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  #21  
Old Posted Jun 17, 2009, 11:37 PM
pdxhome pdxhome is offline
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The Portland Building is much more ugly that this Federal Building...
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  #22  
Old Posted Jun 18, 2009, 3:20 AM
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Originally Posted by pdxhome View Post
This this Federal Building is much more ugly than the Portland Building ..
There, fixed it for ya
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  #23  
Old Posted Jun 18, 2009, 3:41 AM
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Originally Posted by scottyboi View Post
I don't know...there are plenty of fugly office buildings downtown...actually, most of them are pretty horrible 50's...
So, without doing any research, boi, name some high-rise office buildings in downtown Portland built in the 50's.
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  #24  
Old Posted Jun 18, 2009, 3:02 PM
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There, fixed it for ya
You have to be joking?!?!
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  #25  
Old Posted Aug 25, 2009, 3:07 AM
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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.


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Portland federal building due for big green makeover
by Harry Esteve, The Oregonian
Monday August 24, 2009, 6:05 PM

The homely, humongous Edith Green/Wendell Wyatt federal building in downtown Portland will be transformed into an environmental showpiece and become Oregon's single biggest federal stimulus project.

When it's done, the boxy, concrete-and-glass tower at Southwest Third and Jefferson will have a softer, sleeker, more modern look, according to an architect's drawing of the finished product. As a bonus, the 24-year-old windows won't leak and the building could qualify for "LEED" certification, an internationally recognized green seal of approval.

"We're looking at this as an opportunity to showcase how we can take an existing building and turn it into a high-performance green building," said Kevin Kampschroer, acting director of the environmental construction program for the General Services Administration in Washington, D.C.

The $133 million price tag puts it far ahead of any other stimulus-funded work in the state, and among the more expensive building redos in the nation. The closest in Oregon is a $33 million railroad track rehabilitation for the Port of Coos Bay, according to recovery.org, the Web site for a nonprofit that tracks stimulus projects.

The Green/Wyatt project is part of a broader Obama Administration plan to convert government buildings from massive resource wasters into certifiably energy- and water-efficient structures. More than $4 billion has been set aside for similar reconstruction projects around the country.

For Portland, the selection of the Green/Wyatt building hands the city another entry for its environmentally friendly portfolio, plus an economic boost from a major downtown project during a particularly stagnant time for construction.

"We're talking hundreds of workers," said Bob Shiprack, who represents the Oregon State Building and Construction Trades Council. "This is a total remodel. It's as far as you can go without knocking the whole building down."

The main hitch, says Shiprack, is the timeframe. Work isn't slated to start until about a year from now. "I don't know what the hold-up is on this." In the meantime, he said, "employment continues to decline in the building trades."

The Portland firm SERA Architects has been hired to take the lead on the project.

Initial plans to renovate the 18-story, 350,000-square-foot building were outlined three years ago, but never made it to the top of the government's funding priority list. That changed when Congress approved the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act -- the federal stimulus program.

The Portland project got the go-ahead because so much design work already had been finished, Kampschroer said.

Plans call for a new "skin" for the outside of the building, with each side receiving a different treatment to take advantage of natural light, heat and cooling. Protruding "fins" covered in vines and other vegetation will block heat in the summer and capture light in the winter. New double-glazed windows will take the place of the leaky, single-paned ones that are the source of tremendous energy loss, Kampschroer said.

The new structure will be designed not only to cut energy use dramatically, but also to resist earthquakes and, because it's a federal building, bomb blasts. At the same time, all electrical, plumbing and other mechanical systems will be replaced. Security systems also will be upgraded.

"This is a building that's had no major modernization since the mid-70s," Kampschroer said.

Building tenants -- including the IRS, the Veteran's Administration and U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, will be asked to vacate the building for up to three years while the work goes on.

Some may question such a lofty price tag for a renovation -- why not just start from scratch? For example, the smaller, 11-story Oregon Sustainability Center to be built at Portland State University is projected to cost $90 million.

Recycling existing buildings represents the new green ethic better than building new ones, said Jerry Yudelson, a green building consultant in Tucson, Ariz., who is familiar with Portland projects.

"Most of the energy savings that's going to happen in the next 10 years is going to come from existing buildings," Yudelson said. "It's a big movement. It's happening all over the country."

The building, named for two prominent Oregon members of Congress, generally gets low aesthetic marks. It's "representative of its era," Yudelson said.

Port of Portland director Bill Wyatt, son of one of the building's namesakes, said he's glad it's getting an update.

"It's an incredibly valuable piece of property," Wyatt said. Keeping it as a government building adheres to the original plan of a government complex in downtown. "It just makes a lot of sense to maintain what you've got."

-- Harry Esteve; harryesteve@news.oregonian.com
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  #26  
Old Posted Aug 25, 2009, 4:01 AM
IanofCascadia IanofCascadia is offline
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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?
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  #27  
Old Posted Aug 25, 2009, 4:11 AM
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  #28  
Old Posted Aug 25, 2009, 5:07 AM
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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.
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  #29  
Old Posted Aug 26, 2009, 2:15 PM
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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.
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  #30  
Old Posted Aug 27, 2009, 3:30 AM
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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.
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  #31  
Old Posted Aug 28, 2009, 1:19 AM
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Here is an older building that got a $100m+ renovation, for reference:

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  #32  
Old Posted Aug 28, 2009, 4:57 AM
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Curiousity growing on which building this is?
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  #33  
Old Posted Aug 28, 2009, 9:13 PM
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Originally Posted by dintares View Post
Curiousity growing on which building this is?
That's 330 Madison Ave in NYC.

http://www.observer.com/2009/real-es...-madison-100-m
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  #34  
Old Posted Aug 28, 2009, 9:24 PM
maccoinnich maccoinnich is offline
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I much prefer the International Style facade in the 'before' picture.
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  #35  
Old Posted Nov 19, 2009, 1:09 AM
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I finally got a reply from SERA and we'll be getting updated renderings of this project in Mid-December.

Last edited by Sioux612; Nov 19, 2009 at 2:45 AM.
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  #36  
Old Posted Nov 19, 2009, 2:37 AM
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▲▲ Thanks.....I will be looking forward to the "new" look...
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  #37  
Old Posted Dec 9, 2009, 10:12 PM
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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.
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  #38  
Old Posted Dec 10, 2009, 5:48 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by PacificNW View Post
Wednesday, December 9, 2009, 1:59pm PST
McCain blasts Portland's biggest stimulus project
Portland Business Journal

Print Email Reprints RSS Feeds LinkedIn Share Comments
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.
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  #39  
Old Posted Dec 10, 2009, 9:16 AM
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Originally Posted by scleeb View Post
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.
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  #40  
Old Posted Dec 10, 2009, 4:22 PM
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Never heard these two complain about the billion dollar embassy in Iraq. God forbid we spend money in our own country.
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