the Strand condos on River Drive, which border the development site.

Agustin Enriquez, a GBD Architects principal, presented plans for the site, including a Kengo Kuma concept for what’s called the Portland Steps. Renderings show a cascading series of horizontal plates organized in a 35,000-square-foot public square planted with native vegetation. Retail shops would be incorporated into the steps.

“We envision retail being in, around and actually within these Portland Steps,” Enriquez said.

The images were “obviously very early and conceptual,” he added.

Kuma’s involvement sparked buzz about the project when it began circulating at City Hall months ago. The architect responsible for the new National Stadium in Tokyo previously worked on an expansion of the Portland Japanese Garden and an interior redesign of Shizuku, a downtown Portland restaurant.

RiverPlace’s development program is not yet set and will depend on the arrangement of blocks within the site, architects and planners said. A hotel is being considered at the site’s northwest corner, Enriquez said. Multifamily development is also likely. Overall, four towers and open space are planned.

Maximum allowable building heights on the site range from 150 feet to 325 feet.

A block on the western side of the site would be 300 feet by 725 feet – more than five times the typical Portland block size – sparking staff concerns. Designers must also contend with view corridors, including one from Terwilliger Boulevard to the Willamette River that shows Mount St. Helens.

A pedestrian bridge being considered would stretch over Harbor Drive and link RiverPlace to downtown, according to the applicant’s presentation.

Neighbors were critical of plans. Phil Gilbertson, who lives a few blocks west of the proposed development, said the project would not integrate well with downtown.

“The problem is that the boxed-in building site is not reasonably accessible to downtown to the west,” he said. “RiverPlace, as proposed, has its back turned to downtown.”

Gilbertson also criticized the Portland Steps.

“The grand staircase is more of a grand impediment,” he said.

NBP Capital is a Portland-based firm backed by Los Angeles billionaire Nicolas Berggruen. It has been among the busiest real estate development and investment firms in post-recession Portland, buying the historic Multnomah County Courthouse for office redevelopment and the Sunshine Dairy site for a major mixed-use project. NBP Capital has also recently created the Woodlark Hotel via renovation in partnership with Gordon Sondland’s Provenance Hotels and Arthur Mutal, and constructed a full-block apartment building in Sellwood-Westmoreland.

The post Southwest Portland proposal receives attention appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

Four years after design planning began on a two-building, 750,000-square-foot expansion of Oregon Health & Science University‘s growing South Waterfront campus, a grand opening was held last week to celebrate completion of the structures: the 15-story Center for Health & Healing 2 (CHH2) building, and the 11-story Gary & Christine Rood Family Pavilion.

The $360 million project was designed by ZGF Architects and built by Hoffman Construction Co. via the integrated project delivery method. Ground was broken in 2016.

The CHH2 building features nearly 400,000 square feet of ambulatory surgery and clinic space that will house 700 OHSU staffers. It is connected to the Center for Health and Healing building one block north via a two-story sky bridge over Southwest Whitaker Street. The building’s lower floors are occupied by ambulatory care, outpatient surgery and invasive procedures space, and a 24-bed outpatient care unit, while its upper floors are dedicated to Knight Cancer Institute clinic, infusion and research space. The building’s ground floor programming includes a café and retail pharmacy space. Approximately 600 patients will be seen each day in the building, which is on track to attain Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design gold status.

One block east, across Southwest Bond Avenue, is the Rood Family Pavilion, which features five floors of lodging and amenity space for patients and their families over six floors of parking. The extended-stay lodging space includes a 38-room Ronald McDonald House for seriously ill children and their families and 38 additional units for adult patients. It also contains communal space, including a kitchen and dining room, a fitness room, a game room and a music/multimedia room, and an expansive rooftop garden and playground.

Construction of the Rood Family Pavilion building finished in December, and patients and their families began moving in the following month. The CHH2 portion of the project wrapped on March 15, and the first patients were seen in the building on Monday. The openings come on the heels of completion in September of the Knight Cancer Research Building – another major South Waterfront project for OHSU.

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For the to open, all it took was a gradual transformation of Portland’s South Waterfront District from shipyard scrapping to health care, intensive transportation infrastructure spending and a $500 million donation from Nike billionaire Phil Knight to kick-start fundraising.

Now all the people inside the building have to do is cure cancer.

Oregon Health & Science University‘s latest project will open to the public on Monday. Already, employees have begun to move in. The seven-story, 320,000-square-foot building fronting Southwest Moody Avenue will soon have 450 employees, with capacity for 650.

The building’s opening is the culmination of a joint venture by Andersen Construction and St. Louis-based McCarthy Building Companies Inc. OHSU used the integrated project delivery method, bringing in the contractors along with architecture firm SRG Partnership early in the process.

“Andersen had a lot of local knowledge and experience with local contractors, and McCarthy is much larger and has a lot of experience with larger buildings,” said Tiffani Howard, OHSU’s program director for research, strategy and operations.

The integrated project delivery (IPD) framework minimized surprises, Howard said.

“That decreases the amount of redesign and put more of the value back into the project,” she said.

Andersen Construction was able to attract subcontractors to the project, said Todd Duwe, vice president of business development for the firm.

“In this tight labor market, relationships are important to get the best labor pool and attract the best trade partners to a project,” he said. “Between us, we created a culture where people wanted to work on this project.”

Andersen and McCarthy created a separate, registered entity for the project. SRG Partnership brought its experience with IPD projects, including the Oregon Capitol renovation, the Multnomah County Courthouse project and the proposed 4th and Montgomery Building project being led by Portland State University.

“Our firm has really spent a lot of time on how to be collaborative with the client and contractors,” SRG spokesman Kip Richardson said. “We believe it is absolutely the best way to deliver a project. When you get everybody’s best ideas at the table, you get a better result.”

OHSU led the 91��Ƶ on a tour of the Knight Cancer Research Building ahead of the public opening. The building is a close sibling of OHSU’s Collaborative Life Sciences Building next door, mirroring its modern materials and scale. The Knight Cancer Research Building features ample glass, concrete and steel, with wood employed sparingly as an accent material.

The site, OHSU’s Schnitzer campus, formerly served as a shipping scrapyard.

Visitors to the $190 million building will notice a massive video screen – approximately 9 feet high and 50 feet long – that wraps around the upper lobby. The screen is meant to communicate with the public about the research building’s mission, Howard said.

The screen came from Planar, a Hillsboro-based company that provided most of the screens in the building at cost, Howard said. Serenity Studios produced the content shown on screen.

The bulk of space inside the building is dedicated to research. Of the seven floors, four are largely dedicated to lab space. The ground floor has lobby space and an auditorium that seats up to 300 people. Floors 2-5 are dedicated to lab space. The sixth and seventh floors have administrative offices, a large conference room and a terrace room.

The lab space was built with flexibility in mind. Utilities are located overhead and benches can be moved.

“We really didn’t know where the technology’s going to take us over the next 50 years, so it didn’t make sense to build everything in,” Howard said.

The labs are also large to allow collaboration. Each lab pod has space for 36 researchers. OHSU hopes that fosters collaboration across labs, Howard said.

The building also has an “enormous generator” in the basement, capable of keeping power on for 48 hours before needing to be refueled, she said.

Inside the lobby, a quote from Knight’s announcement graces the wall: “Is there a higher calling than curing cancer?”

On Wednesday, workers were finishing final tasks. Chuck Dusa with Oregon Commercial Paint painstakingly painted a portion of a 10,000-dot wall. Each dot represents a donor.

“They’re looking for a certain texture, so we’re going over the dots more than once,” he said.

It won’t take long for the building to host a major event. The international Early Detection of Cancer Conference is coming to the Knight Cancer Research Building on Oct 2-4.

Minority-owned or women-owned firms accounted for 16.5 percent of the subcontracted work, exceeding the goal of 15 percent. The building is on track to achieve Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design platinum status from the U.S. Green Building Council, according to OHSU.

Visit /news/2018/09/07/photos-inside-the-knight-cancer-research-building/ to view more photos of the building.

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