Pacific Northwest design firms YGH Architecture and Integrus Architecture have finalized a merger.

The firms now provide design services across three offices in Portland and Seattle and Spokane, Washington. The combined firm will offer master planning, architectural, structural engineering, interior design and experiential design services. The firms have a 70-year legacy and both share similar mission statements. The firms will continue to pursue solutions that reflect environmental stewardship and social justice, the firms stated in a news release.

YGH has worked on projects such as the PDX Parking Additions and Consolidated Rental Car Facility at Portland International Airport, the Oregon State University Marine Studies Initiative Building and OSU‘s Magruder Hall, as well as projects for Clark College, Central Oregon Community College, Portland State University, Chemeketa Community College, Pacific University and the University of Oregon. YGH also worked on the U.S. Embassy Compound in Maputo, Mozambique.

Integrus has worked on several school projects for the Bellevue, Port Townsend, Lake Washington and Central Kitsap school districts. It also worked on Parrington Hall renovation at the University of Washington, Discovery Hall for Central Washington University and the Schweitzer Career & Technical Education Center at Lewis-Clark State College. It also has been involved with several government, public safety and civic projects.

Editor’s note: A previous version of this story misidentified YGH Architecture as the firm that designed Oregon State University’s Cascades Campus Academic Building.

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Ambitions for a new parking garage and rental car center at Portland International Airport grew with a change in scope. The price tag grew along with it.

The Parking Additions and Consolidated Rental Car (PACR) project is now expected to cost $282 million, up from $246 million as conceived originally. That represents a 14.6 percent increase.

The design changes were driven by a desire to provide a single rental car facility, and eliminate the need for customers to take shuttle buses to some agencies’ locations.

“The fundamental thing is we decided to bring all of the rental car agencies on site,” said Vince Granato, the Port of Portland‘s project manager overseeing the portfolio of projects known as PDX Next. “We needed to make the facility bigger to accommodate that.”

An extra bay was added to the facility. The toll plaza was moved. And the project now includes a separate, stand-alone rental car center.

“It’s better customer service,” Granato said.

For now, five rental agencies are located on-site and three are off-site. When the rental car center is complete, 12 rental car companies plan to operate there.

JE Dunn Construction is building the 2,225-space parking garage, which was designed by YGH Architecture. Site work began in early 2018. The garage and rental car center are on track to open in fall 2021.

The COVID-19 pandemic led to additional unexpected costs, Granato said. Two positive virus tests slowed work, he said.

“There have been COVID costs that have put pressure on the budget,” he said.

The parking garage is being funded by revenues from the airport’s parking operations. The rental car building is being funded by user fees paid by rental car customers and bonds issued for the project. To provide stability for both the Port of Portland and tenants, the rental car agencies agreed to 20-year leases in the new facility that will begin when they move in.

The project team saved costs in other ways, Granato said. JE Dunn locked in a steel purchase early on. The project has also benefited from stable costs for some materials.

That’s part of a wider trend, said Mike Salsgiver, executive director of the Associated General Contractors‘ Oregon-Columbia chapter.

“We’re still seeing some uptick in basic materials, but it’s kind of flattened out, because the industry’s kind of flattened out,” Salsgiver said.

The PACR project is part of the larger PDX Next initiative to modernize Oregon’s major airport. A $1.65 billion makeover of the main terminal building has begun with a joint venture of Hoffman Construction and Skanska USA Building in the pilot’s seat. ZGF Architects is designing the terminal.

The terminal project calls for replacing the roof with a seismically sound one and radically redesigning the interior.

“The floor will be the same,” Granato said, “but that’s about it.”

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At roughly 1.6 million square feet, the Parking Addition and Consolidated Rental Car (PACR) facility being constructed at Portland International Airport easily has the biggest footprint of any current project in the metro area.

It’s a whole lot of structural steel.

“It’s just a really, really big structure,” said Chris Hermreck, a senior project manager with general contractor JE Dunn Construction. “We’re building this garage that’s the size of these entire two (existing) buildings.”

The 2,400-space parking garage, designed by YGH Architecture, is being constructed via a progressive design-build contract. The new, seismically resilient (category 4) structure will hold Port of Portland offices, long-term parking, rental car service and offices, and a parking toll plaza.

The latter is already up and running, which enabled demolition and clearance of the old plaza, which sat where the new parking garage is on the rise. A new garage for rental car fueling, cleaning and storage has also been constructed.

One of the most significant phases of work in the entire project is under way: Ironworkers from Phoenix, Arizona-based Schuff Steel Co. have begun structural work on the 100,000-square-foot office building and five-level parking garage. Also, Carr Construction has been contracted to perform miscellaneous steel work.

Up to 50 ironworkers could be on site at one time when steel work reaches its peak later this summer, Hermreck estimated. The first column was set April 20, he added, and completion of structural work is anticipated sometime during the fourth quarter of this year.

Along with the sheer scope of work, steel erection is also challenged by the project location inside restricted Federal Aviation Administration airspace. This meant a traditional tower crane could not be used on site. Instead, crews are using a massive crawler crane with an articulated boom arm.

“This was a specially considered crane for a lot of reasons,” Hermreck said. “For capacity, and also because of the way it lays down at night. This has the reach and capacity and also the ability to get low enough.”

PACR is part of the five-year, $2 billion-plus PDX Next program in which nearly all of Portland International Airport is receiving upgrades. Construction of a new main terminal, the so-called T-Core project, is the centerpiece.

When it comes to PACR, work involves modifications to the existing P2 parking structure as well as significant improvements to surface roadways and underground utilities. Existing parking garages will connect to the new one.

JE Dunn is self-performing the concrete work for this project, while DeWitt Construction continues excavation and pile driving to accommodate construction of the new parking structure. Other major subcontractors on the job include Oregon Electric Group and JH Kelly Mechanical.

Once the new garage is complete, a temporary exit road will be shut down and a new exit connecting the new P3 garage and exit plaza will be installed.

The entire project should wrap up in 2021, according to the Port of Portland.

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The COVID-19 pandemic promises to change people’s lives in numerous ways. Architects and designers are already starting to consider what this will mean for new and existing buildings and their users. It’s partially an emergency response, partially an embrace of existing trends.

“I’ve been doing retail design for over 30 years, and I think right now part of what we’re seeing is a tactical response to triage,” said Terry Krause, a Mackenzie principal. “We need to create a safe place for people to work and shop. It’s very tactical. It’s about what can we do right here and right now in the moment.”

Industry professionals know this is only part of the story. Yes, there is a strong need to revamp existing commercial spaces to make them usable in a new reality fraught with peril. But there is also an imperative to explore the growing impact of online commerce, building layout needs and even materials more amenable to a post-pandemic society.

“It certainly is open to question right now,” said Jesse Walt, a YGH Architecture shareholder. “There’s going to be a reaction to the current pandemic. It’s going to put a focus on adaptable spaces that can be modified to sort of adjust to whatever is needed. It’s going to be flexible spaces. It’s hard to define because it will be different for everyone.”

Public spaces that already are experiencing ad hoc design changes include, of course, grocery stores and retail businesses that are operating through the crisis. Then there are health care facilities, which, in Portland at least, are being fast-tracked through the city’s permitting process.

However, educational, office and public spaces also are expected to be subject to review so that occupants’ health is considered carefully.

“I think we’re going to see interesting creative solutions in the short term,” said Mark Perepelitza, a SERA Architects principal. “Longer term, it just seems like the focus on health and well-being and the potential of this to occur will certainly be important in design.”

Krause has spent substantial time working with Kroger to update its ubiquitous Fred Meyer grocery stores. In addition to the arrival of safety-conscious elements such as one-way shopping aisle markers and plexiglass screens between clerks and customers, businesses may choose to begin offering greater use of self-checkout and cashier-less services, he said. The Amazon Go (no checkout) model and locker systems may become commonplace, he added.

Even ultraviolet light, which is used in health care for sterilization of instruments and surfaces, can easily be adapted for retail use.

“We may design it in so carts can go in under UV light,” Krause said. “It’s a cost-effective and fast disinfecting means. I think we can design in a solution that’s very simple and doesn’t cause waste. Most stores have a path for carts anyway.”

Other changes that could take place include: greater use of touchless appliances and fixtures, adoption of more easily cleanable materials in public areas, and reduction in use of porous materials (such as wood) that trap and retain microorganisms.

While these concepts may be affordable for large corporations and chains, they may not be for smaller mom-and-pop grocers and retail businesses.

“There’s no big conversation in the independent world of how it will impact store designs, but I think it will,” said Dan Phillips, managing partner with Food Market Designs, a family-run firm in Langley, Washington. “I was asked to do a health care facility – a testing facility that’s leased out to researchers. And it makes me think about – they need quarantine rooms, social distancing without barriers – and how are we ever going to do something like that in the grocery world? How is that ever going to be possible?”

It’s a financial conundrum for small businesses of all types.

“With these grocers, they don’t have a lot of money to spend on big renovations to fix what needs to be fixed,” Phillips said. “And by the way, we don’t even have any guidelines yet. Probably it will be something that will go down the line, like code.”

The Oregon Health Authority actually is in the process of creating new compliance regulations that will impact designs of these spaces going forward.

“I think a lot of what we have seen so far would be better equated to an emergency response situation,” Walt said. “I suspect long term we will look at the materials we use and how we use them and how we create spaces where people can be present. I think it’s going to be about cleanability.”

Other concepts likely to emerge, he added, are larger waiting areas and lobby spaces, wider hallways and taller ceilings, all to allow for social distancing. All of these are common in buildings with public spaces such as schools, hospitals, government facilities and others.

Perepelitza predicts a greater emphasis will be placed on outdoor public spaces. For indoor spaces, air flow improvements will be sought with dedicated outdoor air ventilation systems that separate heating and cooling from ventilation.

“Natural ventilation is a great solution for smaller buildings; it works really well,” he said. “But for larger buildings with more people and larger systems there are still good strategies, but it takes more energy to do that. Obviously we’re going to push the balance a little more toward health for a while, but there are efficient ways to do that.”

Krause also envisions wider use of artificial intelligence to control the number of people using spaces, as well as other technology to complement design.

“AI-based solutions are just going to proliferate,” he said. “Those things are being tested and a lot of people may or may not be comfortable with them. But if you’re not comfortable interacting with people because of exposure it looks pretty appealing.”

As the situation evolves, a mixture of the aforementioned solutions – as well as others not yet conceived – is likely to emerge.

“It’s about finding the right balance,” Krause said. “Part of what we’ve got to do is move from the tactical, immediate response and think about how we take these things and move them in a cost-effective way. You can’t put the retailer out of business with the costs, but they can’t ignore it either.”

Perepelitza agreed and said communication, as always, is critical. Also, greater professional collaboration will be needed, he said.

“We need to shift focus and priorities and use research that’s been done on air quality and health,” he said. “So, I think that using that and sharing that with clients and user groups, that’s when we will start seeing that shift.”

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The ability to inject carbon dioxide into concrete has existed for decades. But only within the past decade have parties begun to engage in such efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and fight climate change.

Now, Vancouver, British Columbia-based CarbonCure has brought its carbon-sequestering technology to the Troutdale production plant of national concrete producer Knife River. Proprietary technology is used to inject recycled carbon dioxide into a given concrete mix, reducing the cement content correspondingly.

Following production of several test batches, the first field-grade batch of CarbonCure concrete was poured in February at Portland International Airport as part of the Port of Portland‘s Parking Additions and Consolidated Rental Car Facility (PACR) project. It’s being tackled by general contractor JE Dunn Construction.

“The Port was interested in what can we do that would be green on their project,” said Scott Thayer, project manager for Portland firm Yost Grube Hall Architecture, which designed the project. “The whole point of this is to reduce the cement content in the concrete. It’s one of the most carbon-intensive products in the world, especially in the amounts it is used and its prevalence in the world of construction. What’s beautiful about carbon is it’s a perfect substitute for the cement. It has similar strength-enhancing properties in the concrete mix.”

Yukari Kubo, a design professional with YGH and co-chair of the firm’s sustainability committee, said the key to getting a large manufacturer like Knife River to jump on board was to specify use of CarbonCure.

“It takes the architects to specify it and bring it to the attention of the client,” she said. “Out here it just didn’t exist.”

After calling concrete manufacturers on the East Coast, where CarbonCure has made more inroads, however, it was like talking to company representatives, she said.

“The only reason they don’t use it on every project is that the architects don’t specify it,” she said. “It’s a superior product.”

The technology is a little more than 10 years old, said Kevin Davis, CarbonCure’s Pacific Northwest representative. But it has begun to enter the industry only in the past several years.

“We’ve been focusing on the concrete producers for the last four years, so people like Knife River are the type of firms we deal with,” Davis said. “They supply a lot of concrete, and it makes a lot of sense.”

CarbonCure uses processed industrial carbon dioxide captured at a British Petroleum oil refinery in Blaine, Washington.

“It’s the same as is used in soft drinks and beer,” Davis said. “It’s readily available, and we’ve developed a technology that injects it into concrete, recalcifies the cement and allows use of less cement and makes it stronger. It just takes a little bit of software and technology to implement.”

Because the carbon dioxide replaces cement – the most costly ingredient of concrete – in a mix, the aggregate cost is reduced accordingly.

As climate change continues to gain attention, the technology is expected to attract interest, said Kelly Alexander, ready mix manager for Knife River’s Metro Division, which operates the Troutdale plant.

“We try and work with people like that to get the message out there,” he said. “So it’s our hope this won’t be the last Knife River plant we do, or the last in Portland. We make 3.8 million cubic yards a year, so there’s a tremendous opportunity to address most of this. We have the ability to impact production significantly across the state.”

Alexander said YGH approached Knife River last year, made its interest in CarbonCure known and got the process rolling. By the time Knife River put in a tender for the concrete on the project, CarbonCure technology had been specified for bidders.

“We tend to get the technology integrated,” he said. “Sometimes producers come to us proactively, and the other way is when someone like YGH specifies it into a project.”

So far, San Francisco is a very strong market for the new technology, as well as cities on the East Coast.

“In general, yes, the coasts are good,” Alexander said. “But we have a strong Midwest presence in Chicago, and we have pockets of business that tend to be around producers that have that sustainability message, and sometimes it doesn’t matter where they are.”

Davis was on hand in Troutdale in February to oversee installation of CarbonCure’s technology at Knife River’s plant, as well as the first pours of footings and pile caps featuring the new mixes.

“We’ll take a standard mix that Knife River has and add CO2 to that directly,” Davis said.

The company’s experience has shown the injection of carbon dioxide directly into a mix increases its strength by roughly 10 to 12 percent. But that’s only part of the equation.

“They need concrete that’s delivered to specs, not necessarily stronger, so we reduce the amount of cement to allow them to achieve their PSI figure,” Davis said. “It achieves the design strength with less cement, and that’s what gives us the carbon reduction.”

That’s the concept in a nutshell.

“The fact this hasn’t become the norm more quickly is a little bit surprising to me because it’s such a clear win,” Thayer said.

It’s a huge advance for the entire industry, Kubo added.

“All of the concrete manufacturers I spoke with on the East Coast were not charging any extra for it on any of their projects,” she said. “It is a fantastic technology and a game changer for our industry in terms of embodied carbon, which is what YGH is really focused on right now.”

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The five-year, $2 billion-plus PDX Next program calls for upgrading nearly all of Portland International Airport, piece by piece. Construction of a new main terminal is the heart of the initiative. But another critical project now under way will add a new six-story, 2,400-space parking garage, a four-story office building with an on-site car rental facility and a new exit plaza.

The new Parking Additions and Consolidated Rental Car Facility is expected to significantly help travelers and airport employees enter and exit the grounds.

“We’re really looking at it more as a transportation improvement around the whole airport,” Port of Portland spokeswoman Kama Simonds said.

YGH Architecture and JE Dunn Construction are using a progressive design-build model that allows for rapid and timely changes as needed.

The scope of work includes new offices for airport operations, additional long-term parking, a consolidated rental car facility, new rental car offices and a new and relocated parking toll plaza. Efforts that will enable these additions include modifications to the existing P2 parking structure as well as significant upgrades to surface roadways and underground utilities.

Work began over a year ago, and much has taken place since. The exit plaza building and travel lanes are nearly complete, and a new parking garage for rental car fueling, cleaning and storage has also been constructed. Another important portion of the project involves moving underground utilities out of the new buildings’ footprint.

JE Dunn is self-performing the concrete work for this project, and plenty of that remains – especially for the new parking structure. Crews are also building temporary ramps from the existing parking structures to provide egress while the new parking garage is built.

Finally, DeWitt Construction crews are excavating and pile driving to accommodate construction of the new parking structure. Because of the sensitivity of the radar systems and others used in the airport control tower, vibratory pile driving is being used instead of traditional drilling.

Much of the work involves temporary structures or solutions that will enable crews to complete permanent ones. That’s the case with a roadway being built to connect the parking structures with the new exit plaza. Once the new garage is complete, the temporary road will come out and a new roadway running straight east from the new P3 garage to the new exit plaza will be built.

“Ultimately, they will all come out on level three on P3, and it will be an elevated roadway all the way out of here,” said Anna Tindall, a Port of Portland civil engineering inspector. “You can see the squares down there – those are the piles they’ve already driven for the elevated roadway. This will all end up being an elevated roadway.”

Another crucial part of the will be the addition of a second light-rail track to the airport terminal. Currently, TriMet‘s MAX Red Line moves to and from the main terminal via a single spur line that will be replaced. The addition of a second track will ease MAX scheduling throughout the system.

Various phases of this project will roll out in stages. The new rental car storage garage is already up and running, while the new exit plaza should open in November. Then the temporary road will be constructed to clear space for construction of the P3 garage. But in the meantime, ironworkers are already building the rebar cages for the concrete beams that will tie the P2 and P3 structures together.

The complicated dance of scheduling and logistics should produce a finished parking garage by mid-2021, Simonds said.

“It’s super complex, and we’re moving everything around,” she said. “It’s crowded, and we’re making these small, micro-adjustments to make it better. But a big fix is still a couple of years off.”

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People interested in learning about the social consciousness of firms they are interested in joining or working with now have a new tool.

The , which is administered by the International Living Future Institute, is a voluntary disclosure program for a wide range of business aspects. Companies report information regarding workplace diversity, worker benefits, equity, local benefits, safety and stewardship.

Currently, Portland-based firms Bora Architects, Hennebery Eddy Architects, Ankrom Moisan Architects, Opsis Architecture and Yost Grube Hall Architecture are taking part in the program.

“When we conceived the program in 2014, we wanted to provide a third-party framework and tool to take a look at the HR policies,” Just program manager Francis Janes said. “We wanted to help companies deepen their engagement with their employees.”

Nationwide, approximately 500 companies have registered for the program. Around 70 have navigated the entire process and received a Just label, which is valid for two years. Companies pay the International Living Future Institute a processing fee ranging from $500 to $25,000, depending on the number of employees.

“Just was already associated with the construction industry,” Bora Architects interior designer Amy Running said. “It had the advantage being within our industry and sphere.”

Unlike the B-Corp movement, the Just program doesn’t give official certifications. Instead, each company seeking to participate submits information about its activities in each one of Just’s six categories. The group then takes that data and compiles it into a social justice label similar to a nutrition label used for food and beverage products. Each company can get a maximum of three squares in each area. The better a company rates in a particular area, the more squares it gets.

“Part of the goal of being part of this is to provide a road map of where we want to go,” said Pat Sanchez, associate principal and business manager at Opsis Architecture. “It helps tell us where we are and where we want to go.”

One of the biggest areas that many metro-area architecture firms seek improvement is gender diversity. Hennebery Eddy Architects and Ankrom Moisan Architects were the only local firms to get the maximum three-square rating in that particular area.

“If you are going to build a diverse and rich workforce, you have to be mindful every step of the way,” Hennebery Eddy Architects President Tim Eddy said. “You have to think about what each hire brings to the recipe of the company. That is a really big deal for us.”

The label serves as a tangible reminder for companies to make sure that policies discussed in boardrooms are put into action. YGH has taken part in the Just program since 2014 and was one of the first local firms to receive a label.

“This helps when we look at how we pay both genders and promote to ownership,” said Leslie Maynard, human resources director at YGH. “It helps to benchmark how you have been doing and where we want to go in the future. It is a good reminder to work toward your goals and not put them in a drawer.”

One of the biggest benefits provided by the Just program is allowing participants to measure goal pursuits in concrete ways. Also, companies can compare themselves to others within their industry.

“I think we will see dividends from being part of the program over the next few years,” Eddy said. “Clients are not looking at it yet. I can imagine that for some of our socially conscientious, cultural and public clients, it may become important to them. It will be more meaningful to prospective staff.”

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Designing an educational facility for a university usually isn’t like designing a U.S. embassy. But an expansion of Oregon State University’s Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport presented Yost Grube Hall Architecture many challenges similar to those posed by a government building on foreign soil.

“We do a lot of work for U.S. State Department,” YGH principal Tom Robbins said. “With embassies, you design for a bomb going off. In both cases you have to design for things you don’t want to happen.”

What OSU officials don’t want is for an earthquake and resultant tsunami to kill or injure people in or near the facility. That risk is a major concern for the new $50 million, 72,000-square-foot building that will sit on a man-made sand spit in Yaquina Bay. The site sits squarely inside the expected inundation zone in a sizable seismic event.

A three-story core space will connect to a two-story wing that will have an auditorium, an innovation lab and community space. The building is designed to serve as a “vertical evacuation” site. The only similar structure in the U.S. is Ocosta Elementary School near the Pacific Ocean in Westport, Washington.

“I would say this has been more intriguing (than an embassy project) because it has not been done before,” Robbins said. “It’s been harder due to the defining criteria. I would also say it is also much more exciting.”

The building had to be able to withstand a magnitude 9.0 earthquake and resultant tsunami. Such an earthquake would likely cause liquefaction, softening the land directly underneath. Then a predicted 30-foot-tall wall of water would hit the building at 30 mph. The inundation zone would likely extend beyond OSU’s Newport campus.

“The tsunami is the attention-grabber,” Robbins said. “The building is designed to take an impact. We did a number of computer simulations on debris flow. We do kind of benefit from the location. The site likely won’t have a lot of debris.”

In order to address the likelihood of liquefaction, the building’s foundation will extend more than 100 feet below the surface – more than twice the 45-foot height above ground. A progressive collapse system will keep the building upright even if two of its columns collapse.

The building will also serve evacuees unable to reach Newport’s Safe Haven Hill site, which is approximately a 15-minute jog from the city. A ramp will allow people to reach the roof, and two staircases inside will be built within a hardened shell. Also, an elevator within the shell will rely on a separate power source.

“You have to pay attention to everything from the foundation as well as scouring from the tsunami,” said Robert Cowen, director of the Hatfield Marine Science Center. “We will have large items striking the building. Engineers have looked at all of the aspects.”

General contractor Andersen Construction, structural engineer KPFF and geotechnical engineer GRI all oversaw design elements. That information was then checked by OSU’s own engineers.

“It has been examined by a large number of engineers,” Cowen said. “We had a suite of engineers with an oversight committee examine how the data was being looked at and interpreted.”

That work gave OSU officials confidence that the site could accommodate a structure able to serve students and the five state and federal agencies currently on the campus, but also survive an earthquake and tsunami. The idea was to allow different disciplines to work in a combined environment. It will have rolling whiteboards, an auditorium, classrooms and office space.

“We have designed it with open laboratories,” Cowen said. “You might find a physicist next to a marine biologist next to a resource economist. We are trying to meet the needs of a broad group.”

OSU is also hoping to prove critics wrong and show that a safe building can be built in a seismically active coastal area.

“We want to make this building a demonstration project of how to build responsibly in a tsunami zone,” Robbins said. “Our team is excited about that.”

On the Boards is a 91��Ƶ feature offering a look at the projects in Oregon being tackled by local architecture firms. To have your firm’s projects considered, contact 91��Ƶ architecture and engineering reporter Kent Hohlfeld at 503-802-7224 or khohlfeld@djcOregon.com.

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Portland architect Miles Woofter has never lacked the confidence that he could meet big challenges. Three years after starting his own firm, that faith was shaken when Woofter Architecture‘s first design for its biggest client was shot down in a presentation at Portland State University.

“It affected everything,” Woofter said. “It affected me at home. It affected me at work. I was not able to sleep. I was working too much and irritable. That kind of stress is not good for anyone.”

Just eight months earlier, Woofter Architecture had won the design contract for the $51.1 million Peter Stott Center renovation and expansion. The project includes a 3,000-seat arena as well as athletic offices, classrooms, weight training facilities and a sports medicine office. Construction is now proceeding and on track for completion by February 2018. But the small upstart firm responsible for design had to overcome a rocky start.

“I did not expect Woofter to get the project,” said Dan Zalkow, associate vice president for planning, construction and real estate at Portland State University. “We did not set out to hire a small firm.”

Yet there was little Woofter Architecture, with a staff of three at the time, tackling the highly visible project in downtown Portland. Even with the help of national firm Sink Combs Dethlefs, the job was enormous. Then there was financial pressure. The project accounted for nearly 90 percent of the young firm’s revenue.

Then, eight months after Woofter Architecture took the job, Portland State University officials asked to see early exterior designs. But staffers had been working on interiors and programing.

“We weren’t in a position to present the exterior design to the university,” Woofter said. “We were put in a position to present to the university and it backfired because they weren’t happy.”

That led to questions by stakeholders as to whether the firm could meet the school’s ambitious schedule.

“There were times early on, before he increased his staff, where we did talk about our opinion that he needed to increase his staff,” Zalkow said. “Our schedule was important. It seemed to us that they could use more resources to meet that schedule.”

PSU officials wanted an inviting building that could match the school’s place in the city, within a tight budget. But they didn’t believe Woofter Architecture’s first attempt met those goals.

“The appearance of the exterior wasn’t appealing to most of the decision makers,” Zalkow said. “It didn’t fit in well with adjacent buildings and Park Blocks. Also, it didn’t feel very inviting. There was not enough glass. Entrances and the ground floor didn’t feel like it would bring people in.”

Major changes were needed, and Woofter felt pressure to produce in a way he hadn’t faced in the past.

“If we hadn’t righted the ship and turned it around, I don’t know,” he said. “Portland is a small community and PSU is a big institution. I didn’t have a choice, it had to be successful. It was a challenging time, no question.

“The biggest challenge in my life has been running a small practice and winning a significant project at Portland State University.”

Zalkow said that three main factors persuaded PSU to take a chance on Woofter Architecture in the first place. First, Woofter had a successful history with the school. In 2004, he had performed a design study for creation of a bike facility on campus. That would eventually become the PSU Bike Hub on Southwest Sixth Avenue. In 2007, he created the design for the student recreation center while working for Yost Grube Hall Architecture.

The second reason PSU looked to Woofter Architecture was its presentation.

“We were very intrigued by his proposal,” Zalkow said. “He got how this facility was going to be used for multiple purposes.”

Lastly, Woofter brought in Sink Combs Dethlefs to help design the project. The 50-person firm had designed athletic arenas since 1962.

“We felt very comfortable with the team he put together for the project,” Zalkow said.

Sink Combs Dethlefs was one of the few firms Woofter spoke to that believed his firm could deliver the project.

“Everyone else I talked to was not enthusiastic and thought the project was going to be challenging,” he said. “All the others thought we couldn’t do it.”

But when PSU officials requested revisions, the design team responded. In going back to the drawing board, Woofter leaned heavily on his team, including principal Jonathan Bolch, who also worked for YGH.

“There were a lot of challenging moments,” Bolch said. “(The Stott Center project) has ambitious goals and needs to please a lot of different stakeholders.”

This time, the team looked at the exterior first and modified its focus to meet aesthetic and budgetary concerns.

“It needed to be a majestic civic building and a response to the (Park Blocks) and its place in the city rather than just an athletic building,” Woofter said. “The interior program on that tight of a site starts to dictate the expression of the building on the exterior.”

The new philosophy led to a new design. By October 2015, the team presented a design that PSU officials loved.

“When he redesigned it, it was seen as a beautiful design,” Zalkow said. “We expect the building to be active. He solved all our concerns.”

Woofter was even able to accommodate PSU officials’ late request for four additional classrooms and consolidation of athletic offices into the building.

The Portland Design Commission issued its approval in March 2016. Then the project team secured permits on schedule – a rarity for a project of that size.

Currently, 140 contractors are working under four sets of construction permits and 12 sets of life safety occupancy plans that allow occupation of the building during construction. Currently, the schedule calls for project completion by February 2018.

Now, Woofter Architecture is transitioning to work on smaller projects.

“Because of the location and the size and the team, (the Stott Center) broke down our process and the kind of design firm we want to be,” Woofter said. “We are looking at projects that we can do on our own. There is only so much we can do. We can’t stretch ourselves too thin. When we go after something, we go all out. You have to put 120 percent into everything.”

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Developers behind the proposed Ankeny Apartments project, at 1122 S.E. Ankeny St., between 11th and 12th avenues, will have to wait another week to make their appeal to the Portland City Council. Developer Landon Crowell and YGH Architecture officials are set to state on April 12 why the Portland Design Commission was wrong in its decision to deny the proposal. The case was originally scheduled to go before the council on April 5.

The Design Commission reviewed the project a fifth time on Jan. 19. When it became obvious that the commission wouldn’t approve the proposal, the team asked for a vote of denial with the intention of appealing the decision to the City Council.

The design team’s proposal calls for a six-story, L-shaped building with 17 one- or two-bedroom residential units. The developer’s goal is to build the first multifamily complex to be net zero for energy use.

The complex has encountered opposition from neighbors who fear the 70-foot-tall complex would shroud their homes in shadows. They also complained to the commission about the proposed structure’s proximity to the property line.

The commission denied the project because of a variety of issues, including its use of unifying elements, respect for adjacent residences and design coherency.

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