Prosper Portland is considering a request to rename Union Station for a civil rights leader.

The effort seeks to honor the late A. Philip Randolph, who was a leader of the 1963 March on Washington and a labor activist. Randolph was founding president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters in 1925, and later vice president of the AFL-CIO.

The request came from Keith Edwards, a retired Portland electrician, at Prosper Portland’s April 11 board meeting.

“We hope that history would not be lost on enterprise,” Edwards said. “We hope that enterprise and history could coexist.”

The agency is investigating Edwards’ request, said Shawn Uhlman, spokesman for Prosper Portland.

“We’re taking it to our steering committee and asking other bureaus how they’ve handled these requests in the past,” he said. Among city bureaus, the Bureau of Transportation and Portland Parks and Recreation more commonly receive renaming requests.

The proposal to rename Union Station – Edwards proposed calling it the A. Philip Randolph Memorial Union Station – could be complicated by the train depot’s role in future redevelopment.

Union Station is part of the Broadway Corridor, a 32-acre area in Northwest Portland that includes the former U.S. Postal Service site. Prosper Portland sees Union Station as a key gateway to the Broadway Corridor.

The Broadway Corridor steering committee will be consulted on the proposed name change, Uhlman said.

The station itself is due for a major makeover that could begin as early as 2020. The unreinforced masonry building needs a full seismic retrofit; mechanical, electrical and plumbing system replacements; and main concourse restoration. Railroad tracks and platforms also would be replaced.

The 122-year-old train station is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It continues to serve Amtrak and freight rail traffic.

Randolph visited Portland several times. In July 1932, he reportedly delivered a “masterful address” on “The Negro in the Economic Crisis” at Mount Olivet Baptist Church, according to an account in The Advocate, a local African-American newspaper, University of Utah professor Kimberley Mangun stated. She has studied Oregon’s role in the civil rights movement.

Randolph also visited Portland in 1927, 1949, 1951 and 1954, often to take part in union meetings, according to The Oregonian archives at the Oregon Historical Society.

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The Portland Development Commission is laying the groundwork for a major rehabilitation of Union Station – the city’s 121-year-old train depot.

The project, which wouldn’t begin until 2020 at the earliest, would restore and preserve the main concourse and replace the building’s mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems. Railroad tracks and platforms also would be replaced.

The unreinforced masonry building, clock tower and annex are in need of a full seismic retrofit, PDC officials said. The building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and the PDC is working to save the “Union Station” and “Go By Train” signs that adorn the clock tower.

“A lot of people are excited about a revitalized train station,” said Elise Hendrickson, the PDC’s construction services coordinator. “It’s an iconic Portland building.”

Existing office tenants on the second and third floors will be evicted, but such action may be years away.

“They’ll have plenty of heads-up,” Hendrickson said, adding that the PDC has already met with office tenants.

Current tenants include a few attorneys, architects, small nonprofit groups, poetry publisher Tavern Books and custom shoemaker ExIT Shoes. Many of the offices are vacant.

John Bradach, a construction attorney and mediator, has housed his solo law practice in Union Station since 2010.

“It’s real comfortable,” he said. “It’s not class-A space by any means. What I love is coming and going through the station.”

Bradach, who intends to retire in a few years, said the PDC’s 2020 timeline “works for me.”

It has yet to be decided whether the second and third floors will be retained as offices and renovated, or whether they will be repurposed. PDC officials emphasized it’s early in the process for the Union Station project.

“I think we’re leaning toward offices, but who knows what the future may hold?” Hendrickson said.

PDC officials were reluctant to put a price tag on the rehabilitation effort, but Hendrickson said the cost would be “significant.”

“Funding is a big unknown at this point,” she said.

The PDC is likely to pursue state and federal grants for the project, including high-speed rail, energy conservation and historic preservation grants. The agency also is exploring the possibility of bringing in a private-sector partner.

“The very earliest construction would start is 2020, and that’s all contingent on finding funding sources,” Hendrickson said.

DOWA-IBI Group has been hired for early design work for Union Station. HDR Inc. is examining the rail infrastructure and Amec Foster Wheeler is grappling with environmental issues at the site.

The future of Wilf’s Restaurant and Bar, a Union Station fixture since 1975, is an open question. General Manager Adele Nofield said there “weren’t a lot of clear answers” when she met with PDC staff recently.

“Obviously, our goal would be to stay here,” she said. “We’re still quite successful. I’m not sure how that would all play out.”

The remake of Union Station is seen as complementary to the Broadway Corridor plan for the U.S. Postal Service parcel that is estimated to result in 3.8 million square feet of residential, office and retail development.

Train station officials have long dealt with complaints about homelessness and panhandling. The neighborhood remains somewhat gritty.

Amtrak serves the station with its Cascades, Coast Starlight and Empire Builder trains. The station sees 10 passenger trains a day, and two more will be added this summer. Union Station also sees light freight traffic.

Union Station in 2016 served more than 590,000 passengers – an amount that is expected to double in coming years. Amtrak officials did not respond to messages seeking comment. PDC officials said Amtrak and the Oregon Department of Transportation are interested in upgrades that would shave time from train trips through the station.

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Multnomah County Health Department officials are seeking city of Portland approval and neighborhood support for construction of a taller building in Old Town Chinatown than zoning allows.

Initial plans for the health department’s new headquarters called for a six-story building that would not exceed the 75-foot height limit on a vacant lot east of Bud Clark Commons. But the proposed $46 million building would not be able to provide the approximately 120,000 to 150,000 square feet of office space the county anticipates it needing. The only way that the constrained half-block site could provide that much space would be in a building nine or 10 stories, county spokeswoman Julie Sullivan-Springhetti said.

“We have learned a six-story building is not enough space,” she said. “It’s critical that when we invest this type of money in public funds that we have the capacity, and that’s what we’re coming up against with the height limit.”

The revelation has led county officials to put on hold plans to break ground next month on a six-story building that would replace the department’s current downtown Portland headquarters, Sullivan-Springhetti said.

“We paused on that six-story (concept) and we are working with the city of Portland and the Portland Development Commission to look at what we can do to try and utilize the site,” she said.

Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability staffers are reviewing the county’s revised plans and are developing a proposal to change the height allowance on that block, bounded by Northwest Hoyt and Irving streets and Broadway and Sixth Avenue, city planner Nicholas Starin said. A city staff report on a proposed amendment to the height limit is expected to be released by the end of this week, he said.

“They need a fairly large building that wouldn’t fit within the 75 feet,” he said. “The number we’re working off is to get the height to 150 (feet).”

To achieve this, city planners propose increasing the base height allowed on the planned site to 120 feet and offering the county height bonuses in exchange for including building features that are considered a public benefit, such as an eco-roof. Currently, the site is not eligible for such floor-to-area-ratio bonuses.

The proposed height allowance and FAR bonuses require approval of the Portland Planning and Sustainability Commission and Portland City Council, Starin said. A Planning and Sustainability Commission public hearing for the proposal is scheduled for April 28. If the commission were to approve the height allowance, a City Council hearing would likely take place in June, he said. The project would then have to enter the city design review process.

County and city officials earlier this month met with neighbors of the site to discuss plans to construct a taller headquarters building. This includes seeking the support of the Old Town Chinatown Community Association and Pearl District Neighborhood Association.

When county officials last week presented the proposed height increase to the OTCCA’s Land Use and Design Review Committee, members expressed concerns about the taller building blocking views of the Union Station clock tower as well as inconsistency with the shorter surrounding structures. The neighborhood association’s board is scheduled to review the proposal on April 1.

Health department officials more than a decade ago began looking for options for relocation from the Gladys McCoy Building in downtown Portland. The 12-story building, constructed as a department store in 1923, had outlived its usefulness as the hub for one of Oregon’s largest federally qualified health centers. The new headquarters will allow the county to consolidate health department functions currently spread out across multiple buildings. It will house the department’s leadership, public health emergency services, a communicable disease program, specialty clinics, a pharmacy and electronic health records. About 350 health professionals would work out of the building.

In 2013, health department officials brought on Home Forward, ZGF Architects and JE Dunn Construction to formalize a building plan for developing the half-block site owned by the Portland Housing Bureau west of Northwest Sixth Avenue, between Irvington and Hoyt streets.

The department has since undergone a leadership transition. Former department head Lillian Shirley left in fall 2013 to lead the Oregon Public Health Division. The county’s former chief operating officer, Joanne Fuller, took over as interim director of the health department. The Multnomah County Board of Commissioners this past June appointed her health department director.

Sullivan-Springhetti said county officials still believe the Old Town site is a prime location for the health department’s new headquarters and hope to make the proposed project pencil out there.

“We have this great site (but) because it was limited to the 75-foot height for the investment we would not be able to fit the professionals and services in that for the cost,” she said. “This was the option we were hoping to go with and now we’re in the process to see how we make this work.”

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An administrator of the Federal Railroad Administration will tour Portland’s Union Station on Friday to assess how federal dollars were spent on recent renovations.

Joseph Szabo will begin the tour at 3 p.m., and then he will hold a meeting with Oregon Department of Transportation staff to talk about high-speed rail issues, according to Don Hamilton, ODOT spokesman.

In 2010, began work on a $7.5 million project to renovate Union Station’s iconic red tin roof, exterior windows and doors. The building’s seismic integrity was also improved. Part of that funding came from $1.2 million in transportation enhancement grants from ODOT and $1.4 million in American Recovery Reinvestment Act grants.

“But there’s additional work that needs to be done and that will be part of the talk on Friday,” said Shawn Uhlman, spokesman for the Portland Development Commission.

Uhlman said work still needs to be done on century-old station’s mechanical, electrical and fire safety systems. While the PDC does not have an estimate for the cost to make those improvements, Uhlman said the improvements would be fairly significant and that they may need to be completed in phases.

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Officials tossed dirt Monday morning at the conclusion of a groundbreaking ceremony for Phase C of The Yards at Union Station. The development’s fourth and final phase, designed by Otak and to be built by ,  will contain 80 affordable housing units. The 91ĘÓƵ covered the project in December:

The last phase of The Yards was supposed to be completed in the early 2000s, but it was delayed because of market reasons, according to developer . But Portland City Council, the Portland Housing Bureau and the Portland Development Commission recently approved loans and gap financing for the project.

Read more about the project at djcOregon.com.

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Approximately 14 years after construction began for the first phase of , the final phase is imminent. A once highly polluted seven-acre brownfield now is an Old Town residential development, and 80 more affordable housing units are scheduled to open in March 2013.

The last phase of The Yards was supposed to be completed in the early 2000s, but it was delayed because of market reasons, according to developer . But Portland City Council, the Portland Housing Bureau and the Portland Development Commission recently approved loans and gap financing for the project.

At a council meeting on Wednesday, Portland Mayor Sam Adams commented that the project “took longer than we thought.” He was working in the office of then-Mayor Vera Katz when planning for The Yards started at PDC in 1995.

“Talk about patient capital,” he said.

When the development of The Yards began, the entire area was different, on-site manager Betsy Pott said. She moved into the development’s first affordable housing building in 1999 and was eventually hired by GSL Properties to tackle property management.

“The first phase of this complex was just one building,” Pott said. “Pearl District did not exist. I moved in and watched the entire neighborhood be built.”

The brownfield site required significant cleanup – more than 3,000 tons of contaminated soil was removed and 10 million gallons of water was treated. The project received a Phoenix Award for environmental cleanup in 2000.

GSL Properties, a private developer, has worked with the city throughout development of The Yards, GSL project manager Melora Banker said. The firm signed a Disposition and Development Agreement for the land and moved ahead in 1997.

Three phases are completed: Phase A is a subsidized affordable apartment building; Phase B has two buildings with a mix of market-rate and affordable units; and Phase S has three buildings of market-rate townhomes with a few units of affordable housing for people earning 80 percent of median family income, Banker said.

GSL has been involved in the development of all phases, though Phase A is owned by the Housing Authority of Portland, and Phase B was developed jointly with another group. All of the units are rentals managed by GSL, Banker said.

The mix of incomes occasionally has led to conflicts; some residents in subsidized housing have said they don’t believe they have the same access to services as residents in high-end townhomes, Pott said.

“It’s been a tough balance, and it’s had its ups and its downs. Overall, I think it’s worked pretty well,” she said.

Phase C, the fourth and final phase, was initially planned as a high-rise building to increase the number of housing units from 535 to more than 700. However, that project was scaled down, Banker said.

“We decided on a smaller building,” she said. “The high-rise would have blocked the view of the train station’s clock tower.”

Pott said that GSL subsequently explored several other ideas, but none got off the ground until the most recent project was proposed. The gap between projects was unplanned, Banker said.

“It’s unusual that it’s gone on for this span of time,” she said. “The economy had a lot to do with Phase C not starting earlier.”

The affordable housing component of the last phase will provide a financing boost for the project. GSL will receive a loan from the urban renewal district for about $5 million – one-third of the project cost, City Commissioner Nick Fish said. That loan will be repaid from rent revenues over 40 years, he said. The project also will receive a 10-year tax abatement.

“One of the goals of the project is for the city to provide (financial support for) affordable housing options that the market does not,” Portland Housing Bureau Director Traci Manning said.

The Phase C units will be available to families making 60 percent of median family income, which is approximately $43,000, according to Fish.

Phase C, designed by architects, is slated to achieve a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design silver rating. GSL already has a contractor on board, though that information is not public yet, Banker said.

“It’s awesome to see it coming to fruition,” Pott said. “It was kind of an experimental property when it started – one of the first big mixed-unit projects downtown. It’s been an interesting experiment to see how everyone exists and lives.”

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Related

Union Station renovation

A project to renovate Portland’s Union Station will go forward despite minority participation goals not being met.

“This is the first time since we returned to setting hard goals that we have not had any bidder meet the goal,” said Jill Miller, program manager with the Oregon Department of Transportation’s Disadvantaged Business Enterprise program.

The project represents a collision between the highway and building construction worlds. ODOT doesn’t improve many buildings, and building contractors don’t often deal with the agency’s specific minority participation goals.

“The bidders on this particular project are not folks that are used to working on ODOT projects,” Miller said. “They weren’t really sure on what the process was, and they didn’t get the response from subcontractors that they thought they would.”

For projects using federal transportation money, ODOT sets minimum requirements for work done by African-American and Asian-American firms; for the Union Station job, that requirement was 3 percent of total contract dollars. Those two groups were identified in a disparity study as getting fewer jobs than their availability in the Portland-metro area.

Other public agencies’ participation goals for projects tend to include women, Hispanics and Native Americans as well. It’s easier to find subcontractors in that broader pool, said Steve Bartell, project manager for P&C Construction, which was awarded the $4.3 million contract.

“It’s difficult to find subs that have the right mix that the project needs,” Bartell said. “But we do due diligence and advertise in various papers, make contacts, go through (the Oregon Association of Minority Entrepreneurs).”

P&C officials contacted 30 to 40 minority subcontractors, Bartell said, but couldn’t find firms in the needed specialty areas that were available and capable of doing the work. P&C sought “somebody that can do painting, for example, with lead abatement – how to work around it and contain it,” he said.

“You can find minority and (women-owned businesses) for painters,” Bartell said. “You don’t find DBE, though. That’s true across the board. You don’t very often find them in the electrical end; there’s one or two locally big enough to handle these. Mechanical has a couple; plumbers sometimes go hand in hand with mechanical, but not too often there.”

Maurice Rahming, president of the National Association of Minority Contractors of Oregon, said he could name several DBE electrical contractors, including his own company, O’Neill Electric, that could do the work. Ditto for painting: Ha’s Painting, Billy Suell Painting and Professional Lath and Plaster all do painting, as do DBE general contractors including Pacificmark Construction and Colas Construction, Rahming said.

“If you’re looking at bidding this project, if you said I’ve got a 3 percent goal, like you just did, how hard was that?” Rahming said. “I read it right off to you.”

None of the five bidders called Rahming in his capacity with NAMC Oregon, he said. And none called him as an electrical contractor, he said, although it’s possible someone sent a fax. “I can tell you that, as a minority contractor, we get so many faxes coming in daily, it’s easy to miss one.”

Faye Burch, a consultant who helps contractors meet minority participation goals, said she got a message from one unidentified contractor just before the Union Station  bid due date. “That cannot be counted as a good-faith effort,” she said. “It was not serious outreach.”

Burch wants to see the project rebid. “If they wanted to meet the goal, they could have very easily,” she said. “And we could have helped them.”

It wasn’t that easy, said Barry Goodling, estimator and project manager with Skyward Construction, one of the bidders for the project. “We called everybody and contacted a lot of people and did what we’re supposed to do as part of a good-faith effort.”

Skyward got back only one bid from a disadvantaged business enterprise firm, but it was two minutes to bid time, Goodling said, and the Skyward had already gone with another subcontractor’s bid.

It wouldn’t have made a difference anyway, Goodling said. That line item wouldn’t have been worth 3 percent of the project, which amounts to roughly $150,000.

The subcontracts with bigger values are those for items without as many available minority contractors, Goodling said. “There’s not a lot of African-American (firms) qualified to do a million and a half (dollars) of specialized roofing like this,” he said.

Because none of the five bidders met the project goal, ODOT’s civil rights office reviewed the process, deciding that P&C had met the good-faith outreach effort requirement for the contract. Miller said she didn’t see a need to make any changes to the contracting process because the department has so few building construction projects with federal transportation money attached.

“We did what we could,” she said. “We made the attempt to get DBE participation on that project, and it didn’t seem like there was a lot of interest.

“So we’ll keep doing what we do best, and that’s building roads and bridges.”

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The red roof on Portland’s historic Union Station helps make the building a local landmark. Everyone recognizes the trademark terra cotta tiles.

Or so they think. The tiles are actually tin.

“I don’t know many people who realize that,” said Steve Bartell, project manager with P&C Construction, the general contractor on a $4.3 million project to fix the roof and make other improvements to the station.

“Until we started looking through it, we thought it was clay tiles.”

So how do you replace such unusual metal tiles? You get lucky.

Bartell found original dies used to stamp the tiles into shape locked in a safe at Union Station. Pioneer Sheet Metal will use the original dies to replicate the originals.

“It will match exactly,” Bartell said.

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The red roof on Portland’s historic Union Station helps make the building a local landmark. Everyone recognizes the trademark terra cotta tiles.

Or so they think. The tiles are actually tin.

“I don’t know many people who realize that,” said Steve Bartell, project manager with P&C Construction, the general contractor on a $4.3 million project to fix the roof and make other improvements to the station.

“Until we started looking through it, we thought it was clay tiles.”

So how do you replace such unusual metal tiles? You get lucky.

Bartell found original dies used to stamp the tiles into shape locked in a safe at Union Station. Pioneer Sheet Metal will use the original dies to replicate the originals.

“It will match exactly,” Bartell said.

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The project to repair Portland’s Union Station starts in June and should last nine months. It features major repairs to the characteristic red roof, as well as seismic upgrades to roof and wall structures, repairs and installations of new skylights and windows, work to refurnish doors and application of new paint. Work involves lead and asbestos abatement.

P&C Construction won the contract with a $4.3 million bid, well under the $6.7 million original estimate. The Oregon Department of Transportation may be able to use leftover federal stimulus money dedicated to Union Station for other projects, said Betsy Imholt with the department’s rail division.

“We’re in the middle of working out an agreement with the (Federal Railroad Administration) and the city of Portland,” Imholt said. “We don’t know what will happen to money that’s left over.”

The department has seven other rail projects that could use money for preliminary engineering and environmental reviews. If that work were completed, then those projects could be in the running for rail project construction money, Imholt said.

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