Alaska Airlines is expanding its aircraft maintenance with a new 125,000-square-foot hangar facility at Portland International Airport that will allow maintenance technicians to work on up to three narrowbody aircraft or two widebody aircraft at a time.

On June 16, Alaska Airlines broke ground on the building, which will be adjacent to the airline’s Horizon Air Ops Center & Maintenance Hangar. It will be on Port of Portland-owned land, at 7646 N.E. Airtrans Way.

According to city of Portland records, the estimated project cost is approximately $135-150 million. The facility will add about 125,000 square feet of indoor aircraft maintenance space for Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines’ fleets and 60,000 square feet of space for offices, engine, machine and sheet metal shops and support areas.

According to the city of Portland, once built, the facility is projected to create at least 100 new living-wage jobs for maintenance workers, engineers and service professionals.

“The new hangar embodies our strong partnership with Alaska, and our mutual commitment to making our region a place where everyone can thrive,” Port of Portland’s chief aviation officer, Dan Pippenger, stated in a press release. “It’s a smart investment in our local talent that’s sure to boost our region’s economy and strengthen our future.”

The project team includes architect JNG Architects of Anchorage, Alaska; civil engineer DOWL of Bellevue, Washington; structural engineer Schneider Structural Engineers, headquartered in Tucson, Arizona; MEP/fire protection Coffman Engineers of Anchorage; and general contractor Swinerton Builders of Concord, California.

The facility will be LEED certified. It will also feature EV charging stations, water conservation features and sustainable building materials. Other design details have not been shared.

Construction is expected to be complete in the second quarter of 2028.

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A weekly list of the most notable commercial building and facility permits issued and received in Portland by Permitting & Development in the prior week.

Building Permits Issued:

$693,891 �� ��
Address: 6430 NE 27th Ave.��
Applicant: Dan Williams of Faster Permits��
Owner: University of Oregon
Contractor: Steve Paschal (Balfour Beatty Construction of Dallas, Texas)

Plans call for renovating a locker room to create an accessible all-user locker room. Work will involve installing an exterior vertical platform lift.

$510,000��
Address: Portland Art Museum, at 1219 SW Park Ave.��
Applicant: Carlee Quiles of Mortenson��
Owner: Portland Art Museum
Contractor: Nate Gundrum (Mortenson)

Plans call for interior and exterior guardrails, glass smoke baffles and glass walls.

$3,100,000 ��
Address: 1818 SE 82nd Ave.��
Applicant: Sermin Yesilada of Sosyal Architecture and Community Development
Owner: Multnomah County
Contractor: Buildskape LLC of Beaverton

Plans call for construction of a new temporary outdoor shelter and associated site improvements, including state certified prefabricated structures for restrooms, laundry, kitchen, offices, trash and storage. Two carport structures to provide covered space are deferred.

Building Permit Intakes:

None for any project with a value of $500,000 or greater.

Facility Permits Issued:

$1,500,000 ��
Address: 321 SW Salmon St.��
Applicant: Caitlin Hutton of LRS Architects��
Owner: Standard Insurance Co.��
Contractor: Kevin Kelly (Fortis Construction Inc.)

Plans call for landlord work on amenity space on the first floor. Work will involve demolition of walls and adding new walls to create a fitness room, a yoga room, a cycle room, ceiling, flooring, finishes, plumbing and electrical.

$970,000 ��
Address: Peter O. Kohler Pavilion in OHSU Hospital, at 808 SW Campus Drive
Applicant: Thomas Cowan of OHSU
Owner: ��Oregon State Board of Higher Education
Contractor: Kevin Kelly (Fortis Construction Inc.)

A tenant improvement on the 16th floor will involve minor demolition, remodel of operating room 15 and installation of new equipment, ceiling, flooring, finishes, medical gas, plumbing and electrical. A $963,000 alteration permit was also issued for a tenant improvement on the sixth floor. Work will involve minor demolition, remodel of operating room 15, installation of new equipment, ceiling, flooring, finishes, medical gas, plumbing and electrical. A $731,000 alteration permit was also issued for a remodel of operating room 20 on the sixth floor. Work will involve minor demolition, remodel of operating room 20, installation of equipment, ceiling, flooring, finishes, medical gas, plumbing and electrical. A $731,000 alteration permit was also issued for a remodel of operating room 21 on the sixth floor. Work will involve minor demolition, remodel of operating room 21, installation of equipment, ceiling, flooring, finishes, medical gas, plumbing and electrical.

$2,555,000
Address: 1120 NW Couch St.��
Applicant: Martha Wassweiler of GBD Architects
Owner: MEPT Brewery Block 2 LLC of Southlake, Texas
Contractor: Adan Vazquez (Swinerton Builders Inc. of Concord, California)

Landlord work will involve common-area upgrades on the second, third and ninth floors. Work will involve demolition of walls and adding new walls. The second floor will include restrooms, shower rooms, conference rooms, a break/​lounge area, a fitness center, concrete stairs with​ handrails and a concrete landing with a​ guardrail. The third floor will include restrooms. The ninth floor will include restrooms. A remodel of the third floor and ninth floors will involve the elevator lobby, hallways, ceiling, flooring, finishes, plumbing and electrical.

Facility Permit Intakes:

UNDER REVIEW
$2,165,520��
Address: Port of Portland, at 7200 NE Airport Way
Applicant: Bradlee Hersey of Faster Permits��
Owner: Port of Portland
Contractor: out to bid

Landlord work for the Portland International Airport‘s headquarters and parking garage project calls for an HVAC upgrade. Work would involve minor demolition and installation of new housekeeping pads. Level 6 will include a new chain link fence with a gate. Level 7 will include a new curb and grating, ceiling, flooring, finishes, plumbing and electrical. A $942,336 alteration permit is also under review for the project and would involve installing an air handling unit, a heat recovery chiller, an air-cooled water chiller, a pump, plate heat exchangers, piping, plumbing and electrical.

UNDER REVIEW
$900,000 ��
Address: 5030 N. Greeley Ave.��
Applicant: Tim Manzella of Total Mechanical Inc. of Camas, Washington
Owner: Adidas Village Corp.
Contractor: not listed

A tenant improvement for the third floor of the Adidas Beijing/Red Building would involve mechanical seismic bracing.

UNDER REVIEW
$2,169,500 ��
Address: Kaiser Permanente Northwest Regional Laboratory, at 13705 NE Airport Way
Applicant: Breeze Griffin of Anderson Dabrowski Architects��
Owner: Kaiser Foundation Health Plan of the Northwest
Contractor: Steve Paschal (Balfour Beatty Construction of Dallas, Texas)

A core line replacement on the first floor would involve demolition of walls and adding new walls to create a lab, a work area and a control area. It would also involve installing structural anchorage for new equipment, ceiling, flooring, finishes, medical gas, plumbing and electrical.

UNDER REVIEW
$790,000 ����
Address: Portland International Airport, at 7000 NE Airport Way
Applicant: Neil Lee of LEEKA Architecture��
Owner: Port of Portland
Contractor: out to bid

Plans call for a tenant improvement of Lola’s Café on the enplaning and deplaning levels. Work would involve minor demolition and adding new walls. The enplaning level would include a restaurant service area, a kitchen and a walk-in cooler. The deplaning level would include concession storage, ceiling, flooring, finishes, plumbing and electrical.

Source: Portland Permitting & Development��

See also:

• Health facility in Portland land use review intakes | July 21, 2025

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A sustainable yet practical approach to development of a new agriculture complex at Chemeketa Community College has produced a building expected to have net-zero energy use.

The anchor of the northern edge of an 8-acre campus in Salem is the 15,000-square-foot classroom building. FFA Architecture + Interiors designed the building, Lango Hansen Landscape Architects oversaw the exterior landscaping, and Swinerton Builders completed construction recently.

The project team had high sustainability goals. A mass-plywood-panel structure was chosen, along with a natural air ventilation system, and photovoltaic panels. Chemeketa Community College and FFA worked with Energy Trust of Oregon to help offset costs via the nonprofit’s Path to Net Zero program.

FFA Associate Partner Edward Running said when he starts work on a new project, he first sees what financial resources are available.

“The inability to make (a) better building has been cost,” he said.

With assistance from Energy Trust of Oregon, a 45-kilowatt solar array was placed on the roof of an exterior walkway along the building’s south side. The canopy not only ensures the photovoltaic panels receive sunlight, Running said, but also shades classrooms and puts less pressure on the ventilation system.

At first, even with those features, the building would have had an Energy Use Intensity (EUI) number too high to be net-zero. That number is calculated by dividing the building’s total energy consumed in one year by the total gross floor area. The new classroom building would’ve been around 20 EUI, Running said.

By the time the project team realized it wouldn’t achieve net-zero energy, it was a little late in the process; the contractor had been selected, and construction documents were completed. Now, 20 EUI would’ve been significantly lower than the state’s requirement that public buildings perform at least 20 percent better than the building code. But the team was “so close to net zero … the cost wasn’t too much more,” Running said.

Chemeketa Community College Technical Development Manager Isaac Talley then sought a grant from Portland General Electric to bridge the gap.

“There’s always the pursuit of the practical, best possible option but (a) need to balance that with what will work and the budget,” Talley said.

The college also looks at what would be the “best bang for the buck and maintaining the best functionality through the life of the building,” he added.

In February, when the project was nearing substantial completion, Talley received word that the team would receive a $158,000 grant from PGE. That would put a 91-kilowatt solar array on the classroom building’s roof, and achieve net-zero energy use.

The total cost to reach that goal was around $9 million, Running and Talley estimated. That included concrete floors, insulation, window systems, an efficient mechanical system, and the original solar array.

The key to this project, Running said, was “not trying to do every single sustainability strategy under the sun.” Instead, the team honed in on a few – one was natural ventilation inside the building, and another was solar energy production outside.

Outdoor features of the complex will include gardens and farm demonstration fields. Now the college can say it’s “harvesting from the ground and harvesting from the sun,” Running said.

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Building permits issued for Oct. 19-Oct. 25, 2020

• A $1 million new construction permit was issued for a three-story, six-unit apartment building at 2416 N.E. Flanders St. The applicant is Steven Fosler of Fosler Portland Architecture, the owner is Yoni Schwartz of Los Angeles and the contractor is GSI Builders Inc.
• A $2 million new construction permit was issued for curtain wall at Lincoln High School, 1750 S.W. Salmon St. Mark Sawallich of Hoffman Construction is the applicant, and Hoffman is the contractor. Portland Public Schools is the owner.

Building permit intakes for Oct. 19-Oct. 25, 2020

• A $10,937,143 permit is under review for a four-story, 50-unit Portland Housing Bureau project at 5825 N.E. Prescott St. The applicant is Craig Riegelnegg of Carleton Hart Architecture. The city of Portland is the owner.
• A $3 million new construction permit is under review for a three-story, 25-unit apartment building at 6865 SE 52ND Ave. The applicant Meghan Eubank of YBA Architects, the owner is HMS SE 52ND ST LLC of Portland and the contractor is Michael Carrigg of Andersen Construction Co.

Facility permits issued for Oct. 19-Oct. 25, 2020

• No permits issued were valued at $500,000 or more.

Facility permit intakes for Oct. 19-Oct. 25, 2020

• A $1.25 million alteration permit is under review at Portland International Airport, 7200 N.E. Airport Way, for tenant improvements for Port of Portland police training. Mike Coyle of Faster Permits is the applicant, the Port of Portland is the owner and the primary contractor is out to bid.
• A $2.25 million alteration permit is under review at Portland International Airport, 7000 N.E. Airport Way, for tenant improvements for retailers including Nike, Peet’s Coffee, Soundbalance and Timberline. The project involves demolition and rebuilding. Mike Coyle of Faster Permits is the applicant, the Port of Portland is the owner and the primary contractor is out to bid.
• A $2 million permit is under review for tenant improvements at 1125 N.W. Couch St. on floors eight through 10. Work includes conference rooms and a video production room. The applicant is Chelsey Boreas of GBD Architects, the owner is SPF Brewery Blocks LLC of Portland and Swinerton Builders Inc. is the contractor.

Source: Portland Bureau of Development Services

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Even as the COVID-19 pandemic persists, construction work is continuing in the Portland-metro area.

The Wingspan Event & Conference Center, for instance, is being tackled by general contractor/construction manager Swinerton Builders within a stone’s throw of the Hillsboro Airport, at the corner of Northeast 34th Avenue and Veterans Drive. LRS Architects designed the 89,000-square-foot facility, which will feature mass timber and much more.

“It’s really an interesting project in that you have a lot of different buildings thrown together to make up the architecture,” Swinerton Builders senior project manager John Ciepiela said. “You have structural steel over joists on the lower roof sections. The main gallery and conference and meeting rooms are mass timber over structural steel. And the main expo hall space is made of mega-trusses over structural steel brace framing.”

The $52 million project is being developed by the partnership of Washington County, the city of Hillsboro and the Washington County Visitors Association. The Wingspan Event & Conference Center is expected to become the heart of Westside Commons – a multiuse campus being created to revitalize the aging Washington County Fairgrounds.

The new facility will host fair-related functions and large community events, including regional and national conferences. The main exposition hall will have roughly 39,000 square feet of floor space; partitions will allow the space to be split into smaller sections. A 13,000-square-foot conference hall will be able to host smaller events on its own or in combination with the main expo hall. An additional 3,000 square feet of meeting space will be provided for smaller meetings and lectures.

A spacious entry plaza will be next to the lobby, and a full commercial kitchen, concessions area and office will serve the entire building. An outdoor exhibit area on the west side of the building will provide an opening into the campus.

The building’s name comes from its most noticeable feature: a gracefully sloping roof section covering the east end.

“Aesthetically, that project is pretty fantastic,” said Swinerton Mass Timber superintendent Tym, who goes by only one name. “When you see the wingspan, as you approach it, there is something very retro about it that gives you a 1950s airport look. The thing that’s most exciting about mass timber, coming from a concrete background, where everything is gray with architectural features, is the vibrancy and the lines and shape and the efficiency of the erection process; as a builder it’s exciting to see.”

Inside, there are corridors taller than 30 feet and sloping ceilings with exposed cross-laminated timber panels. That said, the construction process pairing those panels with structural steel, Tym added, proved painstaking.

“The really high ceilings in the corridors have beam profiles that taper and slope,” he said. “Every time you’re dealing with an application of mass timber and sloped lines, it’s an incredible challenge to interface with all those steel elements.”

Ciepiela explained the assembly.

“You basically have brace frames and structural steel coming into an aesthetic architectural piece,” he said. “You’re dealing with 3-D angle assessment and mass-timber connections that are (intersecting) knife plates. Then you have buckle connections and there’s also long-span, 75-foot glulam beams; the sistering of those beams took some structural ingenuity from Nishkian Dean, the structural engineer.”

The project team broke ground in September 2018, and construction of the building began in February 2019. Substantial completion is expected sometime this spring.

Exterior work has been largely completed. Dozens of electricians and other tradespeople are installing the miles of wiring needed to power the facility and enable communications and audio/visual equipment.

Swinerton’s own carpenters are on the site self-performing drywall, carpentry and related scopes of work.

The unique design presented particular challenges for builders in regard to mechanical systems and a large curtainwall system, Ciepiela said. A delicate lifting operation was required to place large air-handling units inside the rooftop penthouse – with the cross-laminated timber roof already in place. Envelope considerations complicated other work.

“We have glazing curtainwall interfacing with mass timber at interesting negative angles going out,” he said. “Structurally it’s not as simple as just setting glass frames up and down.”

Projects like this are helping broaden the mass-timber market as a whole, Tym said.

“We’re able to share the lessons we’ve learned from a high-level CM-GC perspective, and we’re making it possible for these public jobs to envision what a mass-timber solution looks like,” he said.

The post New mass-timber facility spreading its wings appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

Mass-timber production, barely more than a decade old in North America, is encountering some growing pains.

Wait times stretch months for new material such as cross-laminated timber panels, leaving construction schedules on hold.

At the same time, new factories are coming online – some branched off from small sawmills and others backed by deep-pocketed international equity – and major timber companies are showing serious interest in becoming�� players in the mass-timber market.

“Projects have been struggling to get supply and lead times of a year have not been uncommon,” said Iain Macdonald, executive director of the TallWood Design Institute, a collaboration of Oregon State University‘s College of Forestry and the University of Oregon‘s School of Architecture and Environment.

Demand is not the problem. Google’s Sidewalk Labs has announced a sprawling mass-timber project in Toronto that would have 34,000 housing units in buildings with up to 30 stories made from CLT and glulam beams. The buildings would be the tallest mass-timber structures to date in North America.

Other mass-timber projects under way include: a new headquarters building for Walmart in Bentonville, Arkansas; a 17-story, 137-unit residential tower in Vancouver, British Columbia; and a 300,000-square-foot, six-story speculative office building in San Francisco designed by Portland’s Hacker.

Mass timber‘s supply chain is not like those of concrete, steel and traditional timber framing. Mass timber must be made to order and cut to certain dimensions. It must be processed to include channels cut to fit adjacent panels or beams, and in some cases, holes to accept hardware. It must be made to fit into the building being designed.

“If you want mass timber to work as a concept and to be economically viable, you need to involve suppliers early in the project,” Macdonald said.

There’s no off-the-shelf way to buy mass timber. That means developers, architects and their contractors typically engage a mass-timber supplier long before construction begins in an integrated project delivery method.

“It is very much a project-based industry,” said Hardy Wentzel, CEO of Penticton, British Columbia-based Structurlam – the largest mass-timber manufacturer in North America. “It’s not like a mass production of lumber or plywood where you make standard sizes. That’s just not the case here, but it’s not the case in Europe either.”

Long lead times also make it difficult for project teams to switch suppliers. If a manufacturer falls behind, project teams have few alternatives.

The supply shortage is having consequences on the groud for mass-timber projects.

“Most of the West Coast suppliers are really starting to be maxed out,” said Stefee Knudsen, a Hacker principal who is leading design of the Pier 70 office building in San Francisco. “This project is actually too big for most of the suppliers.”

Opportunistic European manufacturers are looking to fill the gap, scooping up North American market share where they can.

“The European supply chain is able to compete on the West Coast,” Knudsen said. “It’s looking like it could be a European supply of the mass timber (for Pier 70). It actually costs about the same to put it on a ship through the Panama Canal as it does to put it on a truck down the West Coast.”

Knudsen said she would prefer to use a local manufacturer if capacity were not an issue.

“We just need the supply to catch up with the demand,” she said. “It is hard to be an Oregonian and to think our project could be supplied by a European (manufacturer). One thing I hope happens is some more come online in the Pacific Northwest because I really support our rural communities here.”

ZGF Architects is designing mass-timber projects in Portland and Texas.

“Supply continues to be an issue, but we’re working through it,” Kristina Thomsen, a ZGF principal, said at a 91��Ƶ Builder Breakfast event in December.

More supply is coming. Locally, Swinerton Builders is investing in its own glulam fabrication capability, Macdonald said.

“That’s showing they’re seeing a bottleneck in certain aspects of the supply chain,” he said, referring to Computer Numerical Control (CNC) machines that perform detailing work on CLT panels.

Swinerton officials could not be reached for comment.

A major timber company is considering construction of a mass-timber manufacturing facility in southern Oregon, said Macdonald, who said he could not divulge details because of a nondisclosure agreement.

“Major timber players are poised to jump into the mass-timber sphere,” he said. “The major timber companies for years have been kicking tires and looking at when is the right time to jump in. They have considerable capital, and as that happens, you’ll see some economies of scale.”

Mass timber has attracted vocal boosters for its lower carbon footprint in comparison to concrete, ability to withstand earthquakes and fire, faster construction timelines, and its warm look and ability to integrate into sleek, modern designs.

Other mass-timber plants are planned or beginning to operate.

Structurlam and Walmart have announced the manufacturer will open a facility in Conway, Arkansas, a suburb of Little Rock, to supply 1.1 million cubic feet of mass timber for the retailer’s headquarters. The facility will be housed, in a twist of irony, in a retooled former steel fastener plant that had been shuttered.

Katerra is another emerging player that could provide significant new supply. The company opened a 270,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Spokane Valley, Washington, in September. Katerra is backed by SoftBank, the same investor with large stakes in Uber and WeWork, and has raised eyebrows by closing a factory in Phoenix last year and laying off employees amid reports of unfinished projects. Still, the company has announced plans for manufacturing facilities in California and Texas.

Another, smaller entrant into the market is Vaagen Timbers of Colville, Washington. The company was started by members of the same family that operates Vaagen Brothers Lumber, a local mill company that dates to the early 1950s.

Vaagen Timbers was certified for construction in July, and is now providing CLT material for everything from a small ski lodge in Idaho to a Lutheran church in Minnesota.

“We’re at about 30 to 35 percent of our production capacity currently,” said Russ Vaagen, founder and chief executive of the firm. “But that’s not what we see for our market in general. Not all the architects have us in their sights as far as supply.”

There’s also some consolidation occurring: SmartLam, based in Montana, bought an operation in Dothan, Alabama, that was started by International Beams.

In Oregon, D.R. Johnson has been hailed by politicians as a new answer to the state’s longtime battles between the timber industry and environmentalists, and a bridge across the rural-urban divide. The Riddle manufacturer has by all accounts bounced back strongly after one of its CLT panels in March 2018 at the Peavy Hall project site at Oregon State University.

Following that incident, investigations indicated the material failed because standard procedures weren’t followed, Macdonald said.

“They heated up the wood too much,” he said. “When the adhesive was applied, it was dried before it was bonded.”

D.R. Johnson has since invested in climate control at its Riddle facility, instituted further quality control checks and made personnel changes, Macdonald said.

“They seem to have moved forward really well from that,” he said. “There was so much demand and so little supply that they were able to continue without a hitch.”

One of the first project teams to use D.R. Johnson’s CLT products after the incident was Urban Development + Partners and Beam Development for District Office in Portland’s Central Eastside.

The incident may have temporarily made it easier to get CLT material, said Eric Cress, principal at UD+P.

“We had no problem,” he said.

D.R. Johnson is in the preliminary stages of considering an expansion at its property in Riddle, President Valerie Johnson said.

“We have quite a bit of vacant property here at our plant,” she said. “I would say, yes, that we are looking at that.”

Industry officials said the Riddle manufacturer is rumored to be booked up with supplying the Sidewalk Labs project in Toronto. Johnson declined to comment on the project.

“The Google project is the worst-kept secret in the industry,” Macdonald said.

The forest-products industry is continuing to innovate to meet demand, Johnson said.

“We’re excited about growth,” she said. “It’s frustrating to not be able to feed more of it, and we certainly don’t want the market to get frustrated waiting for material. …��I think everybody’s trying to gear up.”

As the industry matures, some manufacturers are seeking the next step.

Vaagen Timbers has made a bet on 4-foot-wide CLT panels that can be manufactured up to 60 feet long. They are ideal for uses such as elevator shafts, Russ Vaagen said.

In Europe, a popular size is 1,250 millimeters – slightly wider than 4 feet, Vaagen said. He believes the CLT industry will move toward a standard size.

“I do think there are going to be stock panels – and I think they’re going to be the 4-foot panels, and that isn’t because it’s what we produce,” he said.

Structurlam’s Wentzel, however, was skeptical that the industry would make such a move.

“We just don’t see a standardized offering,” he said. “There is no such thing as a standard building. Somebody in the supply chain is going to have to manipulate that standardized piece to fit the building.”

Structurlam does not keep inventory of manufactured panels. That would introduce additional costs into the supply chain and make mass timber less competitive, Wentzel said.

Wentzel said manufacturers are not alone to blame for supply issues, pointing to a lack of building professionals who are experienced in mass timber.

“Not everybody knows how to design and build the material yet,” he said.

Mass timber has proved to be a use for the small-diameter lumber that is readily available. Old-growth timber is not needed to manufacture the pressed panels and beams.

Macdonald said he sees an opening for CLT manufacturers to use reclaimed lumber. Wood material that is now wasted could be diverted from the landfill, he said.

“We’ve looked at processing those kinds of fibers from panels, and technically it’s absolutely viable,” he said. “There’s no performance deficit. The issue is there’s no supply chain there, so it’s not economically viable at the moment.”

In Portland, a cottage industry has sprung up of architects, developers and builders who specialize in mass timber. Some of the first mass-timber projects in the U.S. were built in Portland.

“Oregon has really been leading the charge, I would say, in the U.S.,” Wentzel said. “It’s a very good market for us.”

As the industry matures, it’s increasingly apparent there will be plenty of competition.

“The market is an unforgiving judge, so you have to be competitive, you have to provide quality, you have to be timely, you have to provide service,” Wentzel said.

As for supply, he added, the industry is growing quickly.

“It is nascent, but the market will find a way, and it is finding a way,” Wentzel said.

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With experience gained in Portland’s early embrace of mass timber, some local firms are taking their knowledge of the material to other markets.

Hacker, for instance, is designing a six-story mixed-use office building with 310,000 square feet at San Francisco’s bustling Pier 70 historic site. The Portland firm prevailed in a competitive application process with Forest City, a developer that has since been acquired by Brookfield Properties.

The speculative office building will be only the second structure primarily built of cross-laminated timber in San Francisco, and it will be considerably larger than the first such building.

Part of the job for Hacker has been educating regulators. The city of San Francisco is contracted to review permitting for the project, which is planned for Port of San Francisco land.

“The jurisdiction currently is pretty unfamiliar with mass timber as a building technology,” said Stefee Knudsen, a Hacker principal in charge of the Pier 70 project. “Until the new code cycle comes into play in California, and until the jurisdiction understands the building technology, they’re being very careful with the building material. It’s taking a little bit more effort for Brookfield to be one of the first out of the docket.”

CLT was always being considered for the project.

“One of the reasons the developer was interested in having us compete for the project … was because they were interested in mass timber from the beginning, but they weren’t entirely sure it would pencil,” Knudsen said.

CLT remains slightly more expensive than traditional concrete and steel construction, Knudsen said. Budget projections showed CLT would cost about 3 percent more than the alternative, she added.

“We’re working on whittling that down,” she said.

As so few CLT buildings have been sold, it’s unclear if they will command a premium from investors. So far, CLT buildings are not attracting higher rents than comparable concrete buildings, but they are showing better stability from tenants.

“There’s increased data that the (CLT) buildings are being leased faster (and) they’re staying leased longer,” Knudsen said. “There is a return on investment, even if there isn’t the simple bottom line you find on day one.”

The design of the Pier 70 building pays homage to the district’s industrial past, including shipbuilding.

“We’re trying to play with that history – timber is kind of a new thing, but it’s really an old thing,” Knudsen said.

Portland was one of the first American cities to embrace CLT, although the material’s popularity spread earlier in British Columbia, Canada, and some northern European nations. Now, CLT is gaining acceptance outside of the expensive West Coast markets, which can command higher rents.

In Milwaukee, a design has been approved for a 21-story CLT tower, and the developer is working to add two stories, . In Minneapolis, a seven-story, 220,000-square-foot mass-timber office building called T3 opened in 2016. European firms are continuing to build projects with CLT, including a concert hall planned in Nuremberg, Germany.

Hacker is working on another CLT design for Brookfield, in Reston, Virginia. That project, which is in an earlier design phase, would rise six stories with about 120,000 square feet.

The San Francisco building won’t be completely CLT. Concrete will be used for the subterranean level, and steel brace frames will be used for the lateral structure.

The building will have two ground-floor retail spaces; one is likely to be a restaurant.

“The ground floor is really designed so it can adjust over time,” Knudsen said.

The project team is hoping to break ground in April. KPFF Consulting Engineers is also working on the project. Swinerton Builders is the general contractor, led by its San Francisco office. Swinerton’s Portland office is lending expertise with securing CLT supplies.

Design Beyond Borders is a 91��Ƶ feature offering a look at the projects outside of Oregon being tackled by local architecture firms. To have your firm’s projects considered, contact the 91��Ƶ newsroom at 503-802-7222 or newsroom@djcOregon.com.

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A large earthquake is expected by some experts to shake the Pacific Northwest within the next 50 years or so. The new Beaverton Public Safety Center now under construction is being engineered to withstand such a quake and continue operating thereafter.

Ground was broken in September 2018 on the three-story, 72,000-square-foot building on a 3.5-acre site at the junction of Southwest Hall and Allen boulevards. The center is being built by general contractor Skanska USA Building to an “essential facility” standard that calls for immediate occupancy and safe operation following a seismic event. Designers settled on a structural approach combining steel, mass timber and concrete.

“We’re using steel primarily to get our longer spans and reduce the column spacing on the interior,” said John Pete, project architect for FFA Architecture and Interiors.

However, use of cross-laminated timber floor and ceiling panels allowed removal from the design of much of additional steel that otherwise would have been needed. A three-and-a-half-inch concrete deck will be poured atop the CLT.

“The CLT goes in first and actually is the formwork for the concrete to be poured in on top of it,” Pete said. “That provides a lot of our seismic performance and ties our BRB (buckling restrained brace) frames together and provides a lot of the seismic stability.”

While seismically effective, the hybrid approach also increases the complexity of project management, procurement and logistics.

“Anytime you’re interfacing different types of materials,” said Derek Bourque, project manager for Skanska USA Building, “whether it be steel and CLT, steel and CMU, the more materials you mix the more challenging it becomes, in our opinion and experience.”

Currently, ironworkers are erecting structural steel for the building’s second floor. Carpenters from Swinerton Builders have been hired to fly in and install the CLT panels because of their expertise with this methodology.

“Typically when we build a steel structure we go three or four floors and then start decking our way up,” Bourque said. “But on this project we have to go up floor by floor, because we would trap ourselves and not be able to fly the panels in if we framed the structure up. And then just flying 10,000-pound-plus panels 40 feet long and getting them in position and trying to thread them between columns, it’s tough.”

Other building areas – almost exclusively those not facing the public – will feature concrete tilt panels and CMU (concrete masonry unit) wall construction. A slab-on-grade foundation will have an HDPE (high-density polyethylene) liner to keep moisture out.

The building’s interior will hold open office space, holding cells, storage areas, an employee gym, and an open lobby with a stair featuring exposed structural steel and precast treads and landings.

Interior finishes will include exposed CLT ceilings, architecturally exposed structural steel, acoustical paneling, finish carpentry, polished concrete flooring, interior glazing and gypsum assemblies.

The exterior façade will primarily feature masonry veneer with recessed vertical patterns. An aluminum-framed storefront and curtainwall glazing assembly will greet the public with glass and vertical wood slats, while exterior areas featuring tilt panels will also have inset metal panels.

The building is designed to be the new home of not only the Beaverton Police Department, but also the city’s emergency operations management department. To preserve operations after a sizable earthquake, the building must remain upright and functional.

As such, the center will have a 330 kilowatt rooftop photovoltaic array and an emergency diesel generator with underground fuel storage. Also, a micro-grid energy management system is being implemented to coordinate and control various power sources.

The new center will be a vast improvement over the police department’s current digs near Griffith Park, police Capt. Eric Oathes said.

“We’re at the Griffith Building right now, and it’s just a really old building that’s been remodeled time after time,” said Oathes, who is serving as the city’s project manager. “We wanted the open office concept to be able to have free flow throughout the building and bring all the units back together, and especially bringing the emergency management offices into it. They’re (serving) an important role in this as well, so we wanted to make sure that in the event when an emergency comes up and we have to activate the EOC, that we have the room and the facility to be able to meet the needs of the community.”

The building is scheduled for delivery in March 2020.

The post Seismic strength critical for new Beaverton facility appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

Turner Construction Co. was overdue for new offices when it began erecting a six-story mixed-use building in Portland’s West End for Menashe Properties.

As the project took shape, Turner executives began to like what they saw. The top floor would have tall ceilings, an open floor plan and broad views preserved by the shorter, historic buildings around it.

Typically, most of construction firms’ employees are in the field, but that doesn’t lessen the importance of a professional office for meetings, executive space and functions such as human resources and accounting, industry veterans said.

“You still need to have a great place to call your home, and that’s super important,” said Eddie La Berge, Turner’s business development manager.

It’s not just Turner. Portland’s construction firms are on the move. A boom in office construction that has created plentiful available space, amid flush times for the construction industry, has led many firms to move into new offices, or renovate and expand existing offices. Some companies are considering additional expansions.

Turner took approximately 8,000 square feet at the Menashe building at Southwest 12th Avenue and Morrison Street. The construction firm completed the project last summer.

Like other general contractors, Turner pointed to a key selling point.

“A lot of our clients are really close to here,” said Stacy Ramakers, special projects division manager for Turner.

In some cases, contractors can sweeten their construction bid by pledging to lease space after the project is completed. La Berge said that was not the case with the Menashe building; the firm didn’t seriously consider leasing the space until late in the project.

“It was basically right when we were doing the final punch list,” he said.

Turner left its previous office in the Albers Mill Building, near the Broadway Bridge‘s west end, with more than three years remaining on the lease. Turner arranged to sublease the space to another user.

At the Menashe building, Turner has room for 65 employees.

R&H Construction also opted to build itself a new headquarters. The Portland company is under construction at Northwest 20th Avenue and Wilson Street on an adaptive reuse of the Graphic Arts Building for Winkler Development. R&H has agreed to lease 55,000 square feet for its offices and field resource center. The building totals approximately 170,000 square feet.

R&H plans to move into the Graphic Arts building on March 1 with about 82 employees initially. Officials have agreed to a 10-year lease with Winkler Development Corp. for the Graphic Arts office, which will have room for about 100 employees. R&H will house its operations, human resources, accounting, pre-construction staff and executives at the Northwest Portland location.

“We’ve tried to future-proof ourselves to allow us to expand,” said Kraig O’Connor, director of buildings for R&H.

Construction firms that build their own spaces carry several advantages. They’re typically discerning, having seen and built many office spaces; they have existing relationships with subcontractors and developers, and they can price projects quickly and accurately.

Construction managers said they can be their most demanding clients.

“Building your own space is always going to be a challenge because you can’t please everybody, and then you’ll have to look at them every day,” Ramakers said.

Firms building an office for their own employees also face the awkward dance of managing another project during a construction boom. Competition for subcontractors can be tough, and some general contractors find themselves short-staffed.

“In this market, it’s challenging,” O’Connor said. “We have a timetable. We have a move-in date. But we don’t want this project to get in the way of serving our clients.”

Swinerton Builders is expanding within its building downtown at Southwest Second Avenue and Oak Street. In late 2014, the firm took space on the second floor. By 2017, Swinerton needed more space, so it leased a portion of the first floor and built an interconnecting staircase. Now, Swinerton is looking to take more space on the first floor and increase its total to nearly 10,000 square feet.

“We believe that we need to be in the core,” said Jason Chupp, division manager for Swinerton Builders. “A lot of the architects, our owner-partners, are either in downtown or the Central Eastside.”

Chupp added, “Being downtown helps attract the young talent. We’re kind of in the heart of the city, right on the edge of Old Town. It seems to create some energy in the office being in the core.”

Bremik Construction is beginning to consider its future needs. The company’s current lease at 1026 S.E. Stark St. expires in 2020.

“We’re keeping our eyes open,” Bremik Vice President Todd Duwe said.

Any growing company should evaluate its need for office space before a lack of room becomes urgent, he added.

“We have the ability to be thoughtful about it and wait for the most optimal space,” he said.

The post Big builders focusing on their headquarters appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

General contractor Swinerton broke ground last month on the new $46 million Washington County Event Center and now is seeking subcontractors to perform a range of work.

The 89,000-square-foot event center, in Hillsboro, is expected to host a wide range of events and activities. It’s included in a county master plan to overhaul the county’s fairgrounds and support the annual county fair.

Designed by LRS Architects, the facility will include exposition space and a state-of-the-art conference center with a commercial kitchen, concessions and additional offices. A large entry plaza adjacent to the lobby and an outdoor exhibit area will open into the interior grounds.

The new venue is intended to accommodate consumer shows, conferences and trade shows, corporate meetings and seminars, banquets and receptions, fundraisers, festivals, spectator events and a variety of community uses.

The new building aesthetics, according to county publications, are “meant to evoke both Washington County’s still-vibrant agricultural heritage as much as its dynamic present and future.”

Swinerton is seeking bids for a package that includes the following scopes of work: concrete, rebar, mass timber and structural steel. Bids are due by noon on Nov. 15. People interested in learning more about the project can call Swinerton at 503-224-6888.

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