Edith Green/Wendell Wyatt Federal Building Renovation | Complete
 

Wednesday, April 1, 2009, 1:17pm PDT | Modified: Wednesday, April 1, 2009, 1:35pm
GSA Stimulus list: $149M for Portland
Portland Business Journal

General Services Administration plans to spend more than $149 million of its stimulus funding for government buildings on three projects in Oregon.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, signed by President Barack Obama in February, calls for major new construction and energy efficient modernization of federal office buildings, courthouses and land ports across the country. Of the total $5.5 billion, GSA is planning to put $4.27 billion toward “high performance green building” modernization and improvement.

The Oregon projects:

• Portland’s Edith-Green Wendell Wyatt Federal Building, 1220 S.W. Third Ave., will receive $133 million. The building is named in honor of former Oregon U.S. Representatives Edith Green and Wendell Wyatt.

• Portland’s Bonneville Power Administration Building, 905 N.E. 11th Ave., $6.6 million.

• The David J. Wheeler Federal Building in Baker, $9.8 million.

The list of projects was first obtained earlier this week by the Washington Business Journal, an affiliated publication of Portland Business Journal. Click the link for a list of all GSA projects, as submitted to Congress.

http://portland.bizjournals.com/port...1&ana=e_du_pub

$133 million

That is a TON of money for one building renovation. Does this mean the project will start in the next few months?

^ longer the name of a building: the costlier to renovate.

From SERA Architects webpage, no renderings though...

Edith Green/Wendall Wyatt Federal Building

location
portland, oregon
completed
on-the-boards
size
303,574 sq ft


Edith Green/Wendall Wyatt Federal Building

The U.S. General Services Administration (“GSA”) has initiated, per Congressional authorization, the Edith Green Wendell Wyatt Federal Building Renovation & Rehabilitation Project. This project is currently in the planning and design phase.

The Edith Green Wendell Wyatt Federal Building is considered by many to be the flagship building for the federal government in Portland, Oregon, and is located in the central business district. The building complex is comprised of an eighteen-story office tower, which occupies one full city block and two levels of basement and parking areas. The overall development encompasses approximately 516,360 square feet.

Various federal agencies occupy tenant space within the Federal Building. In late 2001, GSA surveyed the client agencies to ascertain their needs, and commissioned a report to propose building solutions which would better support current and projected tenant requirements. The results of these findings led to GSA’s approval to proceed with this project.

Goals of the project are to improve the functionality of and security for the Federal Building, as well as extend its useful life, improve its seismic capabilities and provide better systems efficiency - all in an environmentally positive manner. The proposed rehabilitation and renovation work will permit the re-introduction of the building into the market as an effectively new and sustainable building.

The primary area of focus is the transformation of the tower to provide for the building’s principal function as office space for the federal client agencies. The building renovation responds to various areas where there is a desire for improvement.

The current project schedule calls for start of construction in FY2007/2008. The duration of the entire project is expected to be about five years.

For this project, GSA has contracted with SERA Architects (Portland, OR) and Cutler Anderson Architects (Bainbridge Island, WA) for architectural and design services. Other private sector companies have also been engaged to ensure a successful project.

For further information on this project, contact: Peter Gray, Community Affairs Public Outreach U.S. General Services Administration – Northwest/Arctic Region Peter.Gray@gsa.gov

http://www.serapdx.com/project.php?c...12&project=104

New cladding would be absolutely marvelous.

I had read somewhere that the building would get a new skin....one can hope.

Anyone have a current image of this building?

in all her glory

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...l_Building.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...l_Building.jpg

and here I thought I would be turning 80 by the time this tower went under renovation.

Good to hear it will be happening sooner. I cant remember where now, but I know I have seen a rendering of what the tower would look like...though I dont think it was a very detailed rendering.

Um, the picture is a little hard to take on a full stomach.

yikes...that's a whole LOT of ugly...as a whole, we seem have a lot of buildings similar to this downtown...unfortunate

I had an inside source and mentioned it a year or two ago. Took 'em awhile to get to it. $133 million... I wonder if I'll recognize the building once they're done.

So it looks like they're going to do a complete interior reconstruction, new circulation, make it LEED, building systems, as well as put a new cladding system on it, which from what I was told will involve a double glass curtainwall on the southern facade. They also might just put a new glass curtain wall over the current facade, actually. I guess we'll find out, though.

Well I am sure for $133 Million they could have built a new tower, maybe not as tall, and sell this building to a private developer/ owner. Sometimes I just don't understand the GSA.

Edith Green/Wendell Wyatt Federal Building Renovation | x feet | 18 floors | U/C
 

It looks as though the Federal Building "Updo" is going out for bid (July, 2009)! $133 million dollars worth! A new facade is part of the changes coming to this tired looking federal building. :cheers:

Are there any renderings?

this actually going to happen within the coming years? I always thought I would make it to 60 before this happened.

Anything that makes our skyline look better from the Willamette is good news.

Fantastic news...IMO this is the ugliest building in the city (with Fugjoy a close second).

I don't know...there are plenty of fugly office buildings downtown...actually, most of them are pretty horrible 50's and 60's affairs...blocky, sterile and bland (not that I'm arguing that THIS building is ugly ;-) )

I couldn't remember what this building looks like. If you're in the same boat, here's a pic.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...l_Building.jpg

The Portland Building is much more ugly that this Federal Building...

There, fixed it for ya

So, without doing any research, boi, name some high-rise office buildings in downtown Portland built in the 50's.

You have to be joking?!?!

Surprised this is actually going to happen...though the down side is that it wont start construction for another year...which at first makes no sense, but then when I thought about it, the city has to move everyone out of the building for three years to renovate it...so there will be alot of office moving going on this summer.

:previous: Is it possible they could be moving into First and Main... F & M gets a tenant for a couple years while the federal building is being renovated and the office market improves, while the building's current occupants only have to move a couple of blocks?

that sounds very likely.

Having this, a government building renovated to a greener standard, and the Oregon Sustainability Center's built-from-the-ground-up Living Building only a few blocks away should give visitors a one-stop-shopping opportunity to see the two main approaches to energy efficiency.

Actually most of the tenants in the Green/Wyatt building are moving into the Gus Solomon Courthouse, another government owned building. My little sister is a paralegal and her firm got moved out of there in anticipation of the new federal tenants.

Here is an older building that got a $100m+ renovation, for reference:

http://curbed.com/uploads/2009_3_330madison.jpg

Curiousity growing on which building this is?

That's 330 Madison Ave in NYC.

http://www.observer.com/2009/real-es...-madison-100-m

I much prefer the International Style facade in the 'before' picture.

I finally got a reply from SERA and we'll be getting updated renderings of this project in Mid-December.

▲▲ Thanks.....I will be looking forward to the "new" look...

Wednesday, December 9, 2009, 1:59pm PST
McCain blasts Portland's biggest stimulus project
Portland Business Journal

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A new report by two Republican senators takes aim at the proposed $133 million renovation of the Edith Green/Wendell Wyatt federal building.

The report, by Sens. Don Coburn of Oklahoma and 2008 presidential candidate John McCain of Arizona questions the project’s entire scope.

“For $133 million, some may wonder why they did not simply tear it down and start over,” the senators wrote in a report released Wednesday.

The report named the project the second worst stimulus project funded by the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, passed in February.

The worst of 100 projects listed by Coburn and McCain is a $5 million energy retrofit of a “mostly empty mall” in Oak Ridge, Tenn.

The Wyatt/Green building earned the senators’ wrath for several reasons. A vegetative skin designed to lower heating and cooling costs isn’t yet proven to help insulate buildings. Plus a new federal building built in 2007, in San Francisco, featured the same energy efficiency features and cost $144 million. The buildings are both 18 stories while the San Francisco structure offers 100,000 square feet more in usable space, the senators noted.

Bids are expected to go out on the Wyatt/Green project this month.

I hate to admit it, but I think these Senators make a compelling point. From the day this project was announced I was wondering the same thing. The cost of new construction was at, or below, the proposed renovation cost. If the object it to go green, imagine the efficiencies and improvements that would be gained by starting from the ground up. I know the "greenest" building is the one that is already built, but this renovation seems like a missed opportunity to me.

Well McCain can go F* himself on this one. Granted he is from Arizona and tear down and start from the ground up is how they like to do it down there. From a structural standpoint there is nothing wrong with this building...but the envelope is basically a huge energy leak...not to mention most of the energy that the building uses is being consumed through its lights. None of these issues warrant the need to tear down and start over.

If they did start from ground up, the only right thing to do would be to recycle over 90% of the original building back into the new building which would make the final price tag much higher than this....then we would have to listen to old McCain crying about us wanting too much money. The way I see it, I vote for senators that try to bring federal money to my state, not turn it away.

Never heard these two complain about the billion dollar embassy in Iraq. God forbid we spend money in our own country.

Wow... McCain can go F* himself? Why exactly? It looks to me like he's doing his job. Why is it that so much vitriol has to be spewed over partisan labels? Ad hominem attacks are usually left to those without good counter-arguments. My original point was that McCain seemed to have a good point regarding the Highest and Best use of these stimulus funds. If you going to expend these types of dollars as part of the stimulus, why not get the best possible outcome? The San Francisco Federal Building cited in the article seems to be a good illustration of this line of thought. I’m not suggesting we do nothing. I’m suggesting we do it better.
Also, regarding you comment about “recycling 90%” of the building, you’ve totally misread the reality of what would happen in the event of new construction. This building would never be demolished. In actuality, the GSA would declare the EG/WW building to be “Surplus USG Property.” It would be appraised and sold at its fair market value, probably to a REIT. The GSA would then lease back its existing space until the new building is completed. The new Federal Building would undoubtedly be built with the highest seismic and LEED specifications (which the GSA requires), thereby meeting the original intent of current renovation.
What does Portland get under this approach? A CBD surface parking lot gets transformed into a standard-bearer building for efficient, new federal construction, as well as a new “property taxpaying” commercial office redevelopment opportunity in the form of the former EG/WW building. It makes sense to me. What am I missing here?

Is the seismic code the same for federal construction in San Francisco and Portland? I have my doubts. Which state, California or Oregon, builds for greater longevity? I don't think it is California. To compare the simple total cost of one fed building to the other, in such different locales, is naive at best and misleading at worst, and is not even relevant. Much better to compare the total cost of demolition and reconstruction to rehabbing. That was probably done for the Portland site. Does anyone have access to that cost comparison?

Well my issues towards McCain go back for a while now of watching his actions as a senator. He is happy to not try to bring new money into his state, that is fine, but I am okay with our senators trying to bring money into this state.

Though I will agree, your approach does make sense, but the reason why I would like to see this building renovated than simply building a new building is because we need to start looking at our current crop of buildings and understand how each of them is wasting energy and fix those issues. Building a new energy efficient federal building while keeping this one would actually add to the energy consumption because you will still have the same problems with this building and a new building that also consumed its portion of energy, even it is is very efficient. So that is why I think it is more important for them to fix a current problem before deciding to move to a new building because the original problem doesnt go away just because they are in a new building.

I stand corrected on the assumption that a rehab/replace comparison was done. (A little homework before posting is a good idea!) You are right, Urbanlife, that relocating does not solve the problem of the existing building as an energy sink. While this building is relatively new it predates computers, all ideas of energy conservation, and the need for terrorist security. These will all be addressed while living up to Portland's philosophy of reuse and recycle. I admire this philosophy, and think it is cheaper in the long run.

I notice that in most of the articles I read, the greening of the building is most written about. Less attention is given to the security upgrades that come with this rehab. Guess it just isn't sexy enough.

Urbanlife- I think we both agree that the EG/WW building is not efficient and should be improved. The same can be said of the vast majority of commercial office space in the CBD built prior to 1990. Here is my contention, sell the EG/WW as GSA surplus, then let the private sector investor whom purchases the building make the needed upgrades. In this way, the costs of upgrading the EG/WW are shifted from the public sector to the private sector. The USG could even sell the EG/WW building to a future developer at a substantial discount with the provision that it be upgraded to a LEED certification. Again, I think it’s a win-win for Portland.

Yes scleeb, both McCain and Coburn can go %^&* themselves. Here's why:

I'm always amused by the fact that right-wing rants of fiscal discipline generally come from leaders of states that receive the most federal funding vs. taxes paid to the federal government.

http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/22685.html

As the preceding link shows, Oregon paid $23.5 billion in federal taxes in 2005, while receiving $22.8 billion in benefits from the federal government, contributing $700 million to the national kitty by the sweat of our collective brow.

Put another way, we Oregonians received .93 cents in benefits for every dollar we paid in federal taxes.

In contrast, in 2005 Arizona received $44.6 billion in payments from the federal government while paying federal taxes in the amount of $35.9 billion. That's an aggregate welfare payment of $8.7 BILLION, or $1.19 in benefits for every dollar paid to the federal government.

In 2005, Oklahoma received $27.6 billion in federal benefits while paying federal taxes of $19.6 billion. That equates to $8 BILLION of federal welfare payments for dear Mr. Coburn's state, or an impressive $1.36 in benefits for every dollar paid!

While wealthy, elderly white males lose sleep over how Buckwheat and Aunt Jamima caricatures are defrauding the government, it's clear the Coburn and McCain are the ultimate welfare queens - combined they slurped $16.7 BILLION from the government's teet in 2005 alone! MAZEL TOV gentlemen!

I feel rather strongly that these fine men should focus on their OWN state's voracious appetites for gobbling other people's money, and stay out of the business of states that actually carry their own f$%^&g weight.

Wonderful sentiments there phil. Excuse me if I don't choose to pile on a person, whom from all outward appearances, seems to be a genuinely decent man. So McCain doesn't like the Stimulus bill and you do. So McCain's a Rep and you're not. I get it. Lets move on, this political tripe gets real old, real fast. What do you think about the original point of all this? Do you think renovation of the EG/WW is better for Portland than new construction? That's the discussion I was hoping to have.

This is just too good to ignore. I vote for renovation of the fed bldg assuming it is an otherwise sound building that can continue to serve fed needs efficiently. Looking toward Europe, they build for the long term. We discard our buildings after 35-50 years. That is foolish.

As to dumping (excuse me, selling) an inefficient building to a private buyer expecting or hoping he will cough up the millions to rehab it--I just don't see that as very likely.

I was hoping that Portland would have two world-class examples of how to implement green design, in the same neighborhood:
1. a living building- Oregon Sustainability Center
2. a green renovation- the Federal building

Actually, local private developers spend millions renovating old buildings every year in Portland. I'm sure you know that. Look at the McMenemins' portfolio, Venerable Properties list of rehabs, the recent Meier & Frank renovation, the Brewery Blocks redevelopment, Unico's renovation of Big Pink's lavatories, the recent renovation of the Federal Reserve by Harsch, just to name a few. I could go on forever. Why does a private sector renovation of the EG/WW seem very unlikely? With all the energy efficiency/sustainability programs available to developers today, I would say a major renovation of the EG/WW building would be quite likely.

Incidentally, I agree that discarding older buildings is foolish. But name the buildings that Portland has "discarded" after 40-50 years? Portland's recent history shows us that discarding older buildings is no longer a common practice here. Those instances are noteworthy for there rarity.