Oregon’s public universities won big recently during the 2021 legislative session, scoring $332.9 million in bond authorizations for major capital projects.

Oregon State University‘s Cordley Hall renovation was the single largest recipient of funding, receiving $86 million in total bond authorizations. The University of Oregon won $58.5 million in bond authorization for its Heritage Project renovations. Portland State University received $50 million for its Gateway Center reuse and extension.

Legislators were in a generous mood after a new revenue forecast showed surging income-tax collections. Funding for many priorities sailed through before the 2021 session concluded on June 26.

Community colleges also benefited. In addition to the nine-figure bond authorization for the state’s four-year public universities, two-year colleges were authorized to issue $75.95 million in bonds. Blue Mountain, Central Oregon, Linn-Benton, Mount Hood, Chemeketa and Tillamook Bay community colleges were among those to receive major funding.

Taken together, the funding will help kick off a burst of higher education projects around Oregon.

“This year’s legislative session showed strong support for higher education institutions and students,” UO spokeswoman Molly Blancett stated in an email. “The results are record investments in capital renovations on campuses, and full funding of UO’s operating and student financial aid requests.”

In Corvallis, an effort is under way to transform and modernize Cordley Hall, which was built between 1956 and 1965, according to an OSU magazine. The 236,000-square-foot building, which houses the Department of Integrative Biology, has limited collaborative space and is dominated by linear hallways and classrooms, according to the university. Following the renovation, the building will have modular laboratory layouts to give researchers more flexibility.

“It’s science, agriculture and teaching,” said Steve Clark, an OSU spokesman. “So for us it was a priority to complete the renovation, and the university is certainly appreciative the Legislature agreed to continue to participate in that effort.”

The state will benefit with new buildings, millions of dollars in new economic activity and construction jobs, Clark said.

OSU also won funding for the Student Success Center at its Cascades campus in Bend. The state-authorized $13.8 million in bond funding will add to $5 million raised by student fees for the project. The 22,500-square-foot building will have offices, meeting rooms and support services.

“For a developing campus – for any campus – to have a student success center is very important,” Clark said.

The Legislature also backed OSU’s Reser Stadium West Grandstand extension with $40 million in bond funding. Those dollars will be repaid by the university via tuition revenue and rent from a health clinic to be located in the building.

In Eugene, UO is embarking on major renovations of its two oldest buildings: University Hall (145 years old) and Villard Hall (135 years old). The combined renovations are called the Heritage Project, which involves seismic and other life and safety upgrades to the buildings. Water infiltration will be corrected, and the original steam heating will be replaced with modern HVAC (the buildings currently have no cooling system).

University and Villard halls will also be renovated with Americans with Disabilities Act access in mind; the buildings are noncompliant with ADA in stairways, bathrooms, elevators and lobbies, according to the university.

At PSU, the renovation and expansion of the downtown Gateway Center, at 200 S.W. Fifth Ave., will provide spaces for the School of Art + Design, Student Health and Counseling, and Speech and Hearing Sciences. The project will create new student space, labs, teaching spaces, materials storage, specialty clinics and a wellness center. New gallery and exhibit spaces will promote enrollment and interaction with the community.

The project will bring art students under one roof, said Elisabeth Charman, director of the School of Art + Design.

“To be able to have a center where everybody is together, you can see each other as you’re working through the building and you can exchange ideas and collaborate better … bringing us together is super healthy,” she said.

One other advantage, according to Charman: Students won’t have to tote canvases and art projects across PSU’s south downtown campus.

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As mass timber has gained appeal within the building industry, project teams have largely been addressing challenges as they arise. But the formation of a group of engineering, construction, architecture and fabrication firms could soon change that.

The REACTS (Research on Engineering, Architecture and Construction of Timber Structures) Consortium will begin looking at the most pressing questions about mass timber.

“It’s about a decision-making process to choose work and testing that will help innovate code or eliminate barriers and develop high-performance products,” said Iain Macdonald, director of the Corvallis-based Tallwood Design Institute.

The institute is comprised of members of Oregon State University‘s colleges of engineering and forestry and the University of Oregon‘s college of design. There on the OSU campus the REACTS Consortium will devise new subjects of research and carry out physical experiments at the Emmerson Advanced Wood Products Laboratory, which opened in 2019.

“The cooperative model is not uncommon in universities where you have outside stakeholders who contribute resources so they can get certain types of research done,” Macdonald said. “We’ve always done research that has heavy input from industry; we want research that has impact in the medium term, not blue-sky research necessarily.”

There are 16 firms presently involved in the consortium, which is still in the process of determining which issues it will focus on. More companies could join in the future, but for now the idea is to keep the group small and nimble.

“We’ve been talking in earnest over the last 15 months,” Macdonald said. “We talked with five or six companies in Portland we dealt with often and kicked around the idea to see who would be interested and what would work.”

There’s a three-tier structure under which companies pay different dues to help fund research. Other funding will come from state and federal agencies, including the U.S. Forest Service.

“The general philosophy is no matter what level member you are,” Macdonald said, “you have the ability to propose ideas and critique others.”

Ethan Martin, an associate with DCI Engineers of Portland, has been involved with research at OSU for a number of years. The consortium will focus largely on structural issues, including composite design involving mass timber and concrete or other combinations of materials, he said.

“This whole tall mass timber thing kind of came out of the blue for the wood industry,” he said. “It wasn’t a coordinated effort by any means, and now it is.”

Even with 2021 updates to the International Building Code accounting for mass-timber structures, Martin said, “tons of questions” still exist.

“Mass timber is in its infancy,” he said. “The idea behind the Tallwood Design Institute and REACTS is, again, we develop this code language for tall buildings and the framework is there. But the devil is in the details and a lot of the details have not been worked out.”

For Martin and others, however, there is satisfaction in figuring out those details.

“What else needs to be tested?” he asked. “Drift? Composite design? Stuff that is really going to be useful to keep mass-timber buildings rolling.”

Another issue that needs to be fleshed out is mass timber’s acoustic properties, said Graham Montgomery, technical director for Swinerton and its new Portland-based fabrication facility.

“It will definitely benefit what we bring to the table with jurisdictions and help everybody feel more comfortable with things because we’re actually testing these items,” Montgomery said.

Jonathan Heppner, a principal at Lever Architecture, the firm that designed the 12-story Framework mass-timber project that was canceled in 2017, said that one and others since have shown the need for a more coordinated approach within the industry. He likened the effort to a mobile phone, for which a variety of firms are responsible for the hardware, software and network needed to make it functional. Only by working together can the building industry successfully solve the outstanding issues around mass timber, he said.

“We’re just getting started,” Heppner said. “But ideally the consortium as a group can hit what we feel are the most targeted approaches to any of those topics and then maybe break out as groups and work out the research specific to those topics.”

Levi Huffman, technical director at DR Johnson, a Riddle-based fabricator of cross-laminated timber panels, agreed.

“We’ve grown with the market and have a sense there are challenges that we still have to overcome,” he said. “Any barriers, whether a structural design question or acoustics or sustainability for developers – those are items that come up that we need answers to. The thing with the REACTS Consortium is we can quickly identify the hurdles out there that we need to jump over.”

The Tallwood Design Institute, Huffman added, provides potentially costly resources that individual companies don’t have.

“Any time we have barriers that are broken down that make it easier for developers to develop a building, there are going to be more of them built and the demand for mass timber will go up,” he said. “It’s going to help grow the industry, break down barriers and keep this mass-timber movement going forward.”

Just one example of this, Heppner said, came up during the Framework project. The proposal for seismic resilience featured a rocking wall with an entirely exposed wood finish. A brace frame perhaps could have been superior, he said, but using mass timber to construct such elements hadn’t been done before.

“If you had something that was more of a brace frame solution it will have different implications for performance and for the user,” he said. “It’s a technology rather than a solution, and you’re just trying to find the best use of that. You want a lot of potential options to fit it into different scenarios that would come up.”

That kind of experimentation is exactly what the consortium is designed to tackle.

“Some of it really comes down to what will the jurisdiction allow,” Martin said. “That’s another opportunity for REACTS. We can design something, but if it’s not in the code, how does the building official know to accept it or not accept it? We’ve come up with some really cool stuff in California, but the official said, ‘Yeah, I see what you’re doing, but I don’t understand it and know how to approve it.’

“That’s one of the things REACTS will be able to help with also. When we come up with an idea that is valid, then we just need testing to prove it.”

Consortium members will have access to certain proprietary information and research results that come out of the effort. But the intent is to produce data that any firm can draw upon in the future, Macdonald said.

“We’ll see how it goes,” he said. “We’re not drawing a line under it. Some of these cooperatives have gone on for years and years, or basically as long as it’s required. There’s a lot of catch-up to do to generate the data and know-how for wood that we already have for concrete and steel. We’re still at the beginning of what mass timber can do.”

REACTS Consortium industry members

Gold level

Swinerton

Silver level

KPFF Consulting Engineers

Bronze level

Kaiser + Path

StructureCraft

MTC Solutions

DCI Engineers

SRG Partnership

U.S. Forest Service

Rothoblaas

MiTek

Odeh Engineers

DR Johnson

Katerra

Lever Architecture

Aspect Structural Engineers

Holmes Structures

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Tradespeople and engineers might be surprised by how much they can teach each other.

That was one of the key takeaways from a recent pilot program hosted by the Tallwood Design Institute last month at Oregon State University in Corvallis. OSU staffers led Northwest Carpenters Union apprentices through a mutually beneficial workshop that provided the latter with practical mass-timber construction experience and the former with a greater understanding of the building industry’s needs.

“It was just wonderful; it was a really great experience,” OSU assistant professor Erica Fischer said. “We’re hoping we can continue this, and this was 100 percent a pilot – a dummy test – to see if this could work. But I think that the carpenters enjoyed hearing about the bigger picture of what we were testing, and from the student perspective, understanding the questions the carpenters would ask. It’s something you can’t teach.”

The Tallwood Design Institute (TDI) is a collaboration of OSU’s colleges of engineering and forestry and the University of Oregon‘s College of Design. The TDI provides prototype and testing services to the construction industry, and this pilot program is specifically being used to test structural connections between glue-laminated beams and columns.

Because of the size of the beams, columns and cross-laminated-timber panels involved, Fischer and others at OSU believed it would be wise from a safety standpoint to enlist the help of carpenters. But instead of simply hiring a contractor, officials used connections at the Northwest Carpenters Union and its training center in Tangent to find the help they needed.

“We need the constructability part of the research because we are testing new connections no one has ever used in a building before,” Fischer said. “We want to make sure we’re actually designing something that enhances the constructability of mass timber, so we felt having skilled laborers who might be the ones on the jobsite building this would be wonderful.”

Union representative Trampas Simmons helped organize the program and said apprentices were chosen based upon their previous experience working on mass-timber projects, including OSU’s Peavy Hall built by general contractor Andersen Construction.

“It’s great training for our apprentices,” Simmons said.

Experienced supervisors were brought in to oversee the work as apprentices built six structural specimens over a three-day period in February. The field work was combined with classroom instruction that informed apprentices of the much higher level of preconstruction preparation and planning required for mass-timber projects.

“Framing is kind of like a common knowledge of standards – it’s been around for a long time,” said instructor Brian Zeller, a superintendent with Corvallis general contractor and union signatory TGC Structural. “With mass timber it’s a process that’s different. You’re working with screws, hangers and large chunks of wood. Just as tilt-up construction is different than framing, CLT or MPP (mass-plywood panels) is even more different in itself. It’s unique in a lot of ways, but it’s still a process – but a process that is different. The plan is different and it makes or breaks you.”

After two days in the classroom going over CAD drawings created by OSU graduate research assistants, the apprentices headed into a lab to build the specimens. Each was pieced together using 12-foot-tall glue-laminated columns and 14-foot-long glue-laminated beams with 4-foot-by-14-foot CLT panels secured on top of the beams.

“It wouldn’t be built like it would be in the real world; it was built laying on its side,” Simmons said. “It was a giant learning curve, and for this portion it was mainly about rigging and trying to problem-solve. Our training center does have a CLT curriculum that will reinforce what they actually learned.”

“The exposure is 90 percent of the training,” Zeller added. “It’s the exposure to the plan, being part of the team, knowing your role and knowing the new connections. They’re just different than what we’ve done before. You’re dealing with a three-inch deck that’s one big piece.”

Once the six specimens were built, they were lifted upright by crane for initial testing of the structural connections. Over the next two months each specimen will be tested by applying lateral forces via a hydraulic actuator. The actuator will impose deformations that would occur during an earthquake.

OSU College of Engineering graduate assistant Haley Madland helped with the initial construction drawings for the specimens and will help facilitate testing in the coming months. The experience has been invaluable, she said.

“I’m a young engineering student,” she said, “and I have had chances to create drawing sets, but I’ve never been able to be there while they are being constructed. The feedback was great to know what translates well from design to construction.”

Both OSU and the Northwest Carpenters Union hope this is only the beginning of collaboration.

“We’ve been talking to the (union) for a while more generally about workforce development,” said Iain Macdonald, director of the TDI. “They are obviously interested in mass timber. It’s a new paradigm in construction in some ways, and because of the high level of prefabrication, they’ve been interested in training their members on that.”

Macdonald noted that OSU has also created for engineering students a new mass-timber construction course that combines the knowledge within the colleges of forestry and engineering. Collaboration with the union, he added, is just another offshoot of OSU’s effort to advance the technology.

“We are looking at ways to join forces and help each other out in that kind of training,” he said.

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PROJECT: Phil and Penny Knight Campus for Accelerating Scientific Impact

LOCATION: University of Oregon, Eugene

SIZE:��160,000 square feet

COST:��$225 million (first-phase building)

CONSTRUCTION START: March 2018

CONSTRUCTION END: November 2020

CONTRACTOR:��Hoffman Construction

ARCHITECTS: Ennead Architects and Bora Architects

ENGINEERS: Affiliated Engineers Inc. (mechanical, electrical and plumbing); Northwest Engineering Service Inc. (MEP test and balance); Thornton Tomasetti (structural – lab buildings and bridge, façade engineering); KPFF (civil, garage, landscape, structural engineering); Notkin Wood Harbinger Alliance (systems infrastructure engineering); PBS Engineering and Environmental (hazardous materials/soils abatement); Systems West Engineers (energy modeling and commissioning); Kittelson & Associates (transportation engineering and planning)

OTHER TEAM MEMBERS: Jacobs Consultancy Inc. (laboratory planning); Shalleck Collaborative (audio/visual systems); Shen Milsom & Wilke of New York (acoustics/technology/security); Brightworks (sustainability consultant); PLACE (landscape architecture)

SIGNIFICANCE OF PROJECT: A grand opening for the Phil and Penny Knight Campus for Accelerating Scientific Impact took place in early December. The campus was designed to bring people together and encourage collaboration, integrating insights drawn from visits to leading research facilities. The signature characteristic is the inclusion of light-filled, double-height lab spaces that are truly unique in a wet-lab environment. They feature flexible open bench spaces that enable teams to do related work together, using cutting-edge equipment for rapid prototyping. The Knight Campus was made possible by a $500 million lead gift from Penny and Phil Knight and $70 million in state bonds. Gifts from other donors continue to help fulfill the vision. In addition to the building, the first phase includes elements such as property purchase and rehabilitation of the millrace. Dollars not used on building projects go into an endowment to directly support operations or faculty and equipment startup. The project team anticipates attaining a Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design gold rating. The Knight Campus offers a graduate internship program and a doctoral program in bioengineering, in partnership with Oregon State University. The internship program provides a career-focused accelerated master’s degree, with a nine-month hands-on internship; 90 percent of graduates launch careers in their fields within three months of graduating.

“Building Blocks” is a new 91��Ƶ feature that spotlights noteworthy projects either under construction or approaching the start of construction. To submit a project for consideration, please visit: djcoregon.com/building-blocks.

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The decade-long building boom’s effects on the construction workforce have been well chronicled, but effects also have reached elsewhere. Architecture firms are dealing with shortages of designers.

“(It’s) definitely an applicants’ market,” said Alan Osborne, vice president at Hennebery Eddy Architects in Portland.

The employment pool is suffering from a dearth of midcareer and, to a lesser extent, senior architects, hiring managers said. That’s an echo of the Great Recession that began in 2007 and drove workers away from the industry.

“Basically, there was a whole generation of architecture students who never started,” said Jon McGrew, a Hennebery Eddy associate principal.

Hennebery Eddy had a senior project architect position open for so long that the firm took advantage of a long-established program in Portland to borrow an architect from another firm. In this case, Bora Architects loaned a senior project architect to Hennebery Eddy for two months.

“You just can’t get enough people at that level,” Osborne said. “They’re very skilled at this point in their career, and there’s not enough of them to go around.”

Hennebery Eddy has hired more than a dozen architects in the past year, Osborne said.

Like others, Otak Inc. is struggling to find experienced architects.

“Right now we’ve been recruiting for more senior level, and I’m seeing more difficulty, obviously,” said Carol Forsberg, Otak’s talent acquisition partner.

TVA Architects is also looking for midcareer architects who can lead projects.

“There’s really just nobody in that 10- to 15-year (experience) range,” said Mandy Butler, a TVA principal who leads recruitment efforts for the 40-person firm.

TVA hires a new graduate only once every three to four years.

“There’s no shortage of brand-new graduates, and we get a tremendous number of applications from recent graduates,” Butler said.

Portland is a desirable market for architects, and there’s a substantial number willing to relocate from out of state, hiring managers said. As long as the project pipeline remains robust, firms will be hiring.

“What I’ve seen is a lot of people coming from outside this market,” including Boston and Seattle, Butler said. “They’re high quality, but sometimes the salary ask is out of alignment with where our market is at.”

The dearth of midcareer architects has pinched both sides of the divide, with younger architects playing more senior roles than usual, and older architects mentoring younger ones to accelerate their development, managers said.

Entry-level architects at major firms often do much of the actual design work. That fact and their more affordable starting salaries make them attractive to architectural firms.

“We do see quite a few firms recruiting,” said Karen O’Donnell Stein, spokeswoman for the Portland State University School of Architecture. The school expects to graduate approximately 44 undergraduate students and 27 graduate students in 2020.

“Our students are definitely in demand by architecture and design firms in the Portland area and beyond,” she added in an email. “Hiring personnel at firms frequently reach out to us when they have design jobs to fill, and our students have many opportunities to connect with professionals who participate in final reviews and other events.”

The University of Oregon holds a popular recruitment fair for architecture students and professional firms to meet. This year’s fair, on Feb. 20, has 41 firms signed up to visit with students in Eugene.

“We’ve been waiting for this strong, positive job market to end, and it hasn’t,” said Nancy Cheng, department head of the UO School of Architecture. “The outlook is very strong.”

Still, many firms are finding there are plenty of young architects looking for jobs.

“As far as entry level, I tend to see a lot of applicants,” Forsberg said.

Salaries for entry-level architects have increased, Osborne said.

“They’re on a steady climb, and that benefits us all,” he said.

SERA Architects has offices in Portland and Oakland, California. Both may soon present employment opportunities, said Valerie Williams-Hurwitz, director of human resources.

“We’re stable,” she said. “We expect to grow some in both offices.”

However, SERA respects the collegial atmosphere of the local design community.

“In Portland in particular we sort of have a gentlemen’s or gentlewomen’s agreement that we generally don’t poach from other firms,” Williams-Hurwitz said.

That said, SERA conducts open searches, and sometimes they result in an architect from another local firm being hired, she said.

Portland has the 10th-highest concentration of architects in the United States, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Among large cities, only Denver, Seattle and San Francisco have a higher concentration of architects. In 2018, the Portland-Hillsboro-Vancouver metro area employed 1,760 architects, at an average annual wage of $85,420.

Architecture firms are also beefing up their internship programs to lure young architects. SERA is working to put together a yearlong internship, which could provide participants experience in several different disciplines, Williams-Hurwitz said.

Williams-Hurwitz and other SERA representatives last week attended a career fair at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo. She said students who expect to graduate this spring are eager to land a position, but don’t seem to be lacking offers.

“We don’t usually have to offer beyond what we consider the market pay, but if we have to do other creative things, like a lot of architecture firms – whether it’s a signing bonus or relocation – we can do those things depending on the circumstances,” Williams-Hurwitz said.

Hennebery Eddy has also worked to strengthen its internship program, Osborne said. The firm recently hired a former intern – a Montana State University student who graduated in December.

“Our student intern program is more important than it’s ever been, so we work hard to get in top architects,” Osborne said.

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In 1954, Lewis Strauss, then the chairman of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, said homes would eventually have “electrical energy too cheap to meter.” That set the tone for building design in this country for decades.

“Air conditioning and refrigeration allowed us to design without thinking about the exterior environment,” said Mark Fretz, a research professor for the University of Oregon’s Institute for Health in the Built Environment based in Portland’s Old Town Chinatown. “And then the oil crisis hit in the 1970s.”

Virtually overnight, designers began to consider the role buildings play in energy consumption – over 40 percent of all energy produced in the U.S. is consumed by the built environment, according to nonprofit Building Green. Renewable power gained popularity and new, indoor ecosystems were devised that took into consideration the many ways in which building design contributes to energy use.

“Architects played a huge role in this,” said Fretz, who formerly worked for ZGF Architects.

Today, researchers like Fretz and others at the institute are studying how to improve not only buildings’ energy efficiency but also their impacts on occupants. This research formed the basis for a Wednesday lecture – one of more than 350 events taking place during Design Week Portland.

The centerpiece facility for the researchers’ work is the university’s Energy Studies in Buildings Laboratory, which is split between the White Stag Building in Portland and the main campus in Eugene. Drawing upon century-old research into the effects of natural light on human health, UO researchers are now examining the benefits of daylight and how it might be best utilized. Moreover, efforts are now being made to identify how the built environment affects other aspects of health, including at the microbial level.

“Here at the U of O we’re saying that we’re trying to design for evolution,” Fretz told the audience. “We design for our own human biological evolution, not just in terms of buildings, but we frequently have mismatches between buildings and our environment, so this is where designing the unseen comes in.”

The health care paradigm also plays a role in design now, Fretz added, explaining that non-medical determinants such as the physical environment play significant roles.

“We are starting to think of ourselves a little differently,” he said. “We can also be health care providers in a different sense.”

In Portland, Fretz and research partner Jason Stenson are making use of the lab’s unique climate chamber, which Stenson constructed by repurposing a walk-in refrigerator once used to store pickles. In the chamber, a radiant heating system built into movable wall panels offers the ability to heat the entire room, small portions or none of it. Meanwhile, humidity, acoustics and air flow are also studied. Even the bacteria that live in the built environment are studied.

Researchers have examined impacts such as the differences in the microbes found in buildings with mechanical ventilation versus window ventilation. For instance, buildings with exposure to the outdoor environment contain the most diverse collection of microbes, while buildings with mechanical systems hold the least diverse.

“The sources of air in an office are key,” Fretz said.

One of the best ways to change the microbes present in a space is to introduce a dog, Stenson added.

“They’re always bringing in new microbes from the outside,” he said.

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Hoffman Construction is seeking sub-bids for work on the Knight Campus for the Acceleration of Scientific Impact (KCASI) at the University of Oregon in Eugene.

Approximately $1 billion, including a $500 million donation from Phil and Penny Knight, is being invested in the KCASI. Development will the university’s existing science education complex along Franklin Boulevard. Three new state-of-the-art research facilities are designed to facilitate interdisciplinary research and collaboration.

When fully staffed, the campus within a campus will be home to around 300 employees, 250 graduate students, 150 undergraduate students, 150 postdoctoral scholars and 100 staff scientists.

Hoffman Construction is the construction manager-general contractor��for the project. Bora Architects teamed with Ennead Architects of New York to design the first phase of work.

Construction is under way on the project’s $225 million first phase, which includes more than 160,000 square feet of new classroom and laboratory space. Completion of this phase is expected in 2020.

A pre-bid meeting, including discussion of the scope of work for Bid Package No. 6 has been set for 10 a.m. on Nov. 8, at the Knight Campus Annex, 1399 Franklin Blvd., Eugene. Attendance is not mandatory, but strongly encouraged by the contractor.

Bid Package No. 6 includes miscellaneous metals, cross-laminated timber, lab and architectural finishes.

Bids are due no later than 2 p.m. on Nov. 27. For more information, call 503-221-8811 or email Hoffman’s Daniel Johnston at daniel-johnston@hoffmancorp.com.

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The University of Oregon near the core of its campus in Eugene.

To that end, UO‘s Design and Construction office, a department within Campus Planning and Facilities Management, is – even though a final site for the building hasn’t been selected yet.

The Classroom and Faculty Office Building is envisioned as three or four stories, with approximately 60,000 square feet of floor space. It will provide 750 much-needed classroom seats along with around 40 faculty offices to address existing capacity issues and enable the university to increase student enrollment in the coming years.

The building will be geared toward environment and society. It will house faculty in the College of Design and the College of Arts and Sciences, and serve the Geography Department and Environmental Studies Program, the Center for Environmental Futures, and the School of Planning, Public Policy and Management.

The three final campus are the Prince Lucien Campbell Hall parking lot, the Collier House site and the McArthur Court site. Both reuse and new construction options are being considered for the Mac Court site.

Design consulting and site selection services are being provided by Bora Architects.

The this month will make a recommendation to the university president, who will have final approval.

The approximate budget for the project is $45 million.

A pre-bid meeting is scheduled for 2 p.m. on Oct. 10, in Room 125 of the Chiles Business Center, 925 E. 13th Ave. in Eugene.

The deadline for bid submission is 2 p.m. on Oct. 17.

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With demolition of the old grandstands at the University of Oregon‘s Hayward Field now done, work on a replacement stadium is beginning in earnest.

Hoffman Construction is the general contractor for , which will produce a new world-class facility to host international events. The project was announced to the public in April to much fanfare, with a series of flashy renderings released by Portland architecture firm SRG Partnership and the University of Oregon Foundation. However, several minor design changes have reduced seating capacity slightly.

Now, Hoffman has issued a new for the project. A pre-bid meeting for MEP and all other work is set for 10 a.m. on Sept. 25, at the Hayward Field job site at 1580 E. 15th Ave. in Eugene. Attendance is not mandatory, but “strongly encouraged,” according to the contractor.

Bid items will include CMU; miscellaneous metals and steel; handrail, guardrail and railings; interior wood work; finish and exterior carpentry; metal panels; louvers and flashings; doors, frames and hardware; overhead coiling doors; curtain wall and storefront; skylights; glazing; framing and drywall; tile; flooring; painting; toilet compartments and accessories; bird control; equipment and field event material; hydrotherapy equipment; concessions and food service; site furnishings; fire suppression; plumbing; HVAC; electrical; site concrete; stone, pre-cast and unit paving; turf fields; fencing and gates; and landscaping.

This project team is actively seeking minority business enterprises, women business enterprises, emerging small businesses and service disabled veteran business enterprises to participate.

Following the pre-bid meeting, subcontractors will have until 2 p.m. on Oct. 5 to submit formal bids. Proposal documents may be viewed and/or downloaded without charge at .

The new stadium will seat up to 12,900 people for typical events, but up to 30,000 with expandable seating installed. The overall effect is intended to create a “theater” for fans.

A total cost for the project has not been announced, but the University of Oregon Foundation did reveal it will be fully paid for with private money, including sizable gifts from Phil and Penny Knight and over 50 other individual donors. two years ago came in at around $68 million. But more recent figures suggest that the cost has ballooned to nearly $200 million.

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The University of Oregon Foundation unveiled the design of a of venerable Hayward Field on Tuesday.

The series of renderings produced by architecture firm SRG Partnership show a graceful, curving grandstand wrapping three-quarters of the way around the track and field in the middle. The new stadium will typically seat up to 12,900 people, but be able to accommodate up to 30,000 with expandable seating installed. The overall effect is intended to create a “theater” for track and field fans.

“The new Hayward Field will be the finest track and field facility in the world when it is complete in 2020,” University of Oregon President Michael Schill said at a press conference to introduce the design renderings. “Fully funded by gifts from Phil and Penny (Knight), (and) more than 50 additional donors, the revitalized and reimagined Hayward Field will give athletes, including the University of Oregon’s student athletes, a magnificent, unparalleled stage in which to boldly showcase the power and beauty and capabilities of the human body.”

The project lead is the University of Oregon Foundation and the general contractor is Hoffman Construction. A total project cost was not announced, but initial estimates two years ago came in at slightly less than $70 million. More recent reports by The Oregonian and other media, however, suggest that costs have ballooned to nearly $200 million.

Work to demolish the old grandstands and other structures in preparation for construction will begin in June, the university said.

Both Hoffman Construction and SRG Partnership representatives indicated they are restricted from speaking to the press about the project at this time.

“Once we get through this a little more hopefully we can get some more information out there,” said Andy Cerotsky, project manager for Hoffman Construction.

Project advocates and opponents in the Eugene community have shared their opinions widely for months. Some people support the project completely, while others decry the loss of the historic, wooden-timber east grandstand built in 1925.

The renovation will affect not just Hayward Field itself, which opened for football games in 1919 and for track and field events two years later, but more of the campus’ east end.

According to University of Oregon Foundation information released online, a rebuilt Powell Plaza will remain as the main entrance to the stadium at the intersection of East 15th Avenue and Agate Street. There, the statue of Nike co-founder and legendary Oregon track coach Bill Bowerman will still stand watch.

But now, designers have revealed, there will also be a 165-foot-tall Bowerman Tower, with nine stories of offices, fitness space, media space and other facilities. The structure, which is narrowest at its base, is intended to symbolize the Olympic torch and the University of Oregon’s tradition of sending track and field athletes to the Olympic Games.

In addition, the project will include a large amount of classroom and laboratory space for the university’s Department of Human Physiology.

The new plans also show that a second plaza will be built at the stadium’s northwest corner, also on East 15th Avenue. Both plazas are intended to be part of greater park development.

The stadium’s south end will be pedestrianized, and a corridor connecting Agate Street to University Street will also provide a ramp for passersby to peer inside the stadium.

Hayward Field has a storied history. It has hosted the NCAA outdoor track and field championships the past three years and a total of 15 times. In 2016, the stadium hosted the U.S. Olympic Trials – the sixth time it performed that role.

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