After nearly three years of construction, Multnomah County is ready to open the $163 million East County Library.

The library branch is the flagship project of the $387 million library bond that voters approved in November 2020. Located in downtown Gresham, the library is meant to bring services to East County residents who live far from the Central Library in downtown Portland.

“This is a palace for the people,” said Katie O’Dell, the library system’s capital bond deputy director.

At 95,000 square feet, the facility is the county’s second-largest branch, behind only the Central Library, which occupies about 120,000 square feet. East County Library will offer 200,000 books, CDs, DVDs and other materials to the public when it opens on Saturday.

It’s the largest of 18 library projects funded by the 2020 bond, which also produced six new libraries, 11 renovations and an operations center. Two projects — in the St. Johns and Belmont neighborhoods —remain to be completed.

Fortis Construction served as general contractor for East County Library, with a design by Holst Architecture of Portland and Adjaye Associates (the international firm left the project in 2023 after founder David Adjaye was accused of sexual misconduct).

The design relies heavily on mass timber, including 1,200 glulam beams and 3,000 cross-laminated timber panels sourced from around the Pacific Northwest.

The project arrives on time and on budget, county officials said.

“Construction went so, so smoothly,” library bond spokeswoman Liz Sauer said.

A TriMet park-and-ride facility formerly occupied the new library’s site at 475 N.W. Division St., pinched between Gresham City Hall and the Gresham Station shopping complex. TriMet still owns a 25,000-square-foot parcel on which it intends to build a transit-oriented project.

The new library branch has ample mass transit access, with a MAX Blue Line station slightly north of the building, and a TriMet Frequent Express bus line on its Division Street frontage.

The East County Library is more than four times larger than the former Gresham branch, with a collection to match. The city of Gresham purchased the former library branch site at 385 N.W. Miller Ave. after a public process.

The East County Library has a diverse collection featuring materials in Spanish, Chinese, Russian and Vietnamese — all languages commonly spoken in the Gresham area. A world languages section includes books in many more languages.

“I would say we have a more diverse collection than our other library branches,” Director of Libraries Annie Lewis said.

The new library also has state-of-the art technology, including the Intelligent Material Management System, or IMMS, from Utah company SirsiDynix. The system tracks bookshelf offerings and zips books around the library using an extensive conveyor belt.

Other facilities include an auditorium for events and a maker space that offers a laser printer and cutter, sewing machines and more.

Tucked in a sunlit corner, a recording studio features high-end Fender and Yamaha guitars, a drum set and a mixing board.

“Everything in there is gear industry professionals would use,” said Jody Redifer, audio-video program specialist.

The library will open at 10 a.m. on Saturday, following a ribbon-cutting ceremony at 9 a.m.

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A 135,000-square-foot transit-oriented affordable housing development is in the works for property at TriMet‘s Willow Creek Transit Center, at 235 S.E. Edgeway Drive in Hillsboro.

Mercy Housing’s Northwest office and the Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization (IRCO) are co-developing Willow Creek Family Housing and Early Learning Center – a project that gained the Hillsboro City Council’s approval late last month.

In February, the city and TriMet entered an intergovernmental agreement (IGA) to spur development of affordable housing at the transit center. The parties agreed to work together to solicit development proposals for a 2.89-acre parcel on the undeveloped portion of the park-and-ride facility at the north end of the property. Pursuant to the IGA, TriMet will make the subject property available for purchase by Mercy Housing at a discounted price of $1.25 million.

Currently, the total project cost estimate is $66.5 million, according to the city.

The city will dedicate an allocation of Metro affordable housing bond funds, estimated at $15.5 million, to support the project. Mercy Housing plans to invest $3.5 million.

Carleton Hart Architecture is the project architect. Neither a general contractor nor subcontractors have been selected yet. A general contractor will likely be selected in June 2026, according to a city of Hillsboro staff report.

Plans call for a five-story building with 118 units – 29 with one bedroom, 68 with two bedrooms, 16 with three bedrooms, and five with four bedrooms. Forty-one units will be for occupants earning up to 30 percent of the area median income. Some units will be for people earning up to 50 percent of AMI and others will be for those earning up to 60 percent of AMI. Also, 18 permanent supportive housing units will serve people exiting homelessness. There will be one manager’s unit.

Amenities will include a fully accessible community room with a kitchen, a tech center, a children’s area, and smaller meeting spaces. A smart screen in the lobby will provide transit information. Each floor will feature a laundry/lounge space and secure indoor bike storage.

“The design intent will connect residents with each other, the community, and nature with a forecourt plaza, walking path, gardening (space), and play areas,” Mercy Housing developer Justine Ealy stated in an email.

Mercy Housing will partner with IRCO to provide an on-site, 3,500-square-foot early learning center on the ground floor. The center will hold two preschool classrooms each able to accommodate up to 20 students.

Resident services, led by IRCO, will include health and wellness programs, meals for seniors, after-school activities, career coaching, workforce development, and more, the city’s staff report states.

The design plan calls for construction of 59 parking spaces, including 30 tucked under the building, according to the staff report. Parallel parking spaces will be included along the public street to the south, so that early learning center attendees can be dropped off and picked up.

Design details may change during the land use and permitting process.

Construction is anticipated to start as soon as late 2026 and require approximately 20 months to complete.

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Project name: A Better Red

Location: Portland to Hillsboro

Size: 2,178,000 square feet

Cost: $215 million

Completion: September 2024

Owner/Developer: TriMet

Engineer: Parametrix

General Contractor: Stacy Witbeck

Other Consultants/Key Participants: Akana, David Evans & Associates, Emerio Design, Hatch, NNA Landscape, Perkins & Will, Shannon & Wilson

Submitting Company: Stacy Witbeck

Key Partnerships: City of Beaverton, City of Hillsboro, City of Portland, Federal Highway Administration, Occupational Safety & Health Administration, Oregon Department of Transportation, Pacific Power, Port of Portland, Portland International Airport, Union Pacific Railroad

Subcontractors: 1 Alliance Geomatics, 3 Diamond Construction, A2 Metals dba A2 Fabrication, Able Fence, ACMS Northwest, ADS System Safety Consulting, Advanced Railway Innovations, Affordable Electric, Alcantar and Associates, Aligned Engineering, Apply-A-Line, Armadillo Underground, Ascending Optics, Azuri Construction, B&G Excavating & Plumbing, Badger Daylighting, Bar-M Steel Commercial, Brothers Concrete Cutting, C&L Metal Sales, C.O.A.T. Flagging, C3M Power Systems, Cadman, CalPortland, Cannon Construction, Capital Industries, CBK Constructors, Champion Sweeping, City of Roses Disposal and Recycling, Clark Moore Trucking, Complete Fusion Welding, Concrete Technology, Custom Hole Drilling, Cutter Construction, Dan Jones Inc., DeWitt Construction, DirtLogic, Eagle Striping Services, Earth Dynamics, Espousal Strategies, Eugene William Construction, Faison Construction, Farwest Steel Reinforcing, Ferguson Waterworks, FM Burch and Associates, Gateway Trucking, Gulf Control, Harmer Steel, Herrera Environmental Consultants, Highway Specialized Transport, Holland LP, Iron Horse, J.H. Kelly, JL Storedahl & Sons, Jobsite Stud Welding, Knife River Corp.-NW, KT Contracting, LB Foster, Legend Custom Woodworking, Lemus Construction, Loram Maintenance of Way, LYB Trucking, Magnum Power, Maxim Crane, McDonald & Wetle, McDonald Excavating, McKinstry Essention, Metal Acoustic Commercial Kraft, Michels Foundations, Modern Railway Systems, MR Tree, National Precast, National Railroad Safety Services, Ness Campbell, Northwest Security and 91��Ƶ Services, Northwest Testing, Norton Corrosion Limited, OlsenBeal Associates, Omega Industries, O’Neill Construction Group, ORE Vac West, Oregon Door Consultants, Oregon On-Site Concrete, Orgo-Thermit, Pacific Foundation, Pandrol Industries, Paramount Security Solutions, PBS Engineering and Environmental, Pipeline Video Inspection, Platt Anchor Bolt, Polycorp, Portland Mechanical Contractors, Potelco, Povey & Associates Land Surveying, Pro Build Renovations, Progress Rail, PTS Surveying, PureSpace – A Biodynamic Company, Ralph’s Concrete Pumping, Redmond Heavy Hauling, Reinforced Earth, River City Environmental, S2 Imaging, Santiam Heating & Cooling, Schonert & Associates, Scougal Rubber, Shadow Guard Security, Sign Wizards, Statewide Rent-A-Fence of Oregon, Strongwell, Summit QM, Taurus Power and Controls, Team Electric, TFT Construction, The Fiber Guys, Utah Pacific Bridge & Steel, V. Van Dyke, VAK Construction Engineering Services, Valley Growers Nursery & Landscape, Vancouver Paving, Voestalpine Railway Systems Nortrak, Watson Bowman Acme

TriMet’s MAX Red Line Extension and Reliability Improvements Project, known as “A Better Red,” was completed on time and on budget despite the complexity of working on an active rail system.

The project, one of TriMet’s most ambitious in a decade, expanded the MAX Red light rail line to 10 additional stations and eliminated long-standing bottlenecks to improve system-wide reliability.

Stacy Witbeck served as the Construction Manager/General Contractor on the project, which was divided into three independently-managed segments. These included extending the MAX Red Line west into Hillsboro, constructing two new double-tracked sections between Portland International Airport and Gateway Transit Center, and building two new bridges and the Gateway North Station.

Successfully executing a project of this scale required close coordination between TriMet, Stacy Witbeck, and 127 subcontractors and suppliers. The project had a superb safety record: zero lost time incidents over nearly 470,000 hours worked.

Among the technical achievements was the construction of a steel girder bridge over Interstate 84 and Union Pacific Railroad tracks, requiring a rigorous five-step sequence for bridge deck placement. Engineers adhered to strict tolerances and camber specifications to ensure structural integrity.

For the Gateway Green Bridge, the team incorporated a precast concrete straddle bent cap to reduce construction time over active light rail tracks. This innovative approach minimized service disruptions and mitigated safety hazards associated with working near the energized overhead catenary system.

The project team exceeded Disadvantaged Business Enterprise and Certified Small Business participation goals, awarding $30.5 million in contracts to 57 certified firms: 23 percent of construction work and 21 percent of design work was performed by DBEs, surpassing original targets. In addition, Stacy Witbeck partnered with Portland Community College’s Construction Engineering Technology Program to engage students in real-world construction applications. A Better Red also served as a training ground for the next generation of skilled workers. As a certified training agent with the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries, IUOE Local 701 and AGC JATC, Stacy Witbeck ensured that apprentices played an active role in the project.

“The leadership, perseverance, and dedication demonstrated during this project were critical to its success,” said Sam Desue Jr., TriMet’s general manager, in the project nomination form. “… the project team brought this vision to life – expanding access, enhancing reliability, and strengthening our communities through transit.”

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Improvements to a key arterial in Tigard are in the works. A team is redesigning Southwest 72nd Avenue from Oregon Route 99W to Oregon Route 217, in the Tigard Triangle.

The current project will take the design to 30 percent completion for the north section of 72nd Avenue (from 99W to Dartmouth Street) and to 10 percent completion for the south section (from Dartmouth Street to 217). Kittelson & Associates was hired by the city through a qualifications-based solicitation to assist with the early design efforts.

The 72nd Avenue Corridor Study was completed in 2020, Tigard principal transportation planner Tiffany Gehrke said during Tuesday’s City Council meeting. From that study, the city redeveloped the basic concept of the project based on community members’ feedback. They asked for safe walking and biking options, protected bicycle lanes, and on-street parking.

During the planning phase a new roadway design concept was identified for 72nd Avenue to transform the busy road into a multimodal street. Proposed design elements include a sidewalk, a protected bicycle lane, a landscaping buffer, one travel lane in each direction with a center turn lane, and on-street parking on both sides of the street. Proposed intersection improvements include a protected intersection, pedestrian crossings, future transit stops, curb extensions, green bike lane extensions, high visibility crosswalks, and lighting.

Future transit service by TriMet is proposed along 72nd Avenue/Dartmouth Street. Future transit stops would be designed per TriMet standards.

New pedestrian crossing locations would include the future Red Rock Creek Trail, future Atlanta Street, between Baylor Street and Clinton Street, and Elmhurst Street.

The project team anticipates completing 30 percent design plans of the north section, which will cost around $25 million. The team in February applied for a federal Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development (BUILD) grant to cover the cost of that work. The team expects to hear back by the end of June on the possible grant award.

In the project’s next phase, design will be completed, and a contractor will be selected, according to Courtney Furman, principal engineer for the city of Tigard. Currently, construction is not funded in Tigard’s Capital Improvement Plan. The schedule for the next phase will depend on whether the city secures grant funding.

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The latest Washington County Transit Development Plan was approved by the county on Tuesday. Projects in the plan will be incorporated into TriMet‘s Public Transportation Improvement Plan on Dec. 14 and by the Oregon Transportation Commission in 2023.

The plan identifies and prioritizes public transportation investments for areas outside of TriMet and SMART transit districts, as well as community connector services within these districts. The regional coordination projects within the TriMet district are funded with Statewide Transportation Improvement Fund (STIF) dollars approved by TriMet’s House Bill 2017 Transit Advisory Committee.

The Transit Development Plan prioritizes STIF investments in the next biennium, fiscal years 2024 and 2025, and potential investments for the next five-plus years. The plan was first adopted by the county in 2021. The plan is updated every two years.

The plan’s priorities were shared with the board of commissioners in October. Priorities include: maintaining WestLink service and increasing its frequency; continuing to provide general public access in expanded service areas and seeking improvements to the trip-planning platform; initiating interregional coordination for subsided trips to the coast and other destinations; offering a rural workforce shuttle for rural employment areas; performing capital and infrastructure improvements; marketing; and pursuing planning and administration goals.

The plan reflects priorities recommended by the Transit Advisory Committee, Senior Transportation Planner Dyami Valentine stated during the meeting Tuesday. The committee met four times this year to review and provide input on needs and opportunities. Updates in the 2022 plan include a needs assessment, equity analysis, current and planned transit networks, community connector shuttle analysis and prioritization, new Ride Connection routes and service expansions, and priorities for fiscal years 2023-2025 for allocation of STIF revenues. The bulk of the work was focused on the community connector shuttle analysis and prioritization.

The county is expected to receive $875,000 in STIF dollars generated outside the TriMet and SMART districts to pay for priorities identified in the plan and approximately $5.8 million from TriMet for community connector services in the next biennium.

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Plans presented for Hollywood HUB Housing to the Portland Design Commission on Thursday call for a 12-story, 120-foot building with 234 affordable units. It is the second design advice hearing for the project; the first included a 13-story, 199-unit building scheme.

The project in part is a reimaging of the Hollywood Transit Center and is the first proposal under TriMet‘s Transit-Oriented Development Guidelines. The site along Northeast Halsey Street is owned by the agency, but BRIDGE Housing is the developer for the building.

As part of the project’s scope, a new pedestrian and cyclist connection would be added to the end of the Interstate 84 pedestrian bridge. The goal is to create a seamless transit connection from the Hollywood MAX station across the bridge to the three bus lines in front of the building along Northeast Halsey Street.

Last time, commissioners said that the building’s L-shape design — coupled with the plan for the shared driveway, outdoor area and inactive ground-floor uses — would be unsafe and create a hostile pedestrian environment, according to the summary memo.

Senior City Planner Tim Heron said, “while this is technically … a second DAR (design advice request) for this site, it feels like a brand new one.”

The building’s massing has transitioned to a C-shape with a courtyard in the cutout and has substantial relief along the north and south pedestrian transit connection planned.

“The new direction of the project is stupendous,” Commissioner Brian McCarter said. “It’s so much, it’s not even in the same universe.”

Before, the development team was constrained by a Difficult to Develop Area boundary bisecting the site. Dave Otte, applicant and principal/owner at Holst Architecture, said it pushed their original design into that “really shoehorned” L-shape.

Failure to keep the building within the boundary meant that the associated 30 percent boost in tax credit would be lost – about $10.2 million in tax credit equity.

What in part triggered the big massing shift was an agreement. The western and southern half of the transit site fell within the DDA boundary, established by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Bridge Housing Executive Vice President Kurt Creager said, however, in the case of the transit center site it was an uncommon situation. The DDA boundary did not follow the property line but rather the busways. The line was calculated using the postal zip code for the transit area.

To rectify this, BRIDGE and TriMet worked with Senator Ron Wyden’s office and consulted with HUD, the U.S. Census Bureau, the Internal Revenue Service and Oregon Housing and Community Services. An agreement was reached to allow for Low Income Housing Tax Credit to boost any development delivered on the site, regardless of whether it is in inside or outside the current DDA boundary.

Creager said while they are technically unable to change the boundary until the 2030 census, they have received “a favorable administrative interpretation,” endorsed by the IRS and OHCS.

The resulting resolution meant that the Hollywood HUB Housing project could be built in a C-shape, alleviating most of the commissioner’s prior concerns and be completed within a single phase (rather than the two-phased approach proposed earlier). It also allowed an additional 37 housing units to be added.

“I know it has a long way to go,” Commissioner Don Vallaster said, “but just the simple massing moves that have (been) proposed so far would make this a pretty outstanding building. So I think by the time they’re done this should be a real landmark for the neighborhood and for the city.”

The pedestrian and cyclist connection, referred to as the “paseo,” was extended to the full width (64 feet) of the vacated street between the building site and the businesses across the street. The connection would be built by TriMet and function as an amenity for the greater community. Within the paseo will be a stair and ramp connection to the pedestrian bridge.

Alongside the connection will be an entrance to the future Sullivan’s Gulch Trail, a roughly 5-mile-long trail in planning from the Central City out to the Gateway Regional Center. Plans for the entrance call for a 20-foot-wide path to allow for bicyclists moving quickly to get on and off the trail.

“I can’t wait for the Sullivan’s Gulch trail to open up,” McCarter said. “When that thing opens up and there’s people coming over the bridge, there’s people coming into the site from Sullivan’s Gulch, there’s people coming through the site from Halsey, it is going to be an amazing – a really pulsing urban place and that’s gonna be great to see.”

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Multnomah County Library and TriMet have signed a Letter of Intent for at 1297 N.W. Eastman Parkway, Gresham.

The site will be used for the East County Flagship, a large-scale library similar in size to Central Library in downtown Portland. The library will serve the about 40 percent of Multnomah County residents who live east of I-205.

The agreement represents the conclusion of years of searching for an ideal site that will fit a large, planned library of 95,000 square feet and is easily accessible for East County community members. Of nine projects , the East County Flagship will be an entirely new building from the ground up. The Park and Ride land also can accommodate an outdoor area for library programming.

The location has easy to access by walking or taking transit. The Gresham City Hall MAX Station is served by MAX Blue Line, with stops for bus lines 2, 21 and 82 nearby. Gresham Central Transit Center, the future terminus for, is also about a half-mile away. Once it opens in September, FX will provide a faster, more reliable way to get around, with service along Southeast Division Street between Gresham and downtown Portland.

Per the terms of the Letter of Intent, the library and TriMet enter a due diligence period of 120 days or until a binding Purchase and Sale Agreement is executed. TriMet will retain a portion of the site for future . Both parties will work together with the city of Gresham to establish the vision for the site and the surrounding area.

“With this initial agreement, the library is moving forward with its promise to work alongside the community in developing an iconic library that will be beautiful, accessible and representative of the people of East County,” Vailey Oehlke, director of Libraries, said in a news release. “This reflects our continued commitment to equity. Multnomah County Library, along with TriMet and the city of Gresham, is here to build something impactful and community-focused.”

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Work has begun on an approximately $215 million project to extend TriMet‘s MAX Red Line into Hillsboro and improve service across the light-rail system.

Currently, the Red Line runs from Portland International Airport to the Beaverton Transit Center. Crews will extend the Red Line westward to 10 new stations.

TriMet’s plan also calls for a number of system upgrades intended to reduce congestion and boost reliability. These include:

• constructing a second set of tracks in two sections between Gateway Transit Center and the airport in order to reduce delays (currently, MAX trains sometimes must wait for one traveling the opposite direction);
• building a Gateway North station;
• renovating the airport MAX station and building a new multiuse path connecting the airport to Northeast 82nd Avenue;
• building two new bridges – one over Interstate 84 to connect to the new Gateway North station and another to the north to provide access to Gateway Green; and
• upgrading tracks, switches and signals in order to expand service in Washington County.

MAX trains in Washington County were often crowded at peak times before the pandemic began, according to TriMet. The expansion will help people who struggle to find affordable housing near workplaces, shopping centers and medical services, officials stated.

“To Washington County, the Red Line expansion is more than an investment in transportation,” Washington County Commissioner Nafisa Fai stated in a news release. “It’s an investment in creating safer, healthier and more livable connected communities.”

The project – called “A Better Red” – is being paid for in part via a $99.9 million Federal Transit Administration construction grant that was announced on Sept. 24.

Stacy and Witbeck, a longtime contractor for TriMet projects, is the contractor for the Red Line extension. Stacy and Witbeck in 2019 was awarded the construction manager/general contractor role, including $508,000 for preconstruction services.

At the time, TriMet forecasted that the project would increase ridership by about 5,000 daily trips. Increased revenue was expected to cover 30 percent to 50 percent of higher operation costs.

Completion is expected in 2024.

More modest improvements are coming to the Lloyd District. TriMet will rebuild a section of track slightly east of the Lloyd Center/Northeast 11th Ave MAX station beginning Sunday. Disruptions are expected through Oct. 23.

TriMet is also awaiting word on federal funding for the Southwest Corridor light-rail construction project. The extension to Tigard and Tualatin has been on the shelf since Metro voters in November 2020 rejected a multibillion-dollar bond package that would have paid for the rail extension and other projects.

Meanwhile, the $1 trillion federal infrastructure bill has passed the U.S. Senate and is now before the House. Dollars from that bill could potentially be allocated to the Southwest Corridor project. A TriMet spokeswoman declined an interview request.

“It is a bit too early for us to comment as the bill continues to evolve,” Roberta Altstadt stated in an email.

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The Black Lives Matter movement has spurred corporate America into action, prompting donations, statements of solidarity and public reexaminations by some of the nation’s most recognizable companies.

The construction industry, however, has been noticeably quiet.

“It’s been shocking to me,” said Andrew Colas, president of Portland-based Colas Construction. “The CEO of Warner Bros. made statements. The CEOs of Fortune 500 companies have made statements. There’s just been complete silence on the local level, on the national level, in our industry.”

Colas Construction is the largest Black-owned construction firm in Oregon, and one of the largest on the West Coast. The company has tackled large public projects, including a sizable renovation of the Oregon Convention Center.

“Change is on all of us, and the chance to lead it comes in the choices we make every day,” Colas wrote in a statement posted to the company’s Instagram page on June 3. “Speak up, stand up and disrupt the cycle.”

Colas said he decided to say something after hearing little from others in the construction industry.

“A $650 billion industry has had nothing to say,” he added in a text message. “So we had to speak up.”

The death of George Floyd, a Black man, in Minneapolis after he was held under the knee of a police officer for 7 minutes and 46 seconds has galvanized protests and forced a fast-moving reckoning of racism in American life. So far, there have been few immediate repercussions in the construction industry.

Some organizations connected to the building industry have embraced the Black Lives Matter movement. Prosper Portland posted a Black Lives Matter webpage. Several architecture firms have posted supportive statements. Lever Architecture, for instance, issued one that read in part, “It is incumbent on us as architects to engage communities of color and to listen with humility.” Lease Crutcher Lewis also posted a supportive statement to Instagram.

Statements are good, but require follow-through, said Nate McCoy, executive director of the National Association of Minority Contractors-Oregon.

“Statements mean nothing if there are no real efforts or change behind them,” he said.

As for Associated General Contractors‘ Oregon-Columbia chapter, it has taken a low-key approach to the moment.

“During this time, we have quietly chosen to continue the work we have started and been part of for many decades,” Executive Director Mike Salsgiver stated in an email message. “The AGC Oregon-Columbia Chapter condemns the murder of George Floyd – and the behaviors that led to his death and to the deaths of many others – in the strongest possible terms. We fully understand the deplorable and unacceptable effects these crimes against our fellow citizens have had, and continue to lead and support initiatives that will eliminate racism in our society and our industry.”

The local AGC chapter has worked for many years with NAMC-Oregon, the Oregon Association of Minority Entrepreneurs, LatinoBuilt, the Professional Business Development Group and others, Salsgiver stated.

“We continue to stand with these and other organizations to ensure that this work will continue,” he added.

Locally, the construction industry remains overwhelmingly white in ownership as well as in executive and managerial roles, despite a diverse entry-level workforce. But public-sector work has helped Black-owned firms grow. Contracting preferences that favor minority-owned contractors have boosted companies including Colas Construction, Raimore Construction and O’Neill Construction Group in winning major contracts from local public agencies such as Prosper Portland, Metro and TriMet.

Colas Construction in 2017 landed the largest public contract awarded to a minority-owned firm in Oregon at that time: a $32 million deal to perform interior renovations at the Oregon Convention Center.

That was exceeded in March by with TriMet for the Division Transit Project in Southeast Portland. Raimore co-founder Jeff Moreland could not be reached for comment.

But contracting preferences haven’t done nearly enough to compensate for the advantages of white-owned firms that have decades of accumulated wealth and business relationships as well as large-scale bonding capacity, Colas said.

“It’s about economic development for Black people,” he said. “There are a lot of Black businesses out there that are fully capable, that do great work and just don’t get the opportunities others do.”

Portland should have many more successful Black-owned construction firms, according to Colas.

“Until we start seeing more Raimores, more City of Roses, more Colas’, you’re not going to see that (economic development) piece,” he said. “Can anybody tell me five Black-owned companies that have more than 50 employees? You can’t. It’s not working.”

McCoy echoed those sentiments.

“It’s shameful that it’s only Colas and Raimore that are getting contracts at the level that they’re at,” he said. “Why is that? I think there’s still a systemic problem.”

McCoy and others are pushing public agencies to move away from race-neutral policies to race-conscious policies that take into account historic discrimination.

Black-owned firms and other emerging contractors typically begin as subcontractors. More must be done to help them grow, said Daniel Drinkward, vice president of Hoffman Construction, a major general contractor.

“It’s got to go beyond hitting the contracting and workforce targets,” he said.

Hoffman mentors minority-owned contractors on business aspects such as insurance and accounting that sometimes prove challenging for new firms, Drinkward said.

“We spend a lot of time working with minority-owned firms to make sure that when they do get contracts on our projects that they are successful and that it helps build their business,” he said.

Hoffman Construction stands with its Black workers, Drinkward added.

“Hoffman is committed to providing an anti-racist and inclusive workplace,” he said. “The status quo is not acceptable and we have to do better.”

The widespread protests have generated some optimism in the fight against racism, Colas said.

“It has been heartening,” he said. “It’s nice to see all shades of people standing up and saying this isn’t working. What’s been happening the last 400 years is wrong, and we need to acknowledge it.

“You get to the point as a Black person where you just feel helpless,” he added. “Our struggles are serious and they’re real.”

McCoy said he’s had conversations in the industry where others say “all lives matter” as a counterpoint to the Black Lives Matter message. Such race-neutral language accomplishes nothing, he said.

“Absolutely all lives matter,” he said. “Black lives have to matter more, and have to be called out individually because things have to change.”

Correction: This story earlier referred to an incorrect timeline for the Minneapolis incident. Media reports have since indicated George Floyd was pinned by an officer’s knee for 7 minutes, 46 seconds, not 8 minutes, 46 seconds.

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Two Portland-area transit projects will receive a total of nearly $125 million in funding from the Federal Transit Administration, the U.S. Department of Transportation announced.

The funding includes $99.99 million for an extension and improvements to TriMet‘s MAX Red Line and $24.9 million for a 10-mile C-TRAN bus rapid transit line through Vancouver, Washington. The projects are among 12 nationwide selected to receive a total of $891 million via the FTA’s Capital Investments Grants program.

The MAX improvement project, named A Better Red, will extend MAX Red Line service west from the Beaverton Transit Center to the Fair Complex/Hillsboro Airport station. Also, a second track will be added near the Gateway Transit Center and Portland International Airport; that upgrade is expected to improve reliability of Green Line and Blue Line trains that share the same tracks.

The project’s design and environmental review phase is expected to last through early next year. Construction is expected to commence in spring 2021 and last through 2024. The total project cost is $206 million, including six new light-rail vehicles to accommodate increased service. TriMet will cover the remainder of the project cost, with contributions from Metro and the Port of Portland.

C-TRAN’s Mill Plain BRT is a $49.86 million project that will provide bus rapid transit from downtown Vancouver to east Vancouver. The bus line will span 10 miles and include 21 stations at key locations including Clark College, PeaceHealth Southwest Medical Center and Columbia Tech Center.

The line’s seven buses will travel east from downtown along West Evergreen Boulevard before crossing Interstate 5 and proceeding slightly north to Fort Vancouver. From there, buses will travel along East Mill Plain Boulevard until the line terminates at a new transit center near Southeast 184th Avenue.

About $21 million in C-TRAN capital funds and $4.2 million in Federal Highway Administration flexible funds will cover the remainder of the project cost. Construction is expected to begin by next year, and service is scheduled to begin in October 2022.

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