The new designs released last week for the Oregon Sustainability Center show that the building is no longer slated to be a sexy cylinder with a giant leaf-shaped solar panel on top (subtle, guys), downsizing to a more traditional, boxier shape that also hacked $11 million off the project cost.
The Sustainability Center and its $75 million budget garnered some criticism when Portland city council approved the project last summer. Sure, the building is planned to be one of the most environmentally sustainable ever constructed, but is spending $65 million in public funds on a gleaming eco-innovation tower really economically sustainable? As I said after the vote, it will be beyond irony to have this pricey sustainability tower rise over a bus mall where public transit service has been hacked back due to lack of funding. I’d rather see the city and Portland Development Commission scrounge up money to fix up our current basic, green infrastructure than pour millions into this shiny new idea.
But the designers at Gerding Edlen, SERA Architects and GBD architects have brought the total project cost down to $64.4 million—including the cost of rerouting the streetcar through the building. Check out the new schematics below the cut:
There’s a public meeting to comment on the design and project next Wednesday, May 11th, at the AIA Center (403 NW 11th) from 6-8pm.
The design is led by a team from both GBD and SERA Architects.
Where is this thing going to be at?
It’ll be around SW 5th and Montgomery, on the PSU campus.
Oh, they got it down to $64.4 million! Let’s build two!
y’know, i am usually not a fan of wasteful spending. i really don’t know how i feel about this building. but the portland downtown is pretty po-dunk. it’ll be nice to have one cool building in this city
I love this project, but having the streetcar go through the building footprint is just plain stupid (and expensive).
Also they should just buy the apartment building and make it part of the site (before Brian Libby deems it historic).
The apartment building is to remain as part of the plan. It would be more difficult to claim “sustainable” if knocking down a functional older building, as has unfortunately been the case with some other developments.
Running the streetcar diagonally through the block will improve transit times as well as providing great access. The streetcar already runs diagonally through PSU in the next block over, and that has proven to be a good integration with the site. Running the streetcar through the block is also a recommendation of the streetcar Citizen Advisory Committee from a couple of years back, nice to see that they listened. (I’m a CAC member.)
aaaaaaaaaand Bob R. for the win
sweet design. I think it is a huge improvement, although I wish it was taller. Also a little better fact checking on the part of the Mercury would go a long way to make a more accurate story. The bonds are self supporting. The rent paid by the tenants, yes the city as well, will pay back the bonds. Some TIF funding is being proportioned to the city to help them pay their portion of the rent. I believe there is discussion about a condo arrangement. This building will be a centerpiece of what Oregon has proven it is the expert in. Why not build a center for it? Seems a civic duty.
@advocate – I tweaked the language a bit in the post to reflect that Gerding Edlen, GBD and SERA are primarily involved in the design. Thanks for the note.
boy, we sure do NEED this building now, don’t we? and it is so very USEFUL too, huh?