Core Spaces, a Chicago-based developer known for upscale student housing, is building its next project in Portland.

Construction of The Collective on 4th – a 15-story, 417-unit luxury residential tower – is now under way on a full block near the Portland State University campus, at the intersection of Southwest Fourth Avenue and Harrison Street. The building will include ground-floor retail space – potentially a grocery store – and 278 below-grade parking spaces. The apartments will be a mix of micro-units, studios and one-, two- and three-bedroom units with an array of amenities suited for young urban professionals.

“Really, at Core, what we’ve always done is to build campus properties in an urban setting – places like Madison, Wisconsin, or West Lafayette, Indiana,” said Chip Schell, vice president of new business for Core Spaces. “And they’re always conveniently located where our residents could walk or take transit; they really fit that model. And Portland really fit that model.”

Chicago firm Hartshorne Plunkard Architecture designed the building, while John Hyland Construction of Springfield is the general contractor. Ground was broken in May 2017. Completion is scheduled for late 2019.

“So right now we’re pouring the second floor and part of the third floor, and our last concrete pour is scheduled for the end of January 2019,” said Jeff Durmaj, project manager for John Hyland Construction. “Starting a little bit later this summer we’re following with all the mechanical trades, HVAC systems, fire protection, electrical work – all this stuff is starting to follow.”

What was originally a U-shaped building oriented toward Southwest Fourth Avenue transformed over the course of six meetings with the Portland Design Commission into an L-shaped structure that opens toward Pettygrove Park on the northeast side. Inside the tower’s two wings, a four-story section tops out with a tree-lined amenity deck intended to smoothly connect the building with the park.

Materially, The Collective on 4th will include a structurally glazed window wall system with aluminum slab edge covers on the upper parts of the south and west sides. The rest of the exterior will have roughly 75 percent glass and 25 percent metal panels.

It’s the interior of these future apartments, however, that’s really meant to capture attention. There are quartz countertops, stainless steel appliances and Bluetooth shower speakers in each unit. Every resident will have access to a pair of rooftop hot tubs, a fire pit and barbecue stations, as well as a large fitness center, a steam room, a sauna, a dog park and even a bocce ball court.

University students won’t be the only demographic targeted for The Collective on 4th.

“We’ll be including students in our marketing approach, so they’re certainly be an appeal there,” Schell said. “What we’re trying to do is take a brand that’s been successful to a more targeted group and then expanding it. This is something that’s unique to The Collective; this is the first time we’re doing it.”

Dennis Huffing, Core Spaces senior general manager in charge of leasing at The Collective on 4th, said the idea is to provide more options for both students and young professionals attracted to the central city, as well as fill Portland’s incessant need for more housing overall.

“We’re not leaning toward one or the other; we want everybody to have more options,” he said.

The Collective on 4th is one of the four primary styles of residential housing currently being developed by Core Spaces. The others include the Hub on Campus, State on Campus and The James. The Collective on 4th is the firm’s first attempt at this brand, and its second project in Oregon. Its first was in 2015: an eight-story, 183-unit Hub on Campus building near the University of Oregon in Eugene.

“What we’ve done with The Collective is really try to expand and take what’s been successful with our Hub brand and bring it to a wider audience,” Schell said.

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Core Spaces will break ground in October on a 15-story luxury apartment project at Southwest Fourth Avenue and Harrison Street in Portland’s South Auditorium District.

The building, named The Collective on 4th, will offer expansive gardens, views of the Willamette River and the Cascades, and ground-floor retail space. New & Neville Real Estate Services has reached agreement to bring in a grocery store as an anchor tenant.

The building will feature 417 units – a mix of micros, studios, and one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments – 278 parking spaces, outdoor living spaces, a fitness center, a rooftop chef’s kitchen and lounge, and a business center.

John Hyland Construction is the primary contractor. The project is scheduled for completion in fall 2018.

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Two major projects that languished in the design review process for months finally received the Portland Design Commission‘s OK on Thursday.

Commissioners took only 45 minutes and imposed a few minor conditions before approving Oregon Health and Science University‘s plans for two new buildings: a 15-story surgical center with a sky bridge and a five-story guest housing tower atop a six-story parking garage at OHSU’s Center for Health & Healing South in the South Waterfront District.

But approval for another project, a 15-story mixed-use development at Southwest Fourth Avenue and Harrison Street, came only after three hours of discussion by the commission and with many conditions, said Don Sowieja, principal with Myhre Group Architects.

Development plans call for 424 residential units above a 33,000-square-foot supermarket and 5,000 square feet of retail space at ground level. Two basement levels will provide 151 parking spaces. Myhre Group is working with the architect of record, Hartshorne Plunkard Architecture of Chicago, where the developer, Core Spaces, is also located. The site is owned by Goodman Generations LLC of Portland and Bay City Capital of San Francisco.

Sowieja said that after navigating four design advice hearings and two design review hearings in 15 months, he hopes to see construction begin soon. No start date has been set, however.

But Sowieja said he disagreed with a condition recommended by staff and approved by commissioners that clear glazing be used for all ground-level retail space facing Fourth Avenue and Harrison Street. He believes that is too restrictive and may limit the types of retail occupants.

“We had proposed something similar that was not as onerous and made our argument,” he said.

But after a sometimes heated discussion, commissioners agreed with city staffers.

“With the exception of that portion (of the hearing) it was a good meeting,” Sowieja said. “There’s always head-butting – but the majority of their (commissioners’) questions were detailed in nature.”

The city staff report recommended that the ground-floor facade on Southwest Fourth Avenue and Harrison Street “consists of clear glazed storefronts, establishing a direct visual connection between the sidewalk and the interior.”

The condition is important, city planner Staci Monroe said after the meeting, because the building faces Pettygrove Park and a pedestrian trail.

“We wanted to ensure that no back-of-house occurs along the park and trail edges in floors one and two,” she said.

Sowieja said the commissioners’ other final conditions included using metal panels with small perforations at the podium level and larger perforations at upper levels, installing landscaping instead of terraces along Southwest Third Avenue and Montgomery Street, placing a transformer below grade and setting windows at 5.5-inch deep instead of 4.5 inches in the building’s framed portion.

The design team over the past year has met with many neighborhood groups, business owners and property owners as part of the process, Sowieja said.

“We are very excited to gain approval and although the lengthy process has had its ups and downs, our team is convinced this is a wonderful project,” he said.

For the OHSU development, the Design Commission attached a few conditions. These included: changing flat metal panels on the garage to folded tri-colored metal panels, and using a marigold accent color on elevator lobbies in the guest housing building, said Brian Newman, associate vice president of planning and development at OHSU. The color matches the underside of white bird-like accents that will be featured on the parking garage facades, he said.

Newman said the project team needed 10 months – including two design advice hearings, two land use hearings and visits to Portland City Council – to get final approval from the Design Commission. One of the elements that slowed the process was the two-story sky bridge, which will cross Whitaker Avenue to connect the CHH South surgery center with the existing CHH North.

The project was approved 4-1; Commissioner Tad Savinar gave his reasons for voting no.

“I just think you’re missing the boat,” he said. “There is no wonder, there’s no discovery, there’s nothing here. The buildings are OK and for me the parking structure was an opportunity to create a ‘You’ve got to see it; let’s go there and look at the thing’ moment, but there is no human spirit here and I just can’t approve.”

Newman said he had hoped for a different response.

“I appreciate Mr. Savinar’s input and he has been very thoughtful throughout (the hearings), but I was disappointed,” Newman said. “We made so many changes to address his concerns and it was nice of him to acknowledge that we were very responsive, but I’m disappointed he couldn’t support it in the end.”

But Newman said he is thrilled that the other four votes were for approval. The process to secure building permits is under way; construction will be overseen by Hoffman Construction Co., he said.

As OHSU continues to expand its South Waterfront campus, Newman said the next building project will be the proposed Knight Cancer Research Center. The first design review hearing for that project is scheduled for April 7.

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After returning before the Portland Design Commission for a fifth time, designers of a planned 15-story mixed-use building with a ground-floor supermarket and underground parking learned they still have work to do.

Commissioners made it clear that approval for the project on the northwest corner of Southwest Fourth Avenue and Harrison Street, currently a parking lot, would not be granted Thursday. They then spent about three hours discussing their concerns and the changes they would like to see. The project is slated to come back before the Design Commission on Feb. 4, 2016.

All of the changes requested by the commissioners concern the building’s façade that faces a pedestrian mall and Pettygrove Park, city planner Staci Monroe said.

Commissioner Tad Savinar said he would like the building to have standout features that would impress people viewing it from the park.

“It could be more diverse with windows and materials,” he said. “Look at it with the landscape and the building and the user altogether.”

Commissioner Jeff Simpson said the project “pushed a lot of buttons” with its massing scale, modifications of setbacks and landscaping.

“This is a very special place in the city,” he said. “The landscape architects have done a great job, but it’s a seven that could be pushed up to an eight.”

Simpson also said that although he likes floor-to-ceiling glass windows, the building’s entry points from Southwest Fourth Avenue feel “a little pinched.”

Representatives of Myhre Group Architects and Chicago-based Hartshorne Plunkard Architecture spoke about the project on behalf of Chicago-based developer Core Spaces.

Tom Pope, a partner at Hartshorne Plunkard, said that his firm, the project’s primary designer, has been working diligently with city staffers and has received approval for planned massing from the Portland Bureau of Transportation, the Halprin Landscape Conservancy and others.

Pope said that the design team’s changes include: adding a gate to separate residential from public parking, using a perforated panel screen for mechanical equipment on the tower roof, expanding to 650 bicycle storage spaces and putting “100 percent glazing” on all four corners.

The development will provide 424 residential units on upper floors, a 33,000-square-foot supermarket and 5,000 square feet of retail space on the ground floor. Two basement levels of parking accessed from Southwest Harrison Street will serve about 150 vehicles. A large loading dock, 35 feet by 10 feet, will be located next to the underground garage entry on Harrison Street.

The building will consist of an L-shaped tower with a lower podium and two levels of townhomes on the north and east portions of the site, adjacent to the pedestrian mall and Pettygrove Park. Outdoor common spaces are proposed atop the second, fourth and 15th floors. Exterior finishes include a glass curtain wall, aluminum windows, metal panels and cast-in-place and vertical board-formed concrete.

During the hearing, several people who live in the neighborhood objected to plans for tree removal and loading zones as well as an anticipated increase in traffic.

Nikki Dennis, who lives on Harrison Street, said the neighborhood does not need a big supermarket and disputed the city’s claim that the trees to be removed were diseased.

“They are only being removed because they were asked to be removed,” she said.

Larry Risch, also a Harrison Street resident, agreed that the trees should not be removed and objected to the loading dock being located on Harrison Street.

“Harrison Street doesn’t look like a loading zone,” he said. “There’s no need for a grocery or they could use smaller trucks or a drive-thru.”

However, Chris Kopca, asset manager for Downtown Development Group, said the project will be good for downtown Portland.

“The development of 420-plus units of housing is a huge benefit to the neighborhood,” he said. “And it will be market rate, not designated as student housing, and it will be a significant addition to the neighborhood.”

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Neighborhood concerns have fueled significant adjustments to plans for two Portland projects undergoing the city design review process.

Neighbors of a proposed Hampton Inn & Suites hotel in the Pearl District and a planned full-block, mixed-use building near Portland State University testified to the Portland Design Commission last week that they were pleased to see their input reflected in revised project designs. But several neighboring residents said they had lingering reservations with the design of the proposed developments.

Design commissioners agreed and offered further suggestions on Thursday for how to ensure the developments would fit into the neighborhood context. Both projects must return before the commission for a future hearing to gain city design approval.

A third design review hearing for the Hampton Inn & Suites Hotel Pearl is scheduled for July 23. The project team for the Hub at Portland, a proposed 15-story, mixed-use building at the corner of Southwest Fourth Avenue and Harrison Street, sought commission feedback on the development in a fourth design advice request hearing on Thursday, but has not yet applied for design review, according to city planner Staci Monroe.

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Hampton Inn & Suites Pearl

Wisconsin-based Raymond Management Co.’s Hampton Inn & Suites Pearl would be built in place of three older warehouse structures at 821 N.W. Everett St., 338 N.W. Ninth Ave. and 303 N.W. Park. The project is being designed by Madison, Wisconsin-based Gary Brink & Associates Architects and Portland-based Hennebery Eddy Architects. Plans call for an eight-story, 201,000-square-foot hotel with 243 rooms, 9,000 square feet of ground floor retail, 104 parking spots on the second and third floors, and an eco-roof on the eighth floor.

The proposed L-shaped building would wrap around the neighboring Park Northwest Condominiums, at 333 N.W. Park. In a design review hearing for the project last month, Park Northwest residents testified they had concerns with the proposed development, including noise from the hotel’s rooftop mechanical equipment right outside their windows. They also urged the hotel developer to enhance the proposed eco-roof to make up for their lost views.

Hennebery Eddy founding principal Tim Eddy on Thursday told the commission that the project design team, after meeting with Park Northwest residents to address their concerns, had hired an acoustical consultant to analyze the anticipated sound of the planned mechanical equipment.

“The upper end of the noise is somewhere between a dishwasher and a conversation,” he said.

The hotel’s proposed eco-roof, designed by Portland-based Lango Hansen Landscape Architects, would also enhance views toward the building from Park Northwest and other surrounding Pearl District condo buildings, such as The Elizabeth, Eddy said.

“Instead of mechanical units, you’ll see a green roof,” he said.

Design commissioners said they were pleased overall with the revisions to the project design, but raised lingering concerns about proposed signage and lighting that would illuminate portions of the hotel façade. Commission Vice Chairman Ben Kaiser said he wasn’t a fan of the cursive lettering on the Hampton Inn & Suites brand signs.

“I think it would help them to upgrade their sign packages,” he said. “It kind of downgrades the architecture in my opinion.”

Commissioner Guenevere Millius said she appreciated the design team’s efforts to address the concerns of neighboring residents, such as commissioning the sound study.

“I think it’s an extremely good gesture to make as a neighbor,” she said. “I think it’s come a long way.”

Hub at Portland

Commissioners on Thursday also offered further feedback on the Hub at Portland, Chicago-based Core Campus’ proposed development for a site at 325 and 333 S.W. Harrison St. that is currently a parking lot. Plans for the 15-story building call for 35,000 square feet of retail space on the ground floor for a potential grocery store, 425 apartments on the upper floors, and 158 below-grade parking spaces.

Chicago-based Hartshorne Plunkard Architecture and Portland-based Myhre Group Architects presented a design that had been significantly revised since the project last went before the commission in March. Changes included eroding away the portion of the building that would face nearby Pettygrove Park and the Halprin Open Space Sequence to offer a fourth floor green roof and terrace space. The taller sides of the building would face Southwest Fourth Avenue and Harrison Street.

“This is a great shape because it really addresses the urban edge on Harrison and Fourth (with) the bulk of the building being stepped way back,” Myhre Group principal Bob Boileau said.

A large number of neighbors of the proposed project attended and testified at the hearing on Thursday. Neighbors reiterated concerns brought up at previous design advice hearings that the development would be out of context with the rest of the neighborhood and exacerbate traffic congestion in the area. Many also acknowledged that the design of the building has come a long way since the initial proposal and praised the project team for addressing their input.

“I would like to thank the developers who really did work with us on this,” said Judith Buffo, a facilitator with South Auditorium Greenway Environs community group.

Design commissioners said they also believed the latest iteration of the project was moving in the right direction, but worried the proposed development was trying to pack too much into a constrained site.

“It still feels like it’s spilling over a little bit,” Commission Chairman David Wark said. “Loosen it up a bit … Less square footage could benefit it.”

Millius said she felt plans to include grocery store in the project might not be a wise choice.

“It’s such a hard site to cram that use into,” she said. “It would have to see most of its traffic coming on foot because they don’t want to drive there. I’m in support of where the building is going. I think the design moves are there, but it feels like a lot to ask of the site.”

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