An August groundbreaking is tentatively set for the construction of a new Central City Concern medical facility at 707 West Burnside. The building will help expand the capacity of the organization’s primary care operation, while also providing a permanent home for the integrated behavioral health services it offers.
Central City Concern is a not for profit agency founded in 1979 that serves single adults and families in the Portland metro area who are impacted by homelessness, poverty and addiction. This is accomplished by providing health care, housing and employment opportunities to those in need. The new three-story facility—with the possibility of eventually becoming ten stories—will take up a half block and will serve as a needed expansion for the Central City Concern’s Old Town Health Clinic (727 West Burnside), located in in the base of the Richard L. Harris Building (8 Northwest 8th Avenue), which the organization owns. The Harris Building offers low-income housing for Central City Concern clients.
707 West Burnside
“We’d actually wanted to buy this lot as well when we were making the purchase of the Harris building property because we have been needing to expand our services in Old Town/Chinatown,” said Ed Blackburn, executive director of Central City Concern. “The owners weren’t looking to sell, so we just bought the quarter block that we occupy now.”
A boarded up Burger King sits on the site where the new building will eventually be—at the corner of Broadway and Burnside. The property has long become a hotspot for drug activity and homeless camping. After receiving several complaints from the neighborhood for the nuisances these activities caused, the Portland police decided to bring the issue to the landlord of the property in June.
What the police found out was that the property was in the process of being foreclosed upon.
“When we heard the property was in foreclosure we immediately contacted the bank and started working out a purchasing agreement,” he said. “The bank was very receptive of the idea because they wanted to see this lot be developed as well.”
The boarded up Burger King building at 707 West Burnside
Around the same time, the federally-based Health Resources and Services Administration announced that the organization would disperse over $600 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act monies to health centers across the country looking to improve existing facilities or build new ones. Central City Concern—with the help of local companies: Walsh Construction, Gerding Edlen Development and SERA Architects—promptly put together a preliminary design and cost estimate for the project, which included the purchasing agreement with the bank.
A few months went by and no word came back on the grant. Then, in the first week of December, Blackburn got a call from the office of Senator Jeff Merkley. Merkley’s representative asked Blackburn why he hadn’t let them know that he was attending an event at the Executive Building hosted by President Obama on that Wednesday (it was Monday at the time). Not knowing what they were talking about, Blackburn decided to investigate.
“Right after I got off the phone I got an urgent email with no other information than that I was supposed to be in at the Executive Building in Washington DC on Wednesday,” he said. “I had actually kind of put the grant in the back of my head and just figured it was going to be a speech about health care reform or something.”
Kind of bitter about the short notice and lack of details, Blackburn called Merkley’s office once again wondering why he had to come.
Their candid response: “because the president wants you here.”
Blackburn obliged and jetted off to Washington DC. Once at the Executive Building, speculations began that it was about the grant. About five minutes before the president came out to speak to the 85 community health representatives in attendance, Blackburn received word from home that Central City Concern was receiving $8.9 million to buy the 707 West Burnside property and construct the building.
Richard L. Harris Building
President Obama proceeded to announce the recipients of the grants and give a short speech about the benefits of community health that Blackburn referred to as a “very articulate and detailed speech that he presented with absolutely no notes.”
Considering the time constraints placed around the uses of the federal money, the project has been put on a fast track. The organization hopes to get through the entire permitting process in one go around, a difficult task for a project of this size. Bidding for the demolition of the old Burger King building is currently underway, and it should be taken down in the next three to four months.
The $8.9 million in stimulus money will go to purchasing the property, demolishing the existing structure and building a three-story health facility that will be accessible from the current Old Town Health Clinic on the second floor. The building will be approximately 43,000 sq. ft.,15,000 sq. ft. on each of the first two floors, and 14,000 sq. ft. on the third floor. The first floor will serve clients with behavioral health issues that are currently treated at the 12th Avenue Recovery Center (the clinic’s lease expires in 2011), while the second floor will be designated to extending the primary care facilities of the current clinic. The third floor will not house anything in particular, but will help accommodate future expansion.
“This building will expand our primary care operation to accommodate 1,300 more patients, as well as providing outpatient mental health services to over 500 patients,” he said. “Plus, the building will also be a healing center and a space for people to get off the streets. It will be a safe, social environment where individuals can come have group meetings, get some exercise or just hang out.”
The Old Town Clinic, located on the ground floor of the Harris Building
Although the grant is only going to the construction of the first three floors, the building is being designed so that seven more stories could be added in the future. The seven additional stories would serve as workforce housing for those clients of Central City Concern who have worked their way out of low-income housing and can afford something more. Blackburn noted that the residential phase of the project is yet to be funded, and is probably two or three years away from beginning.
“We are designing this building so that it can be complete if it is only three stories,” said Paul Jeffreys, associate principal with SERA and project designer. “But we are also being very cognizant within the design to make sure a future residential expansion could be accommodated.”
One way of accomplishing this is by designing spaces on the first floor that can eventually be adapted into retail space and a residential lobby and entrance.
The building design is tracking LEED gold certification. Environmentally sustainable amenities possibly include a garden on the roof, energy-efficient lighting and an open common area with vegetation that will collect rainwater and help flush the toilets.
A crucial point made by Dave Skilton of the Bureau of Development Services’ Land Use Division during last month's pre-application conference was that this building will be located at one of, if not the, most important intersection in the downtown corridor, at the corner of Burnside and Broadway. While Skilton noted that anything would be better than the boarded up fast food restaurant that is currently there, there should be extra special attention put on the design of the parts of the building that face either Broadway or Burnside to make them as pedestrian friendly as possible.
While the building designers are hard at work adjusting details involving setbacks and loading space requirements, Central City Concern is getting excited to further serve those in need.
“We really think this is going to be nice building for everyone,” said Blackburn. “Not just for our clients but for the neighborhoods and business communities around us.”
Construction is set to begin in August. The building should take about one year to construct and will create about 111 jobs. Before construction can begin, the building design will be presented to the community and put through design guide review known as a Design Abstract Retrospective. The project will be presented to the Pearl District Planning, Transportation and Design Review Committee at 6 p.m. on March 16 at 300 NW 14th Avenue. The design will go through the design guide review on March 18.
For more information on the services offered by Central City Concern, or about the construction of this particular building, please visit the web site: http://www.centralcityconcern.org. Or, call the organization at 503.294.1681.
Central City Concern
232 NW Sixth Avenue
Portland OR 97209
