By Amy Rose Davis

Along with environmental clean-up work at Terminal 4, the Port of Portland is pursuing upgrades elsewhere within the harbor.

At Terminal 2, the port entered into a five-year lease agreement with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in June. The corps will lease approximately four acres at the northwest end of Terminal 2, where it will station two federal hopper dredges. The parcel includes two berths for vessels and a small warehouse. As part of the agreement, the port will provide approximately $590,000 in facility and infrastructure upgrades. “The project is a retrofit on the dock to provide water, steam, electricity, phone and data lines for the Corps of Engineer dredges,” says Jeff Krug, terminal manager for the Port of Portland.

The area to be leased by the Corps was previously a construction site used during the construction of the center span of the Sauvie Island Bridge. It has been vacant since December. The project started on Aug. 1 and was expected to be complete by October. The general contractor is Triad Mechanical of Portland. The subcontractor performing electrical work is Farnham Electric of McMinnville, Ore. The corps should take occupancy of the area by the end of October.

Meanwhile, the port completed purchase in December of the former Reynolds Metals Co. site adjacent to the Troutdale Airport in East Multnomah County, Ore. The 700-acre parcel was occupied by Reynolds Metals from 1941 to 2000, when the plant closed. Since then, the site has been an idle brownfield and declared a Superfund site. Since the port approved the purchase of the plant in 2004, the site has been cleaned to industrial standards and the existing structures were razed to make room for future development on approximately 350 acres.

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The port began phase one improvements in early July. The work includes installing water, sanitary sewer and stormwater lines and improving some of the existing trail area along an existing levee.

Design work is being performed by David Evans Associates of Portland. Earthwork is being performed by Northwest Earthmovers of Tigard, Ore. The first phase of the project is estimated at approximately $10 million in construction costs. Phase one improvements should be completed by January 2010. FedEx Ground is close to finalizing an agreement with the newly formed enterprise zone to build on a 78-acre parcel on the site. An important anchor tenant, FedEx Ground plans to build a regional distribution hub to replace its Swan Island facility in Portland.

Port of Portland Pursues Early Cleanup Action at Terminal 4

The Port of Portland recently finished up the first phase of clean-up at Portland Harbor’s Terminal 4. The eight-week project began in August and included sediment removal, sediment capping at Slip 3 and bank stabilization work at Wheeler Bay. The project is part of the overall clean-up of Portland Harbor. Terminal 4 has been in operation since 1917, and the area has been contaminated by petroleum, metals and other materials. The EPA designated a 6.2-mi section of the Willamette River that runs from Swan Island to Sauvie Island north of downtown Portland as a Superfund site in December 2000.

During the first phase of the clean-up, the port is focused on evaluating and removing the sediment with the highest levels of contamination and also stabilizing the bank at Wheeler Bay, says Nicole LaFranchise, project manager with the Port of Portland. During phase two, the port will construct a 15-acre confined disposal facility at Slip 1. The phase two work is being designed, and construction work is scheduled to begin in the summer of 2010. LaFranchise says the port is waiting for more data on water contaminates before finalizing design of the disposal facility.

Sediment removal at the terminal involved dredging 14,000 cu yds of sediment, barging the sediment to The Dalles, then offloading it and disposing of it at a solid waste landfill in Wasco County. The port took steps to minimize potential impact of the dredging work. In addition to using an enclosed bucket for the dredging process, workers used a “turbidity curtain” to keep sediment in the work area.

“The dredging method is slow and confined,” says LaFranchise. “We also monitor water quality at the surface, middle and bottom of the river. The water quality has been great.”

The port confines in-water work to a window that runs from July 1 to Oct. 31, when fish, particularly juvenile salmon, are least likely to be in the work area. “There are always resident fish as well,” LaFranchise says. “We use a fish diversion mesh off of the opening to Slip 3. It’s a fish-friendly mesh, so they can’t get caught in it. They just swim by.”

The dredging and capping work at Slip 3 was performed by Hickey Marine of Vancouver, Wash., for a contract amount of $3.4 million. The lead designer on the project was Anchor Environmental of Seattle for a contract amount of $900,000, and the Wheeler Bay bank stabilization work was performed by Ash Creek Associates of Beaverton, Ore., for a contract amount of approximately $700,000.

The total cost estimate for the phase one work, both sediment removal and bank stabilization, is $8 million. To date, the port has spent approximately $12 million on early action activities related to Terminal 4, including field investigations, sampling, environmental consultants and agency oversights.

The Wheeler Bay work is necessary because “the area has some erosion issues,” LaFranchise says. “The work will give the area a more gentle slope, and there will be an environmental cap put on the bank. The area will be stabilized with vegetation.” Herb Clough, principal engineer at Ash Creek Associates, says that although the construction aspects of the bank stabilization are “fundamentally simple, traditional construction methods have not been fish friendly. We have to achieve engineering purposes but also design something attractive to fish.”

Clough says the vegetation changes as the slope elevation changes. “Other bioengineering systems don’t work in large rivers like this,” he adds. “The design changes as you go up the slope. We plant vegetation in anticipation of higher water levels,” during rainy months. The bank stabilization project was completed in October. Clough says the project fell behind slightly due to additional testing that had to be done on soils brought in for the project. Another piece of the overall improvements at Terminal 4 was the removal of eight defunct steel grain tanks. The project paid for itself. Elder Demolition of Portland deconstructed the tanks piece by piece and delivered the steel to Schnitzer Steel for recycling. The value of the salvaged and recycled steel paid for the removal of the tanks, and the property they occupied is now being marketed through an RFP request for proposals in hopes of returning it to productive use.

SeaTac Continues to Improve with New Rental Car Facility

With an eye on continued growth in the coming years, the Port of Seattle has embarked on an ambitious new project designed to streamline and improve travel efficiencies at SeaTac International Airport. Dubbed the consolidated Rental Car Facility (RCF), the new facility is expected to process 12,000 to 14,000 rental cars daily upon completion and free up approximately 3,200 parking spaces in the existing garage that currently house rental cars.

“The existing operation in our garage is inadequate for the [rental car] volume,” says George England, Program Leader for Landside and Stormwater Project Management Group with the Port of Seattle. Currently, five major car rental companies have facilities within the existing garage. The new facility “is designed to take all ten major car rental companies, and we’re anticipating at least two of the smaller ones,” said England.

With five floors and 2.1 million sq ft, the RCF will be more than just a parking garage. The first four floors of the facility will house rental cars and Quick-Turn-Around facilities that will allow returned rental vehicles to be refueled, cleaned, and readied for re-rental. The fifth floor will house an enclosed Customer Service Building for all of the rental car agencies as well as space for consolidated busing drop-off, pick-up and customer service amenities such as flight information, check-in kiosks and food concessions.

The consolidated RCF has a total budget of approximately $382.5 million; that figure includes $242 million for RCF construction, $13 million for offsite road improvements, and $15 million for a bus maintenance facility, plus additional money to purchase buses to shuttle passengers. Walker Parking Consultants of San Francisco, Calif., is heading the design team for the RCF; Callison, a Seattle architectural firm, is also providing design services. Walker Parking is also leading the design team for the offsite road improvements, and Arai Jackson Ellison Murakami of Seattle is providing design services for the bus facility.

The general contractor for the RCF is Turner Construction of Seattle. The port has also contracted with Brightworks of Portland, OR, for sustainability consulting services. Located about a mile or so away from the terminal building, the RCF will occupy a 23- acre parcel of land on the north end of the airport property. A consolidated busing operation will transport customers from the terminal to the RCF; all of the buses will run on compressed natural gas. A vendor for the buses, expected to cost $17.3 million, has not been selected yet. Craig Holt, project executive with Turner Construction, said that since the groundbreaking in June 2008, things have run fairly smoothly.

“The big challenge we’re anticipating right now is hoisting,” he said. “We’re moving in six tower cranes. It’s going to take a lot of coordination.” The project had completed mass excavation work as of early October and was set to begin pouring concrete for footings and foundations. England notes that several challenges with the project came before ground was even broken. “Working with the car rental industry was a challenge,” he said. “It’s a very competitive market. We had to get those companies together, agree to business terms, agree to a lease, and get a unanimous vote.”

Once the agreement with the rental car companies was set, the port faced a tough construction market in Seattle. “The Seattle construction market was steaming hot,” says England. Between commodity pricing and other industry factors, the project was looking at an estimated cost of $420 million last year. As a result of value engineering and working the car rental industry, the port was able to bring estimated costs back down. Janice Vaughn, Assistant Director of Engineering, said that current economic conditions should help keep the RCF project costs at current estimates.

“Things are looking better for us,” she said. “More contractors are starting to look at public work now rather than just the private sector, and there is some softening in the escalation of materials.” One factor in keeping costs down has been Turner Construction’s Building Information Modeling (BIM) system, Virtual Construction. Holt said that the three dimensional modeling system gives owners a good visual sense of what it will look and feel like to walk into final construction, but the practical purposes are invaluable for contractors and owners.

“We can model interferences and conflicts before we get to the site,” he said. “We use it on a technical basis to see who gets to move” and figure out how to solve those interferences and conflicts. Holt estimates that the BIM system improves efficiencies by at least 5 - 10%. “It improves safety, efficiency, and scheduling,” he said.

The facility is scheduled for completion in April 2011.

HQP2 on Track for 2010 Opening

Despite some early rain delays in 2007 and early 2008, the new Port of Portland headquarters and parking garage project at Portland International Airport – known locally as HQP2 – is back on schedule and on track for its original opening timeline of spring 2010.

“The major challenge we’ve had was starting with a fairly heavy rainy season last fall, which created some additional management issues,” says Karl Schulz, engineering project manager with the Port of Portland.

Construction had to take place around a high water table and saturated soils. “We fell behind schedule, but were able to recover when we had at least reasonable weather this summer.” Soil conditions in general are not ideal at PDX, pointed out Stan Waters, program manager at the port.

“Being so close to the river, there’s a lot of ground water and a high water table” which presented some difficulties during the underground utility work early in the project, he said. “We had to dewater quite a bit. “The whole airport site was filled in many years ago,” he said. “All of the structure has to sit on piles, so we had to drive in about 1,500 piles. They all went in pretty smoothly. There was a lot of shoring required to get the utilities in, most of it underground.”

Doug Sams of ZGF Architects pointed out that one challenge of the pile driving phase was coordination with airport operations. “The FAA tower is literally 50 feet away” from the construction site, he said. “Pile driving had to be closely coordinated with their operations.” Since the early phases, the project has gone very smoothly according to Schulz and Waters.

Currently, work is progressing on the 4th level of the north half of the parking garage. The phasing calls for the north half of the garage to be built first; during construction of the south half, the three floor of office space will be constructed on top of the north garage. The purpose of this phasing is to allow PDX to partially open the garage on an as-needed basis after May 2009. The main subcontractor for the concrete work on the garage is Hoffman Structures, Inc., of Portland. Hoffman Construction is the general contractor.

Electrical contractor Cherry City Electric of Vancouver, Wash,, and mechanical contractor Charter Mechanical of Tualatin, Ore. are also currently onsite. One key area of success on the project so far is the high rate of participation the Port of Portland is seeing in its Minority, Women, and Emerging Small Business program. “We are exceeding the majority of our goals,” said Rhonnda Edmiston, small business development program manager. The port established an overall goal of 8.9% participation from businesses that qualify as minority, women, or emerging small businesses; as of late August, the participation was at 18.9% of the $191 million construction budget. The port also established a workforce goal for the project of having at least 15% of labor hours performed by apprentices; as of mid-August, the percentage was at 24.2%. Similarly, the port wanted to see at least 15% of the apprentice labor hours performed by minorities or women, and also as of mid- August, 40% of apprentice labor hours were performed by minorities or women.

“Hoffman really deserves a lot of the credit for this success,” said Edmiston. “They have taken on our goals as their own and worked hard to achieve them.”

Redmond Municipal Airport Expanding to Meet Growing Needs

In an effort to keep up with the growing needs of travelers, the Redmond Municipal Airport in central Oregon is working on a major terminal expansion.

“Our current building has been too small for a long time,” says Jim Barrett, the airport’s resident architect. Finished in 1993, the current terminal building had reached its capacity within five years, Barrett adds. Work on the expansion began in April. The $39 million construction project will increase the size of the terminal from 23,000 sq ft to 136,000 sq ft. Construction will take place on three sides of the existing terminal and will include increased lobby space, a second baggage carousel and an enclosed concourse area. Kirby Nagelhout Construction of Bend, Ore., is the general contractor. Design services are provided by HNTB of Bellevue, Wash.

The project is expected to be complete and fully operational by December 2009. And Barrett says the airport may need another expansion by about 2013. “There’s a lot of demand in central Oregon,” he says. “It’s a relatively healthy and wealthy community. This airport services the entire region – Bend, Prineville, Redmond and Madras.” Currently, Alaska/Horizon, Allegiant and SkyWest (operating United Express and Delta flights) operate flights out of Redmond.

While the airport is not pursuing LEED certification, it is including a number of sustainability features in the expansion. “We’ve upgraded the mechanical systems significantly; everything is state-of-the-art,” Barrett says. “We’ve also upgraded to revolving doors, which are more energy efficient, and high-tech glass on the exteriors.” facility in Portland.