OHSU plans senior tower as 'living lab'
Aging - The 30-story building in South Waterfront would double for research
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
DYLAN RIVERA
The Oregonian
Oregon Health & Science University on Monday launched a partnership to build a senior housing tower that will put hundreds of prospective patients at its South Waterfront doorstep and create what the university calls a "living laboratory" for university researchers.
The university is selling a block in the new neighborhood to Medford-based Pacific Retirement Services Inc., which plans to build a 30-story senior housing building that would offer a range of retirement living options, from apartments to nursing home level care.
The arrangement will strengthen OHSU's relationship with Intel, OHSU officials said, as the two can work to develop devices and techniques aimed at making aging easier. Ideas range from computerized gadgets to remind patients to take medication to new drugs or treatments for dementia-related illnesses.
Yet it's not clear whether building a senior housing tower helps the university deliver in any significant way on its long-standing promise to develop a bioscience industry with 6,000 jobs.
Bioscience-based economic development on the waterfront was the central theme of then-OHSU President Peter Kohler's successful pitch to the Legislature in 2001 for $200 million in taxpayer-backed bonds to fund the construction of a new research building on Marquam Hill and the recruitment of about 100 new faculty members.
Many outside observers at the time were skeptical of Portland's ability to attract significant interest from biotech employers, and Monday's announcement did little to reduce that skepticism.
Joe Cortright, a Portland economist who has researched site-selection criteria for the biotech industry, said the new partnership would reinforce housing momentum on South Waterfront and perhaps hospital revenues. But, he said, it is unlikely to attract or create many bioscience employers.
"The really talented entrepreneurs and scientists are much more likely to be created and flourish in places where there are strong biotechnology clusters, and that's not in Portland," he said.
Pacific Retirement will pay $8 million for the block and, once its operation is up and running, will kick in a $3 million license fee to OHSU.
The 325-foot tower will equal in height the elliptical John Ross tower, its neighbor to the south.
The joint venture of a medical research center with a senior housing property appears to be rare, OHSU officials said.
OHSU's director of research, Dan Dorsa, said the partnership with developers of the retirement community related to OHSU's strategic priorities in research, including efforts to advance technology to improve care of the elderly.
"This doesn't mean we're diverting from our interest in standard biotech on the South Waterfront or elsewhere," Dorsa said.
Eric Dishman, manager of Intel's Digital Health Group in Hillsboro, said he hopes the building will help the company take new technologies for seniors from the testing lab to real-life situations, something the high-tech niche desperately needs more of.
Intel already uses Pacific Retirement communities in Medford and in Portland to test new devices, Dishman said. For example, the company has made a "caller ID on steroids" that helps Alzheimer's patients remember a person who is calling them on the phone. A screen shows the caller's picture, along with reminders about recent topics of discussion between the patient and the caller.
University researchers are keenly interested in having proximity and access to a retirement community where new drugs, devices and nursing techniques can be tested, said Steve Stadum, executive vice of OHSU. When the university first thought of soliciting ideas for such a center in the South Waterfront in May 2005, researchers from a variety of schools clamored for an opportunity to be involved.
A committee representing nursing, engineering, Alzheimer's research and other disciplines reviewed the proposals and selected Pacific Retirement from among a handful of finalists, Stadum said .
The project won't have doctors' offices built into it, though medical offices in the OHSU Center for Health & Healing are two blocks away.
Pacific Retirement has not set prices for rooms in the building, called the Mirabella. Building plans include a small swimming pool, informal dining venues throughout and a 25th-floor dining room, with views of the river and the Portland skyline.
The sale of the land to Pacific Retirement is all but final but won't close until late June. Construction could start in 2008 and be completed in 2010.
Ted Sickinger contributed to this story. Dylan Rivera: 503-221-8532,
dylanrivera@news.oregonian.com
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/orego...380.xml&coll=7
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I look forward to your pics Dougall....
i say ditch the height limits in the central city...and if not there then atleast have one section of downtown portland have no height limits.
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