Habitat for Humanity has applied to the Portland Bureau of Development Services for of plans for a 30-unit multifamily development on North Interstate Avenue.

According to a public notice published Nov. 1, the nonprofit is planning for construction in two phases. The first would include a three-story, 12-unit building on the property’s western half; the second phase would feature a three-story, 18-unit building on the eastern half.

The property is at the intersection of North Interstate Avenue and Kilpatrick Street. Because phase 1 building would be within 100 feet of Interstate Avenue, a street featuring transit use, at least 25 percent of the ground-floor use is required to feature an active use. Habitat for Humanity is requesting to reduce that required amount to zero.

The subject property consists of six formerly separate tax lots that have since been consolidated into a single parcel. Buildings on the consolidated parcel include a garage built in 1949, a duplex and a vacant single-family home. The latter residence over the years has elicited complaints to the city over issues such as overgrown grass, persons camping in tents in the backyard and existence of an open, unsecured shed.

Public comments are being received BDS staff through Nov. 26. Following consideration of those comments, staff will either approve the request, approve it with conditions or deny it.

R&B Design Studio is designing the project; William Wilson Architects carried out preliminary design work.

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The Portland Design Commission unanimously approved plans for a six-story mixed-use building in North Portland after an earlier staff denial.

Commissioners voted 6-0 to approve the project at 3217 N. Williams Ave. on Thursday. Commissioner Jessica Molinar did not participate in the vote.

The project consists of 73 residential units with approximately 2,740 square feet of ground-level retail space and 19 parking spaces in partially below-grade structured parking. The building also features a raised internal courtyard.

The original application called for two buildings, but property owner Deborah Parker opted to go forward with only one. The property is an L-shaped collection of three parcels bounded by North Williams and Vancouver avenues and North Cook and Fargo streets. Currently, The People’s Pig, a barbecue restaurant, occupies the property; however, that structure will be demolished.

Thursday’s hearing was the third appeal hearing for the project. Bureau of Development Services staff denied modifications requested for project approval in an April 9 decision letter.

Parker and the project’s architects have since changed the project in several ways. The applicant agreed to work with the Regional Arts and Culture Council to install a public art piece on a blank wall facing Cook Street that will reflect the history of the site and surrounding area. The applicant also agreed to build a secondary lobby along Cook Street to help activate the frontage.

Commissioner Tad Savinar urged Parker to allocate an appropriate amount of money toward the artwork.

“I think it’s critical for this to work – there has to be a certain budget allotted for this that is conducive to a respectful work of art,” he said.

Commissioner Zari Santner said RACC is optimistic the project team will “work with an artist to create something that is worthy of the heritage of that neighborhood.”

“I want to commend the applicants for being patient to work with the commission,” she said. “As a result, your project is a far better project when it’s built.”

The appeal also included more information about landscaping, lighting and other details that were not included in the original application.

The project team exchanged some vehicle parking for additional bike parking. The building will have 108 long-term bicycle parking spaces.

Parker’s architect of record was Jennifer Nye of William Wilson Architects. Local architect Ken Moholt-Siebert designed earlier iterations of the project. Parker was also represented by attorney E. Michael Connors of Portland firm Hathaway Larson.

Parker, who currently resides in Los Angeles but formerly was a longtime North Portland resident, has been planning the project since at least 2013. At that time, draft plans called for four live-work units.

Parker also owns the property at 33 N. Fargo St. Some design work has been done for a project there, but Parker opted not to go forward with it at this time, Nye said.

The neighborhood has seen an explosion of new development, particularly multifamily projects. The Century, a five-story, 104-unit apartment building, has been completed on the northwest corner of the block. Cook Street Apartments, a six-story, 206-unit mixed-use building, has been completed a block to the north. A New Seasons grocery store was built two blocks to the north.

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REACH Community Development is now closer to development of an affordable housing project in Hillsboro.

The Portland-based developer received a $500,000 grant from the Meyer Memorial Trust. The award will go toward development of REACH’s Orchards at Orenco Station, a 57-unit multifamily project that William Wilson Architects, Walsh Construction, Green Hammer and PAE Consulting Engineers are creating to meet passive house standards.

Passive house designs use superior insulation and air ventilation systems to reduce energy consumption. The Orchards complex is expected to cut down on heat loads by 90 percent and be one of the first passive multifamily projects in the nation.

The goal is to minimize ongoing housing-related costs for tenants. The development will cater to residents earning 50 percent of median family income, or $25,000 for a single-person household. In a prepared statement, Meyer Memorial Trust CEO Doug Stamm, said planning for affordable housing in Washington County is important for the area’s rapidly expanding workforce.

The award from the Meyer Memorial Trust follows a $750,000 grant that REACH received in February 2012 from Washington County.

REACH hoped to receive a 9 percent housing tax credit from Oregon Housing and Community Services last year, but it was not selected. REACH project manager Jessica Woodruff said the organization intended to re-enter the competitive process for the tax credit in 2013.

REACH had hoped to begin construction of the $8.2 million to $8.4 million project this fall, but Woodruff said the team now is shooting for spring 2014.

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The team at REACH Community Development, an affordable housing developer based in Portland, is ratcheting its focus up a notch from affordable housing to affordable living.

“If we really think through all the things we do, we can really enable our residents to have lower housing costs, lower energy costs and lower transportation costs, which are the biggest bills people deal with,” REACH project manager Jessica Woodruff said.

With that pursuit in mind, REACH is developing a 57-unit affordable housing complex in Hillsboro with passive house design. Craig Kelley, senior project manager for the Housing Development Center, said it is cost-engineering the Orchards at Orenco Station, between $8.2 million and $8.4 million, with William Wilson Architects, Walsh Construction, Green Hammer and PAE Consulting Engineers, to optimize energy performance and minimize incremental costs.

Passive house design uses superior insulation and air ventilation systems to dramatically reduce energy consumption, and Dylan Lamar, certified passive house consultant with Portland-based Green Hammer, said the building will be one of the first passive house multifamily buildings in the nation.

“It’s a fabulously innovative project that’s going to reduce total heat loads in the building by about 90 percent from a typical building,” he said.

Lamar participated in the design of one of the first low-income passive houses in the country, a single-family project in Urbana, Ill. He said the size of the Orchards at Orenco Station will present its own unique design challenges, such as the creation of an elaborate ventilation system to continuously cycle air throughout the complex.

The building will use 11-inch-thick walls with several inches of exterior insulation, and triple-paned windows to make the building’s envelope nearly airtight. Lamar said that one advantage of incorporating passive design in a larger building with many rooms is that it does not require 16-inch-thick walls typically needed in single-family homes.

“I think the most exciting part of it is to be able to provide what’s typically a very expensive way to build for a low-income population,” he said.

Passive house can add roughly 10 percent to the front end of construction costs, but Woodruff said it will save money over the life of the project because of lower utility bills, which are expected to climb faster than the rate of inflation. They expect that electricity for one unit could cost as little as $15 a month.

Woodruff said the Orchards at Orenco Station will be geared toward people who earn 50 percent of the area’s median income – approximately $25,000 a year.

According to Washington County’s Comprehensive Plan, between 12,000 and 20,000 households in the county are in that income bracket and have affordable housing needs not being met by current supply. In addition, approximately 34 percent of households have extremely low (below 30 percent of the area’s median), low (below 50 percent of the area’s median) or moderate (below 80 percent of the area’s median) incomes. Of those with low incomes, 49 percent are likely to spend more than half of their pay on housing.

“It’s a wonderful neighborhood; there’s just no affordable housing there,” Woodruff said. “So we are hoping to sort of round that out and make it a little bit more holistic of a neighborhood.”

But getting the financing for that kind of a development in today’s economy – in which the majority of projects that pencil out are high-end multifamily – can be difficult.

Woodruff said the Washington County Office of Community Development recently awarded the project a grant of $750,000 and that Enterprise Community Investment and NeighborWorks America previously awarded grants. REACH also is applying to Oregon Housing and Community Services for a 9 percent housing tax credit.

REACH has a purchase and sale agreement for the entire six-acre, greenfield plot that sits just north of the MAX light-rail line and south of Cherry Drive at Northwest 231st Avenue. The land’s owner is Tom Walsh, via Orenco III LLC.

Woodruff said the 57-unit building is planned as the first phase of a three-phase project to develop 140 to 150 units on the site. The group is approximately 75 percent done with its schematic design and hopes to begin construction in fall 2013. Whether those second and third buildings use passive design will depend on the success of the first, Woodruff said.

Kelley said he thinks it will pencil out in the long run.

“It’s not something you can necessarily underwrite to, but there’s a lot of studies out there that green buildings generally … tend to have higher resident satisfaction. They tend to lease up faster and they tend to turn over less,” he said.

Lamar agrees and hopes the project will attract the attention of other developers.

“It’s a more superior living environment, and I suspect they’re going to have a much lower turnover rate in their tenancy as a result, which I hope will start to sell the concept with other developers that are more financially driven and not so vision-driven,” Lamar said.

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A six-story structure, designed by and built by general contractor , will feature two ground-floor retail spaces and 90 apartment units. Pictured above, Ilya Zavlain, an employee of Artector, Inc., applies liquid flashing to a windowsill at the the site of the mixed-use building under construction at the corner of Northwest 20th Avenue and Pettygrove Street.

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Work continues on Eastgate Station, an affordable family housing project in Northeast Portland. The four-story, 61-unit building at 100 N.E. 120th Ave. is wood-frame, slab-on-grade construction. Walsh Construction Co. is the general contractor and William Wilson Architects is the designer of the project for owner Specialized Housing Inc. Work is scheduled to be completed this summer.

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The renovation of Madrona Studios, a housing project in inner North Portland, is nearly complete. The five-story former motel at 10 N. Weidler St. has undergone a nearly yearlong renovation to become 176 affordable studio residences as well as a new home for the Hooper Detoxification Center’s in-treatment program. The renovation was performed by general contractor Howard S. Wright Constructors from a design by William Wilson Architects. The invite-only grand opening of the Central City Concern project will be March 10.

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A 56-foot-tall steel stair tower was hoisted into place at the Rose Quarter Housing development in North Portland last Friday. A 90-ton Campbell Crane & Rigging crane placed the galvanized fire escape on the south side of the affordable and low-income housing project at 10 N. Weidler St. The structure was fabricated by Isley Welding Service and installed by Eastern Steel erectors.

A former five-story motel is undergoing a 10-month renovation that will feature 177 studio units on floors two through five as well as the relocated Hooper Detoxification Center and associated rehabilitation programs on the ground floor. Howard S. Wright Constructors is the general contractor and William Wilson Architects is the designer of the $12.7 million renovation.

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Jose Jemenez with Timberland Construction checks the plumb of a wall section on the top floor of the University Place Apartments in downtown Portland. When completed in spring 2010, the building will house the Multnomah County Bridgeview Program, which provides support services, including case management, mental health and drug and alcohol treatment. The Housing Authority of Portland project is being built by R&H Construction Co., and was designed by William Wilson Architects.

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