The current situation of architecture school graduates struggling to find work is all too familiar to Saundra Stevens. She saw the same thing happen in the early 1980s, when a recession forced architecture graduates to find work in other professions.

“They were called the ‘lost generation,’ said Stevens, the president of the . “It’s a term still used widely across the country for those who just never came back. Unfortunately, it looks like that may happen again here.”

Local architecture firm principals, school officials and students agree that the current recession has forced many recent graduates to seek work elsewhere. However, some also say the concept of a “lost generation” – both then and now – may be exaggerated.

The reality in the ’80s was that jobs for architects were hard to find in a recession-hit Portland, so many graduates ended up taking low-level drafting positions or going overseas, according to architect Bill Bailey.

“The outlook was you either had to go to Alaska, Texas or Southern California. If you wanted to stay around here, you had to look really hard and, if you got lucky, take positions that were very entry level,” said Bailey, who graduated in 1983 from the . “But I actually wasn’t seeing that ‘lost generation’ piece.”

Bailey, now a principal at , was one of those architecture graduates in the ’80s who took a low-level drafting position with the firm that is now . Most of his peers also found ways to stay within the industry after graduation, he said.

Many recent architecture graduates are finding the old strategies hold true in the current tough market. The University of Oregon is working to establish a number of programs that allow graduates to work as interns overseas, said Karen Johnson, assistant dean of the university’s School of Architecture and Allied Arts.

Although local firms are still struggling, some also have managed to provide a handful of opportunities. Both and , for example, said they have hired recent college graduate for entry-level positions.

But even finding an entry-level position is no guarantee that graduates will be able to hold onto those industry jobs. Many industry expertsregard the most recent recession as being harsher for the architecture industry than the one in the ’80s. Firms have made deeper cuts and the construction industry has been much slower to improve, according to Bailey and other architects. As a result, many graduates in intern or entry-level positions may be let go in the future.

Additionally, there are those who will not find work at all. Some recent graduates are looking at leaving architecture permanently to take jobs in other industries, according to Alex Porter, a recent graduate of the University of Oregon.

“When you’re looking at a recession that has lasted, is lasting, as long as this one, I would say that is cause for concern,” Porter said. “I love this profession, but I can’t pay my rent on that.”

Porter had to work for free for a firm to get his foot in the door; only recently was he able to sign a contract with . Many of his peers also are doing what they can to stay in touch with the industry, whether it’s taking jobs in architecture-related fields or working at Target until the economy starts to improve.

“The people that are really driven are going to come back to architecture and those are the ones that are going to rise to the top,” said Nels Hall, a principal at .

Hall speaks from first-hand experience. He was working at in the ’80s, but was let go when the recession hit. He decided to stick with architecture and eventually found work with another Portland firm that was designing a project in Sudan.

“I would say to (recent graduates) to just be diligent and keep at it,” Hall said. “You may have to be at the right place at the right time, but opportunities will come.”

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Some girls covered their ears as a jackhammer emitted loud blasts and sent streams of dust into the air, but Breah Etherly‘s eyes lit up during a concrete breaker demonstration on Thursday.

If you go:

What: Nontraditional career fair connecting girls and female job seekers to apprenticeship and job training opportunities in building, construction, mechanical, technical and utility trades.
When: Today, for registered high school girls; Saturday, for the public from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Also on Saturday, at 1:30 p.m., Oregon Tradeswomen Inc. will present an information session about its free seven-week pre-apprenticeship class for women.
Where: NECA/IBEW Electrical Training Center, 16021 N.E. Airport Way in Portland
Cost: Free.

“It’s nice to say you tried something new,” said Etherly, an eighth-grader at Harvey Scott School. “Working with different tools is good exposure for girls.”

The jackhammer workshop, led by women from the Oregon and Southern Idaho Laborers and Employers Training Trust, was among dozens of events taking place during the 20th annual at the in Northeast Portland.

Nearly 600 girls from 21 middle schools revved up power tools, climbed electrical poles, built birdhouses and learned about careers in the trades to kick off this year’s event.

“Our efforts over the years have meant that Oregon has two times the number of women in trades compared to other states that don’t have similar efforts,” said Connie Ashbrook, executive director of , which started the fair in 1993.

Although many of the middle school students at the fair said they aren’t planning on pursuing careers in the trades, one of OTI’s goals is simply to expose more young women to the construction industry.

“Most of the girls have never used a power tool before and are afraid of the noise at first,” said Aida Aranda, an apprentice coordinator for the training trust. “But once they get out here, it encourages them to open their eyes.”

She added that middle school girls are becoming increasingly receptive to careers in the trades, especially as the industry ramps up its outreach through Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

On the other side of the fair, roofers from Local 49 set up a table to demonstrate some of the materials and processes they use to build green roofing systems, which many of the students from H.B. Lee Middle School didn’t even know existed.

“These roofs actually help the environment and make things better for people,” seventh-grader Karly Emmett said.

The middle school girls built flowerpots using adhesives, primers and single-ply sheets that roofers use on the job.

The goal Thursday was mainly to demonstrate that “girls can do anything,” said Heidi Kameroff, a roofing apprentice who is directing the Local 49 workshop this year. But today, she added, the event will host hundreds of high school girls, who are more focused on career possibilities.

“We figure the middle school girls are just exploring at this point, so it’s good to give them a taste of what we do,” Kameroff said. “The high school girls will actually do some heat welding – it’s going to be really cool.”

A few high school students are ahead of the game, however. Juniors and seniors from led a workshop on Thursday, helping younger girls build wooden puzzles.

ACE, a shared-time program for juniors and seniors interested in entering the building industries, is seeing more interest from girls. The school’s director, Mike Bryant, said the growth is a direct result of events like the Women in Trades Career Fair.

“Our population of female students has doubled this year,” he said. “Why? These events are having an impact; they’re changing the construction industry.”

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is working with students of Roosevelt High School to design a new Innovation Center for the school. The program is intended to help students discover career potential in architecture and design.

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Roosevelt High School officials believe the best way to position students for success is to expose them to as many opportunities as possible. So, the North Portland school has created a program in which is teaching the freshman class about the building industry.

Angela Nusom, college and career transitions manager at Roosevelt, hopes the program will help students plan for the future.

“This program will get students to ask themselves, ‘Is this industry something of interest to me?’ And if they could answer yes, that to me is a success,” she said. “It will broaden their ideas and then help to narrow them.”

The program, which started in February and will continue monthly through June, uses architecture to expose students to building industry careers. Lorne McConachie, a Bassetti principal, said there is a common misconception that the architecture industry provides only design jobs.

“Truth be known, within the architecture industry, there’s just a wide variety of elements, roles and activities that kids can do,” McConachie said. “Our intent is really to introduce kids to career pathways and let them know (that) whether they want to be a plumber or a structural engineer, there’s some fun stuff to be aware of.”

In the first session, students had an opportunity to take part in a photo scavenger hunt of University of Portland campus buildings as a way to learn architectural vocabulary. Students have since become more involved in actual design projects, including a renovation project for the school’s library. Roosevelt officials will consider students’ renovation designs as the project moves forward in the next few years.

McConachie said that even if students choose not to pursue a career in the building industry, they could apply the skills learned to other jobs.

“I think part of the immersion into the design world is not so much that you have to be an architect or an engineer, but that you have to think deeply about something,” he said. “At the end of the day, as a designer, we have to take analytical processes and synthesize them into a whole, an outcome. Whether they want to be architects or bank executives, it’s an important thing for them to learn.”

As sessions have progressed, students’ interest in the program has grown. McConachie admitted that when he asked the students about their interest in architecture during the first session, only three students – out of 250 – raised their hands in response. But during last week’s session, many students eagerly drew plans and generated ideas for the library expansion.

“I don’t think I’m going to be an architect, but I like giving ideas for projects,” said Adrienne Pepper, a 15-year-old student who wants to become a nurse. “When they first came in, I thought we were just going to be talking about jobs, but I didn’t actually know they were going to be remodeling the library; now I’m more interested in it.”

Billy Nelson, a 15-year-old student, said the industry’s collaborative process interests him the most.

“We’re just working together and thinking up ideas with each other,” he said as he enthusiastically described his design for the library expansion, which included two floors and a hot tub. “It’s opening a new door for me.”

Both Nusom and McConachie said the program is not only a learning process for the students, but also the school and the architecture firm. McConachie said Bassetti is involved in a number of other community service programs in the Northwest, but none is as extensive as the one with Roosevelt. He added that Bassetti chooses to do such programs because they provide information about schools – one of the firm’s client types.

Nusom said Roosevelt hopes to conduct a learning program with a different company each year. The program with Bassetti is part of the school’s Freshman Academy, which creates a supportive environment for freshmen as they transition into high school.

The academy has helped the school lower its dropout rate, one of the highest in the city, significantly in the last few years. Nusom hopes the program with Bassetti will build on that success.

“Career Day is great, but really kids need sustained exposure to be able to evaluate whether or not something interests them enough to pursue it,” she said. “If they’re doing it for six months on a regular basis, like with Bassetti, more of that processing could happen.”

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The Schweiger Memorial Scholarship Fund, an annual scholarship program formed by , will reward $37,000 in scholarships to 13 students from Oregon and Washington at an April 20 ceremony at the Governor Hotel.

The students were chosen out of a field of 42 applicants for their high level of work in pursuit of careers in construction and construction-related fields. Depending on the ranking given to them by the fund’s selection committee, each student will receive between $2,000 and $5,000 toward their school bills.

Mike Johns, vice president of operations for Advanced American Construction, said the program rewards the students for their hard work, while also giving them a chance to meet and network with people in the industry.

The program was created in 1999 as a tribute to Forrest Schweiger, who lost his life in a construction accident at age 26. In 2002, with the death of his father Konrad Schweiger, the fund’s name was changed to honor both of their deaths.

“It became really based on someone we knew, and this is a way we could give back money donated by a lot of different people as a memorial,” Johns said.

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Three months ago, Mark Fisher, the vice president and managing director for and , charged six graduate students at Portland State University’s Center for Real Estate with the challenge of identifying the highest and best use for a 16-acre plot of land The Standard owns in Hillsboro.

His charge had three conditions: their idea should be innovative, it should be feasible and it should add value to the property. On Monday he saw the results for the first time.

“Not in a million years would I have thought of an entertainment destination,” he said.

For a property almost entirely zoned for industrial use, Fisher was surprised to see that the student’s proposal included zero office space. Instead it included an entertainment destination anchored by a large movie theater and sports bar arcade, with a mix of residential multifamily housing, hotel, commercial retail and restaurant space.

“Frankly, I was quite impressed,” Fisher said.

With an average occupancy rate of 95 percent in the target market, the Sunset District hopes to capitalize on projected housing demand by making itself available to 3,000 additional Intel jobs, expected to enter the market by 2014, and another 1,000 jobs at Kaiser Permanente, which is planning to open a nearby hospital by 2013.

Currently, the area is nearly built out by aging garden-style apartments and the group is proposing to maximize value on The Standard’s land by building two mid-rise, concrete podium and wood-frame structures, totaling 273 units.

This past Wednesday, the students vetted their conceptual plan to more than 100 industry professionals at a breakfast event at the Multnomah Athletic Club, hosted by the Oregon chapter of the National Association of Industrial and Office Properties.

Mid-rise construction is more costly than garden apartment construction and requires higher rents to achieve the yields necessary for financing. During the presentation one audience member asked how the students planned to push rents from the $1.13 per square foot currently found in the area, to the $1.45 per square foot the students anticipate.

“What really drives that number to where we need it to be is the amenities that go around it,” said Jeff Sakamoto, workshop student and president of Bridgeport Capital Group Inc.

“Not everyone can pay that (price), but there is a population that wants to live in this type of environment and is willing to pay that.”

Sakamoto said the idea is to make the Sunset District a viable alternative for residents who work in the suburbs but want a downtown living experience in Hillsboro similar to that found in the Pearl District in Portland.

“So rather than just have housing, we wanted to provide some of those amenities that would create that kind of urban feel out in the suburbs,” Sakamoto said. “That’s what really drove a lot of this.”

That’s also where the movie theater and entertainment arcade enter the equation. The students picture those businesses as being a Regal Cinemas and a Dave & Buster’s (picture a Chuck E. Cheese’s for adults that serves beer).

Matthew Craigie, workshop student and economic development manager for the city of Woodburn, said one challenge will be getting the Regal to relocate to the new center.

A Regal is currently located with a long-term lease just down the road. He said a stipulation in that lease agreement dictates that only one first-run theater can exist within a three-mile radius. But he said Regal’s current theater is also old and outdated, and the idea would be to recruit the company into a new facility once its lease expires in 2020.

Adding to the mix will be an upscale, three- to three-and-a-half-star hotel modeled after a Hyatt Place, Hyatt House or Aloft.

“What we found out from talking with hoteliers out in that area is that sub-market of the Portland region, all of the hotels are seeing 90 to 95 percent occupancy,” Craigie said.

That compares to a 70 percent projected average occupancy rate for hotels in the Portland metropolitan market, according to the student’s report. Hillsboro’s high hotel occupancy is driven by Intel, Nike, Columbia, Accumed and other business-related traffic, as well as youth-related sports tournament travel.

Despite the planned development of a 165-room Embassy Suites and a 106-room Hampton Inn nearby, Craigie said their hotel would fill a niche for higher-end rooms. Together with restaurants like the California Pizza Kitchen and Oswego Grill, Craigie said the development is designed to create dwell time.

“It’s the dinner-and-a movie type thing,” he said. “Go grab a beer and go play skee ball.”

Dan Petrusich, president of development at , and a panelist for the student’s presentation, applauded the plan’s creative use of parking, which straddles a 28-foot drop in slope.

“Instead of seeing it as a big disadvantage, they turned it into an advantage,” he said. “They designed it without ramping.”

That will help the project keep its costs down, and the plan estimates $13,000 per parking stall – a number that Petrusich said is phenomenal. All in all, the project estimates total land and construction costs of $17 per square foot and approximately $95 million to $100 million.

During the presentation one audience member asked Fisher if The Standard had plans to develop or sell the property. Fisher said that while the company did not currently have plans for either, the student’s proposal made a lot more sense than the land’s current industrial zoning.

“Until Monday afternoon we never imagined that this would  be (the students’) plan,” he said. “Or that it would be so logical.”

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Seven students in Portland Community College‘s Excellence in Trades Apprenticeship Program took part in a five-day workshop over the course of their spring break that combined classroom learning, site visits and hands-on training with members of Cement Masons Local 555. The workshop was funded by the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries and Oregon Department of Transportation, who collaborated with the Cement Masons and PCC to give pre-apprenticeship students exposure to the trade. More photos after the jump.

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Ninety high school students in the Portland-metro area are learning firsthand what it’s like to work in a range of professions in the building industry as part of the 2012 ACE Mentor Program of Oregon.

Nationally, the ACE Mentor Program has paired up more than 60,000 students with architects, engineers and contractors.

Locally, this year’s program boasts 60 volunteer mentors who are working with students from more than 30 area high schools in after-school sessions. During the sessions, held in the offices of local firms from the building industry, students work in small groups with their mentors on real-life projects that teach them how buildings and spaces are designed, engineered and constructed.

This week, a few of the students describe early development of their projects.

Meryl Kruskopf

My group is designing a theoretical retail bike shop located near OMSI, where the new MAX light-rail bridge will connect with Portland’s east side. The shop will be connected to three other projects by a pedestrian walkway.

We’re putting our brainstorm to the test by starting on a floor plan that is to-scale. Perhaps we’ll include a community space or maybe a suspended bike track connected to the ground floor by a spiraling ramp. With a view of the river this could be an attraction unto itself, although maybe that is not the most cost feasible idea.

After dividing into two groups, one for the floor plan and the other dealing with structure and exterior elements, we’re beginning to narrow our focus to what the priorities of our building are and how we can address them. A retail shop means we need to sell merchandise to make a profit, which means we want customers to pass through our retail space as much as possible. This space will also need to be connected to the mechanics shop, restroom or dressing rooms. We also need to account for storage, the office and an employee entrance.

We can agree that all these things are vital to the business, but agreeing on how the space is structured is definitely the most difficult part. Hopefully, next meeting we can compromise and work through some more of the knots.

Megan Mueller

For our project we are creating a bike shop.

We were given about six different options that we could incorporate into our building that would help it to be more eco-friendly. There were options like green roofs and solar panels, recycled materials and wind energy.

One of the things our group voted on was having a green roof. As we were designing more of our building we discovered that this would look pretty from a plane, but no one would really see the roof when they are in or around our shop. Our task these next few weeks is to design our building in a way that our customers can see the roof or even go up and enjoy it.

Our project is coming along slowly. We have a good basic floor plan, but there are a few details that need to come together (e.g., the entrance and whether it should be covered).

Overall, the shop is going to be really cool and incorporate some “green” aspects along with making it an enjoyable experience for our customers.

Alvin Swearingen

Group 8, the group responsible for a café, met up at the offices of ZGF Architects. During the first half hour of our session, we were given a presentation of a city plan in China. Then we spent time working on a floor plan for the café.

Our entire group was split into two teams of four. Both teams were drawing out our ideas of a floor plan on paper. Our team decided that our café would have a river-type feel for our service counter with bar stools along the counter.

We noticed pedestrians would get off the MAX line and walk towards our café first, since we are the closest to the light-rail stop. We incorporated large windows along the walls so bikers and pedestrians would feel obligated to come inside.

On the back-side corner of our café I thought of including a stage for local bands, poets and potentially karaoke nights. Behind the service counter, the kitchen and roasting rooms would have windows for our customers to watch. The kitchen, roasting room, storage room and office are all connected by open archways.

After each group finished designing a floor plan we wrapped up the day with a brief presentation of our café to our mentors.

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Brad Avakian, commissioner of the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries, said he learned a lot from wood- and metalworking classes of his youth.

“Enough so that when I was in college I worked construction for part of the time helping to work my way through college, and I think the exposure of that at a younger age is one of the reasons I pointed myself that way,” he said.

Now, Avakian is leading the charge to revitalize career and technical education programs in Oregon’s secondary schools. During the 2011 legislative session, he helped push through , which provided $2 million in grant money to jump-start the CTE classes.

Then the Legislature put the funding on hold because of compounded budget constraints. But Avakian said trade-oriented classes are a necessary part of public education and that he intends to lobby legislators this month to release the grant money.

The CTE classes are essential for providing the state a skilled and ready workforce, according to Avakian. He said that a little over a decade ago, young adults seeking apprenticeships in technical trades were approximately 19 years old; now they’re 26. In addition, he said community college officials are telling him that some students are requiring up to a year of remedial classes before they can start career education.

But there is another reason, Avakian said, why CTE classes are needed.

“… For the kids that are not going to go into a particular profession that is taught in school, it keeps kids interested in school and it gives them a life experience that they never would have had otherwise,” he said. “And that’s why you see the high school drop-out rates much, much lower for kids that are involved in these kinds of programs.”

According to a 2005 study by the National Research Center for Career and Technical Education, “a CTE-to-academic-credit ratio of approximately one to two was estimated to minimize the risk of dropping out,” and a recommendation was made that schools arrange schedules to accommodate that ratio. Also, 90 to 96 percent of the nation’s high school graduates took at least one CTE class during high school, according to the report.

Brian Krieg, president of marketing firm , has campaigned for shop class for the past six years. He represents industry trade groups like the Sheet Metal and Air Conditioning Contractors’ National Association, the Plumbing and Mechanical Contractors Association and Sheet Metal Workers Local No. 16.

Krieg said unions and private business owners alike have expressed concerns about how they will replace baby boomers when they retire. He said part of the problem is a false dialogue that is prolific in schools.

“The kids don’t see a career for themselves,” he said. “They’re being told go to college or you’re a failure. Go to college or you can flip burgers – there’s nothing in between there, when the fact is you have great trade careers out there, whether you’re a plumber or electrician.”

Krieg said some trade jobs actually pay more than what average college graduates make. According to the United States Census Bureau, the median income for a high school graduate in Oregon is $24,147. For a college graduate with a bachelor’s degree, it’s $41,884. For a high school graduate in construction, repair and maintenance trades, the range is between approximately $30,000 and $38,000.

But Avakian said it is not uncommon for a senior electrician to make upward of $90,000 to $100,000 a year.

“That is a great way for some young people to get into a career that will enable them to raise a family, save a little money for retirement, pay for health care and education,” he said. “And I do know that a lot of college graduates are struggling to find a job anywhere.”

Rep. Michael Dembrow, D-Portland, has supported HB 3362 and CTE programs. The Portland Community College English professor has 30 years of teaching experience. He said CTE programs are important because they help students apply subjects like math and science outside of classrooms.

“I’ve always been a book sort of person,” Dembrow said. “I’ve always felt comfortable learning that way, but a lot of my friends in high school … would have been lost if they didn’t have shop classes.”

This month the Legislature will decide whether to release the money it froze last year so that CTE programs can get rolling.

Dembrow said he believes that at worst, the $2 million in grant money will be subject to the 3.5 percent cut the state is recommending for all education programs. That amounts to a loss of $70,000 – or roughly one program, he said.

He said legislators expect to have a clear sense of what to expect come Feb. 8, when the Oregon Office of Economic Analysis releases its state revenue forecast. In the meantime, they’re seeking letters of intent, due Feb. 10, from school districts interested in offering CTE programs.

One of the requirements is that schools must partner with other organizations, colleges or businesses so that programs can be self-sustaining and not completely reliant on seed money. Krieg said that’s a vital piece because many schools simply aren’t set up to go it alone.

“In some cases, we have high schools that have been built in the last decade that don’t have shop class space in them,” he said. “It wasn’t even part of the design concept.”

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The city of Albany is looking to the past to build a better future for its downtown.

Last month, Albany City Council allocated $110,000 in urban renewal money to support a project that calls for creation of a carousel, museum, arcade and food building. A drive unit manufactured in 1909 will power the carousel, which will feature horses and other animals carved and painted by hand by local volunteers.

An independent organization is leading the $10 million project, but city officials chose to contribute money to ensure it becomes the attraction they foresee stimulating downtown revitalization.

The decline of Albany’s downtown began when a new mall opened in a growing business area.

“In 1995 our downtown, like many, was suffering,” Albany Urban Renewal Director Kate Porsche said. “Our stores moved out to the shiny, new mall – the J.C. Penney and so on.”

Officials formed an urban renewal area and created a town center plan. Urban renewal money went toward rehabilitation of historic structures in downtown. The next challenge, Porsche said, is to fill those improved buildings with tenants.

But the city also is seeking attractive and interesting projects as “bookends” for its downtown.

When the URA was created in the 1990s, Albany resident Wendy Kirbey owned a coffee shop in downtown and heard rumblings of a city search for new “anchor projects.” Then, on a trip to Missoula, Mont., she saw a community-created project that blew her away – a carousel.

“I came back with the idea that that would be a wonderful thing to do,” Kirbey said. “It’s married in with our historic buildings and homes; I thought it fit us like a glove.”

Kirbey’s idea blossomed into an organization – the Albany Historic Carousel and Museum. With city money, the group purchased a lot on one end of the main downtown street, at 503 First Avenue W.

Eight years later, volunteers are carving and painting 52 animals for the carousel, six potential alternate animals and two carriages. More than 300 people have combined to log 120,000 volunteer hours.

Sponsorships have been purchased for all 60 of the carousel pieces, operations manager Tyson Brown said. The final product will be 50 feet in diameter – larger than a riverfront carousel in Salem – and weigh more than 19 tons. The Dentzel family, which has a legacy that ties to the type of carousel being built in Albany, donated the drive mechanism.

Each animal was designed by a professional artist. The first set was designed by Terryl Whitlatch, who has worked for Disney and on “Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace.” The second set of animals was created by artist Kurt Christensen, who has performed animation for PBS.

Brown, the carousel group’s one full-time staff member, noted that “masters” were paid to ensure consistency of carving and painting.

The organization had created its own preliminary designs for the carousel building, which will include a museum, an arcade, concessions and meeting areas. The city intervened in that plan.

“When we looked at the quality of the carousel itself, it was really world-class – and they really needed the opportunity to look at some of the best design talent in the world,” said consultant George Crandall, who has been involved for years in Albany’s downtown revitalization plans.

Brown said the organization was unable to pay for that sort of design process on its own, so the city offered to fund a contract through urban renewal money.

“The idea was to help them design a building with public involvement,” Porsche said.

A committee that included Albany’s mayor, city representatives and a group of carousel organization members selected to design the building. Jonah Cohen, a THA principal, said his challenge is to create a design that doesn’t compete with the carousel, and that fits into the character of downtown Albany.

While THA is working on the design, the carousel group is continuing to raise the remaining $4 million needed for the project. Brown acknowledged that the effort is challenging, particularly because no more animal sponsorship opportunities exist. But the group is seeking to break ground on the carousel in 2013 and then open the building in 2014 or 2015.

Brown estimates that the project is drawing 2,000 visitors each month. They can watch volunteers carve the animals, examine parts of the carousel and visit a museum that contains some finished products as well as historic items on loan from the Dentzel family.

“If the carousel is successful, the people who visit will eat at our restaurants and shop at our ships. That’s good for everybody,” Porsche said. “We believe it’s a major part of our future.”

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