The Portland Bureau of Development Services is in the process of writing an ordinance to require signs and tenant notifications for unreinforced masonry (URM) buildings, as directed by a Portland City Council issued in June. The City Council is set to meet at 2 p.m. on Oct. 3, at Portland City Hall, to discuss the draft proposal. This is a new date for .

The wide-ranging URM resolution also directs staff to implement mandatory retrofitting for critical facilities such as schools, government facilities and for-profit assembly spaces like community centers and theaters. Code changes reflecting these directions are expected to be rolled out by June 2019, according to the city.

The resolution also calls for development of more financial incentives for building owners looking to perform retrofits, as well as cost estimates and a strategy to retrofit city-owned URM buildings.

Two new committees will be created to oversee this process. One will be tasked with making recommendations for retrofits to for-profit buildings. The other will create draft recommendations for URMs owned by nonprofits, like churches.

The next step is to assemble the new committees. This will begin in October, with the posting of an application form at .

To be added to a URM information email list, contact: URMS@portlandoregon.gov.

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When the historic United Workmen Temple was demolished last fall, many in Portland were upset by the loss of the 1892 vintage building.

Formerly located at the corner of Southwest 2^nd and Taylor, it is one of two historic unreinforced masonry structures torn down to make way for the ambitious Third and Taylor project, which will see a 20-story hotel and 10-story office tower emerge from the rubble.

The second to fall is the old Lotus Hotel building, home to one of Portland’s most famous nightspots, the Lotus Cardroom and Café, from 1924 until its closure two years ago. The 1906 structure currently is being demolished as general contractor Turner Construction ramps up work on the two new high-rise projects planned for the site.

Check out a photo gallery below of the demolition during its early stages, and don’t forget to check back in a few days for the full story.

The post Photos: Historic Lotus Hotel building comes down appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

Owners of unreinforced masonry buildings may be required to place placards on their properties warning tenants and visitors of seismic risk after the Portland City Council on Wednesday directed staff to come up with a notification policy.

The policy will return before the council in three months for a vote. The notification requirement appears to be the most likely seismic measure to be adopted after years of committee meetings yielded little agreement on whether to mandate expensive seismic retrofits of hundreds of aging brick buildings.

The City Council delayed enacting any seismic retrofit mandates for a year, when a newly formed working group will report back to commissioners. Even then, a draft of seismic retrofit requirements would give building owners 20 years to complete the upgrades.

Commissioner Dan Saltzman said the council was giving property owners too much leeway to complete safety improvements.

“The problem with 20 years is 20 years is so far over the horizon that I don’t believe people will take it seriously,” he said.

A city inventory has identified 1,631 unreinforced masonry (URM) buildings. Most are commercial structures. Scientists say a major earthquake in Portland is inevitable when a tectonic plate that runs along Oregon’s coastline and is locked against North America slips underneath the continent. Unreinforced masonry buildings are likely to collapse in a significant earthquake.

The notion of requiring seismic retrofits drew fierce opposition from a broad coalition of building owners, historic preservationists, affordable housing advocates and churches. Many argued they simply would not be able to pay for seismic retrofits, which can cost millions of dollars for large buildings. The projects typically involve steel bracing, tying down parapets and tying walls to flooring.

The placard requirement gained unanimous support from commissioners. Mayor Ted Wheeler on Wednesday displayed a draft version of the placard’s text. It read: “This is an unreinforced masonry building. Unreinforced masonry buildings may be unsafe in the event of a major earthquake.”

Renters would also have to be notified if they live in a URM building.

“This is the clearest issue for me,” Commissioner Chloe Eudaly said. “Every tenant and occupant has the right to make an informed decision as to whether they want to live in a URM (building), and denying that information to them is not reasonable.”

Portland resident Kathy Rogers testified against the requirement.

“I think the placarding has potential unintended consequences, primarily for the small businesses,” she said.

Nonprofits pose a particular thorny problem for the city’s URM policy. A 15-year property tax exemption was identified by the city’s URM policy committee as a key method of paying for seismic retrofits. That does nothing to address the needs of churches and other nonprofits, which do not pay property taxes.

Several African-American clergymen pleaded with commissioners Wednesday to not require seismic retrofits without providing funding.

“We fully understand the importance of the lifesaving issues of the earthquake-proofing, but the lack of communication to churches, in particular African-American churches and others, and a lack of steps to ameliorate the special needs of institutions, is very troublesome,” said the Rev. Leroy Haynes Jr., pastor of Allen Temple Church in Northeast Portland.

Commissioners directed staff to add seismic retrofit funding to the city’s lobbying priorities for the 2019 legislative session. But it’s far from clear that more funding for seismic retrofits will be forthcoming from the Legislature.

“We won’t necessarily come up with any more resources,” Saltzman said. “And then what? We’re just going to turn a blind eye to the major seismic threats that face this area?”

Wheeler led the commissioners who sought to push back the requirements for at least another year.

“It is worth the miniscule risk that by delaying this for one year we will actually put people in life-safety danger,” he said. “It is a very small statistical possibility – although it is a real possibility.”

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The Portland City Council in coming weeks will wrestle with a policy that would give owners of seismically at-risk brick buildings a decade or more to complete costly retrofits.

A policy committee in December released a report calling for a tiered approach to seismic retrofit requirements. Building owners would be given ample time – 10 to 15 years – to complete upgrades.

An existing city code to require seismic retrofits in certain circumstances has proved largely ineffective, the committee’s report stated.

Since that code took effect in 1995, 85 percent of unreinforced masonry buildings have received no seismic upgrades, according to the committee’s report. Only about 5 percent were fully retrofitted, and 9 percent were partially upgraded.

About 8 percent of unreinforced masonry buildings from the 1990s inventory were demolished, according to the committee.

The current code requires a seismic retrofit when an unreinforced masonry building changes use, expands to an occupancy of more than 150 people or the building owner spends more than about $43 per square foot on improvements.

The proposed new policy was shaped by an 18-person committee that included architects, developers, building owners, historic preservation advocates and city officials. They issued a 37-page report.

The policy work comes after a widely read 2015 article Kathryn Schulz wrote for The New Yorker detailing devastation to be expected in the event of a Cascadia subduction zone earthquake. The odds of such an earthquake occurring within the next 50 years is about one in three, Schulz reported.

Now the policy matter is before the City Council, which is expected to take it up sometime in the “next few weeks,” said Michael Cox, spokesman for Mayor Ted Wheeler. It was not yet on any upcoming council agenda.

“We want to take a look at those recommendations and work with our council colleagues before we schedule a date,” Cox said.

Wheeler oversees the Office of Emergency Management, which would administer the policy. City commissioners are conferring, Cox said, but added it was too early to publicly discuss details.

“We’re incredibly thankful to the committee for providing … thoughtful input on these policies,” he said. “We like and appreciate the work that they’ve done, and it’s highly valuable.”

The proposed policy would affect a vast swath of Portland’s building inventory. Overall, the city has identified 1,884 unreinforced masonry buildings, with an average age of 88 years.

Unreinforced masonry buildings are common in Portland, particularly in older parts. The city’s list of URM buildings includes more than 7,000 apartment units. Of those, at least 1,800 apartments are publicly financed affordable housing.

Commercial buildings also appear on the list, including some that have had expensive tenant improvements without a seismic retrofit.

The policy committee recommended categorizing buildings:

• Class 1 is “critical buildings and essential facilities.” This includes hospitals, police and fire stations, water treatment plans and electricity-generating facilities. There are six buildings in this category.
• Class 2 facilities include schools, churches and other high-occupancy buildings. There are 92 buildings in this category, including 44 schools and 38 churches.
• Class 3 facilities include buildings with more than 10 occupants, including numerous apartments. This is by far the largest category, comprising 1,332 buildings.
• Class 4 facilities include one- and two-story buildings with zero to 10 occupants. This category has 201 buildings.

Members of the policy committee expressed concern regarding the high cost of seismic retrofits. Those costs can be difficult to recoup because seismically upgraded buildings command little, if any, premium over comparable buildings that have not been retrofitted.

“What concerns me deeply and has from the beginning is we lack the financial tools for building owners to pay for the upgrades,” said Peggy Moretti, executive director of Restore Oregon, a nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving historic buildings. “That tempered the level of seismic retrofitting that was mandated. It was a compromise based on some concerns about paying for it.”

Moretti suggested the city of Portland should lobby for financial assistance from the state to help building owners pay for seismic upgrades.

“We really need to create a better financial incentive for retrofitting,” she said.

Adding to the cost for multifamily building owners is the city’s relocation ordinance that requires compensating tenants who are evicted without cause. One Portland developer paid nearly $200,000 last year to evict tenants from 65 units at the Fairmount Hotel.

Some building owners are considering seismic upgrades regardless of what the City Council implements. A committee of St. James Lutheran Church, at 1315 S.W. Park Ave., is investigating seismic retrofits for three buildings owned by the church. The St. James Council would first make a recommendation to the congregation for a final decision.

Ralph Oyler, president of the St. James Council, said the church has a “moral obligation” to investigate seismic retrofits in light of the Cascadia fault. The seismic retrofits carry “tremendous potential costs,” but it would be premature to discuss how the church would fund the project, he said.

Don Nielsen, a retired architect who is a member of St. James Lutheran Church, said it makes sense for the church to proceed with engineering and architectural studies for a potential seismic retrofit.

“Generally, the feeling is that is something that should be done,” he said.

The post Revving up to revamp retrofit requirements appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

The Portland City Council is preparing to consider a policy that would require owners of unreinforced brick buildings to retrofit them, and building owners are urging the city to provide financing.

Portland has 1,644 unreinforced masonry buildings, according to a city inventory. They are 88 years old on average.

Portland officials have anticipated the need to retrofit the city’s unreinforced masonry (URM) buildings for years. The city’s first retrofit requirements were adopted in the mid-1990s. But increasing awareness of Portland’s risk for a potentially devastating Cascadia subduction zone earthquake has added urgency to the efforts.

Even landlords now recognize that seismic retrofit requirements are coming.

“At the end of the day, it’s how can it be done, not should it be done,” said Gwenn Baldwin, a lobbyist who represents the Masonry Building Owners of Oregon.

The URM Policy Committee will meet for the final time on Oct. 4. The City Council will then perform its first review of the policy Oct. 19. The council is not expected to vote on the policy at that meeting.

The policy’s creation is overseen by the city’s Bureau of Emergency Management, which is overseen by Mayor Ted Wheeler. His office is monitoring the URM Policy Committee’s work, spokesman Michael Cox said.

“We’ve been working closely with them on refining their proposal,” he said.

The policy has been years in the making, in part because building upgrade mandates often face resistance from property owners. Seismic retrofits are a particularly costly upgrade, often requiring landlords to evict or temporarily relocate tenants for months while work proceeds.

Adding to the difficulties is the city’s new relocation assistance ordinance that requires landlords to compensate tenants upon issuing a no-cause eviction. The relocation assistance varies by the size of unit, ranging from $2,900 to vacate a studio apartment to $4,500 for a unit with at least three bedrooms.

Those costs add up. Last spring, Urban Development + Partners evicted tenants from 65 units at the Fairmount Hotel to make way for a major renovation. The fees cost the Portland developer $199,800.

In concept, seismic retrofits could hardly be simpler: add steel. Typically, steel bars are added to reinforce masonry walls. Parapets and other features are tied down into more durable structures.

The construction is straightforward, but the costs can be high, particularly for the owners of small buildings that generate modest leasing income.

And not all unreinforced masonry buildings are for-profit operations. The city’s inventory lists approximately 45 schools and 35 churches. Central City Concern, one of the city’s largest nonprofit owners of affordable housing, owns several unreinforced masonry buildings.

URM buildings were built in Portland between about 1870 and 1960, according to the city’s draft summary. Many of the buildings are located downtown, in Old Town Chinatown and in the Central Eastside Industrial District.

Government officials have known of Portland’s seismic risks for years, but a story in the Portland Mercury in 2012 shed light on the scale of the problem. Former Commissioner Steve Novick drew attention to the issue, and then a 2015 article in The New Yorker added alarm with scenarios of widespread death, displacement and structural failures from the inevitable earthquake.

A draft of the city’s policy was released in April, and changes may still be made. The draft policy takes a tiered approach to regulating URM retrofits.

The URM committee process has helped make the draft policy workable for building owners, Baldwin said.

“The process has actually accomplished what you hope from the Portland process,” she said. “It has become more practical, more grounded.”

In the tiered approach, the vast majority of unreinforced masonry buildings is in class 3, designated for buildings with more than 10 occupants but no critical infrastructure. Draft retrofit standards for those buildings call for bracing unreinforced masonry parapets, cornices and chimneys, anchoring walls to floors and roofs, attaching a diaphragm to vertical elements to transfer in plane shear and out-of-plane wall bracing for taller walls.

Owners of class 3 buildings would have five years to assess needed seismic upgrades, 10 years to brace parapets and attach walls to the roof, 20 years to complete wall-to-floor attachments and wall strengthening and 25 years to complete all work. A five-year extension could be provided for hardship.

Class 1 buildings – critical ones such as hospitals and fire stations that must be occupied after an earthquake – have much tighter timelines. Owners of these buildings are given three years to assess and 10 years to complete a retrofit.

Class 2 buildings include schools and churches. Owners of those buildings are given three years for assessment, 10 years for bracing and 20 years to complete a retrofit.

Class 4 buildings are one- to two-story buildings with up to 10 occupants. Owners of those are given 10 years to complete a seismic retrofit.

Affordable housing providers are working to make sure the policy doesn’t result in the closure of any buildings. Central City Concern has been in contact with the Portland Housing Bureau to devise an exception for affordable housing.

The amendment, if adopted by the URM Policy Committee and City Council, would allow an extended timeline for owners of affordable housing to evaluate and conduct retrofits of their buildings, said Sean Hubert, chief housing and employment officer for Central City Concern.

“We feel in terms of the affordable housing piece that that is a good compromise,” he said.

If the amendment is not adopted, Central City Concern would oppose the URM policy, Hubert said.

City codes beginning in the 1970s resulted in the closure of thousands of single-room occupancy units, which share kitchens and bathrooms and serve as housing of last resort for many impoverished individuals, Hubert said. The closure of those units coincided with a rise in homelessness, he said.

“A lot of that loss was due to the city getting more tough on code enforcement and new codes,” he said.

Seismic retrofits for multistory apartment buildings are costlier than similar upgrades for buildings with open floor plans, Hubert said.

“What we have found – in order to do a full seismic retrofit – you have to shore up the diaphragm at each level, which means you have to tear up everything,” he said. “It’s a very costly prospect.”

For many owners of small URM buildings, the property serves as their retirement income, said Susan Steward, executive director of the Building Owners and Managers Association of Oregon. It’s critical the city provide financing for the seismic retrofits, she said.

“I’m still concerned at the end of the day they’re going to pass this with nothing in place (for financial assistance),” she said.

Few buildings have sufficient equity to finance costly retrofits, she said.

A program called PropertyFit aims to close the financial gap. It’s operated by Prosper Portland, Multnomah County and the Energy Trust of Oregon, with outside capital partners. The program offers financing beginning at $200,000 with terms of up to 30 years. The loans are secured by a property lien.

The program has yet to be tested, however.

City officials appear to be sympathetic to building owners’ concerns, Steward said.

“They seem to get it,” she said.

City officials are aware of the financing challenges, but also hesitant to hand out dollars to private property owners. A property-tax abatement may be part of the answer.

The policy is on the right track – as long as financing comes together, Baldwin said.

“We’re close,” she said. “But don’t get things out of order. Don’t pass (the policy) and then figure out financing.”

The post Preparing for a big one appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

Portland’s Unreinforced Masonry (URM) Policy Committee will meet at least once more. Thursday’s public hearing was supposed to be the final one, but a room full of building owners upset with recommended upgrade steps succeeded in delaying a move to City Council.

Owners said the proposal that would mandate upgrades of URM structures is unfair, demanded greater financial incentives and accused the committee’s volunteers of failing to listen.

The plan currently includes the following four steps and coinciding deadlines.

• Step 1 – A full upgrade strategy including detailed cost estimates must be completed within five years. The assessments typically cost between $5,000 and $15,000.
• Step 2 – Parapets, cornices and chimneys must be braced, and the roof must be attached to walls within 10 years.

The upgrades required by Step 2 are already required by current Portland city code; however, a loophole allows owners to perform nearly 50 percent of a re-roof, then wait a period of time before completing the project under a separate building permit.

(Several committee members suggested that closing the loophole would represent a step in the right direction, and suggested, off the record, this loophole is likely why so many building owners support keeping Step 2 in the plan.)

• Step 3 – All floors must be attached to walls and the roof must be sheathed within 15 years.
• Step 4 – A complete retrofit must be performed within 25 years. The cost estimate for such a project is between two and eight times the cost of Step 3.

A majority of the owners who attended the meeting said they support steps 1 and 2, but say steps 3 and 4 put a full upgrade financially out of reach.

“We’re not fat cats; we’re small businessmen,” one said.

Don Nielsen, a representative of St. James Lutheran Church, said the congregation has worked hard to raise $600,000 of the $4 million cost to upgrade its 125-year-old building at Southwest Park Avenue and Jefferson Street. But the construction boom has made the project even more costly for the church, and the looming passage of the city’s URM rules has created even more uncertainty, he said.

The church currently houses the St. James Child Development Center – the largest child care facility in the city, Nielsen said.

“That building will probably have to close at some point, and right now it’s providing a lot of services,” he said.

Lindsay Levy, who co-owns with her husband the building at 909 N. Dekum St., said more focus should go to Portland’s old brick school buildings.

“I don’t feel like any of you have skin in the game,” she said to the committee. “Don’t tell me this is about safety when we have to beg for a bond to fix our schools. The city kicks around the owners. Since you’re holding all of us accountable, I want to hold the city accountable. The kids and the older people should come first.”

One committee member is a representative of URM building owners – attorney Walt McMonies.

“I don’t call them ‘incentives;’ I call them essential financing for this sort of project,” he said.

Committee member Brian Emerick was interrupted as he tried to defend the committee’s work.

“It’s not his money,” an audience member called out, to applause.

The morning after the meeting, Emerick, an architect who works on seismic upgrade projects, said he regretted not doing a better job defending the committee’s progress tailoring the rules to different perspectives.

Among the changes worked out by the subcommittee are simplifying some conditions, revising definitions and removing steps in the process.

Many pointed out that lenders are increasingly wary of URM upgrades.

“Where are the folks in this room going to find the money to finance these upgrades?” Steve Rose said.

Seventy-five year old retiree Michael Emert left copies of his statement next to an official handout packet at the entrance. It details how full upgrades of the two conjoined buildings he purchased in 1993 as a retirement investment would cost between $750,000 and $1 million.

“Right now, it would cost more to retrofit than I can afford to pay in my lifetime,” he said.

Also largely supportive is the Portland City Club. A representative said around 80 percent of its approximately 2,000 members support the plan.

One issue yet to be resolved is whether Multnomah County will adopt provisions of a recently passed state law – Senate Bill 311, which allows local governments to pass property tax exemptions to pay for seismic upgrades of commercial buildings built before 1993. It’s thought the law will cover up to 80 percent of the costs for performing Step 3 upgrades.

Emerick said he wants the final plan to include Step 3 only if Portland and Multnomah County enable SB 311.

The emotionally-charged testimony may have affected committee members. When an audience member suggested that the proposed policy could be potentially more destructive to old buildings in Portland than an actual earthquake, by forcing owners to tear down or sell, Peggy Moretti of Restore Oregon responded, “Saving buildings is our mission … I cannot support a policy that would lead to the destruction of historical buildings. At this moment I am of the position that we cannot mandate something that there are not financial tools for.”

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The owners of Portland buildings likely to collapse in a sizable earthquake could get a deadline to upgrade: 25 years.

The city’s Unreinforced Masonry (URM) Policy Committee last week released a draft proposal that contains for the first time a timeline to strengthen buildings considered likely to fail in a seismic event. The report proposes a tiered approach and prioritizes the most critical structures, including a number of schools and multifamily buildings.

“The idea here, essentially, is to recognize that not all buildings need to (be) upgraded to the same standard, because of their differing risk and their differing importance after an earthquake.” KPFF structural engineer Reid Zimmerman said.

Zimmerman is one of the architecture, engineering and construction industry representatives who served on the committee, along with developers, public officials, historical preservationists and a geologist. He’s also KPFF’s co-project manager for the Roosevelt High School renovation.

About 85 percent of Portland’s approximately 1,700 URM buildings have not been retrofitted, while just 5 percent have been “fully upgraded,” according to city . At-risk structures include 45 schools, 35 churches and 270 multifamily buildings. All were built before 1960; their average age is 88.

URM building owners make the case that upgrades cost a lot, and tenants haven’t been willing to pay more to live in upgraded structures. But the public understanding of seismic danger in the Pacific Northwest is increasing, and, as the committee report states, other major West Coast cities like San Francisco and Seattle have all but eliminated the threat of URM building failures in seismic events.

A major concern for the committee was the cost of seismic upgrades, Zimmerman said. Committee members will assist efforts in the next legislative session to secure grant money for owners to upgrade, he added.

Up next, the policy committee will convene public meetings Sept. 8 and 22 to discuss the report. The city is also awaiting the results of an independent cost-benefit analysis by a contractor in Davis, Calif.

The results of those meetings, and public comments, will be added to the report, which will be presented to the City Council by the end of the year. The council will vote on an ordinance containing retrofit standards and a timeline before 2017 begins.

The post Deadline proposed for unreinforced masonry upgrades appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

Western Oregon is a geologic hot spot. Even though the region hasn’t been rocked by a major quake in the modern era,experts agree there’s a serious chance one will hit in our lifetimes. Among the hazards of a large seismic event is the failure of buildings made of unreinforced masonry (URM) – brittle brick buildings of a kind demonstrated to have a high likelihood of failure in a seismic event.

The problem of what to do with Oregon’s URM buildings has vexed policy makers for nearly as long as the dangers have been known. But there’s growing sense that what’s been tried hasn’t worked and a new law will have to take a harder line to get owners to comply. To do that, it’s thought there will have to be incentives.

In Portland, stakeholders are drafting a new proposal that will likely require owners to retrofit and set deadlines for compliance.

“Everybody knows what needs to be done,” said Susan Steward, executive director of Building Owners and Managers Association of Oregon. “The problem is: How do we pay for it?”

No incentive

The pickle of a URM building owner is pretty straightforward: seismically upgrading a URM building is expensive – between $25 and $40 per square foot – and there’s little financial incentive to do it. That’s because the improvement is generally thought to add little “rentability” to the structure.

“Are tenants willing to pay more for a seismically-upgraded building? At this point, I don’t think so,” said Greg Frick, partner at HFO Investment Real Estate. “There’s a high cost involved, and I know not every owner is going to be able to write a check for 20 grand a unit to do an improvement. There’s this misconception that a lot of these apartment owners are basking in money.”

HFO is involved with several downtown apartment buildings that are unreinforced. Frick said it all comes down to what’s right for each building. A seismic upgrade is in most instances a major financial burden. And costs vary from a few thousand to over $1 million.

“It’s just a question of what makes sense and what doesn’t make sense,” he said.

Steward’s group, BOMA Oregon, drafted a report ahead of a release of findings by the city’s URM Seismic Retrofit Project calling for financial assistance to cover or reduce the cost of a retrofit, as well as exemptions to help keep costs for owners low.

Though many notable and historic URM buildings are publicly-owned, 95 percent of the URM stock in Portland is held privately. Not all the owners are wealthy corporations, Steward said, and few can afford to sink a huge cost. She said if the city mandates seismic upgrades, tax credits and grants above what’s currently available will be necessary.

California current

Though things move slowly in geologic time, public awareness of the earthquake danger in the Pacific Northwest has moved rapidly in recent years, according to Dan Douthit, spokesman for Portland’s Bureau of Emergency Management. Part of the reason was an article in the July 2015 issue of The New Yorker magazine – “The Really Big One,” by Kathryn Schultz.

“Leading up to it there were things that helped raise awareness, but the New Yorker article really was a watershed moment in the public’s understanding of the earthquake danger in the Northwest,” Douthit said. “It’s been building for a while, this general awareness. The New Yorker article was just written in a way that captured international attention. I think these days people are aware of it – Oregon and Portland get earthquakes.”

Compared with other major West Coast cities, Portland has a high number of URM buildings. This has something to do with when Portland was built, and a lot to do with the fact that Portland and Oregon have yet to be hit with a sizable quake. Laws requiring retrofits have been in place in California since the 1980s. Seattle’s URM inventory is notably smaller than Portland’s because many unreinforced brick buildings have been either upgraded by now, demolished or lost in a temblor.

Some of Portland’s approximately 1,800 URM buildings are considered significant from a historical perspective. In these cases, federal and state tax money is available. The federal government offers a 20 percent tax credit for rehabilitation of historic income-producing buildings, and a 10 percent tax credit for non-historic buildings. The Portland Development Commission offers grants through a storefront improvement program and the city waives or reduces building permit fees for certain renovations.

About 75 percent of the $1 million cost to upgrade the Montgomery Court residence hall at Portland State University was covered by a grant by the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Predisaster Mitigation Program. The building was designed by noted architect A.E. Doyle, and today still houses students during the academic year. Those factors helped preservationists win the funding, said Yumei Wang, senior engineer with the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries who worked on the project.

“In general, if you were to do a full upgrade of a URM building like that, it’d be very expensive,” she said.

At hazard

San Francisco transplant Eric Cress knows he’s in the minority. His firm, Urban Development Partners, specializes in adaptive reuse of old buildings, including their current home on Northeast Sixth Avenue between Couch and Davis streets. Cress did a lot of this work in the Bay Area, where the threat of an earthquake isn’t so foreign, before relocating to Portland 10 years ago.

Cress says Urban Development Partners’ philosophy is to upgrade any building it purchases, simply to protect the investment. An old warehouse can command high rents if it’s converted into a hip creative office in a cool part of town. But Cress said Urban Development Partners won’t purchase a building if a seismic retrofit doesn’t make sense. But for other owners, particularly owners of industrial URM buildings, an upgrade doesn’t make financial sense.

“There are buildings in Portland where it just wouldn’t pencil. No matter what you do, you won’t get the rents needed to pay for the upgrades,” Cress said.

Amit Kumar, senior structural engineer with the city’s Bureau of Development Services, said Urban Development Partners is the rare exception.

“What we see from our experience is totally the opposite,” he said.

The city’s Bureau of Development Services first started tracking URM data in 1994. Today’s updated count is 1,884 URM buildings, including 87 that have been upgraded. Additionally, 153 have been demolished.

“Eighty-seven isn’t very high,” Kumar said.

Most of the upgraded buildings were the result of the current local ordinance, which has a series of “triggers” that lead to seismic upgrades. They generally involve changing use of a building to a higher hazard level. Converting a little shop in a gentrifying neighborhood into a nightclub is an example, Kumar said. This is how most of the URM conversions have taken place. But it’s not a good plan for the future, he said.

“We’ve had these triggers for 20 years and we’ve seen very little improvement in getting rid of these hazards,” he said. “We are trying to get the ball rolling on this, because we’re at 12 percent upgraded. That means it will take another 80 to 100 years to get rid of these hazards.”

To address the slow pace of retrofitting URM buildings, three city agencies were tasked last year by the City Council to come up with a law requiring seismic retrofits for URM buildings, as well as devising incentives for building owners. BDS is joined by the Bureau of Emergency Services and the Portland Development Commission, which is involved with a number of URM buildings. They’re overseeing three committees, which are developing retrofit standards, a new policy and a system of incentives for building owners.

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