By Rich Riegel

It’s a one-of-a-kind building with a first-of-its-kind elevator.
The recently renovated Telegram Building at 1101 SW Washington Street in downtown Portland will sport the Gen2, a super-compact elevator system developed by the Otis Elevator Co.
And it’s a first in the Pacific Northwest.

In conventional geared elevators, a rooftop machine houses the machine, governor and controller. The bulky unit requires the support of machine beams or a concrete structural slab.
In the Gen2 gearless system, the machine, governor and support elements are combined into a compact integrated machine structure housed within the hoistway, eliminating the need for a rooftop machine room.

For Bill Bailey, project architect from Portland’s Waterleaf Architecture, the new elevator system is the right solution.
“As an architect, I’m always excited to see new technology to solve classic problems,” said Bailey. “This elevator provides a technology that may become standard in this industry with applications such as the Telegram Building. It’s an interesting take on new technology going into buildings.”

There are two basic types of elevators, according to Bailey.
Hydraulic elevators use a piston at the ground level and move up and down with a basement-level hydraulic pump.
Geared, or traction, elevators use gears, pulleys and counterweights.

“One of the issues that makes the cable or traction elevators more expensive is that they need a room on top of the elevator shaft for the equipment, which usually resulted in what we call an elevator penthouse,” said Bailey. “That structure often projects 12 to 15 feet above the building and also needs to be air conditioned and heated. The new style elevators allows us to have the elevator equipment placed at the top of the shaft without having the style of equipment that required the penthouse.”

Bailey said the Otis Gen2 elevator system uses low profile motors and runs on reinforced belts rather than cables.

There was also a matter of speed, with four floors of the building above grade, two floors below grade.

“(The building) is on the cusp of needing two elevators due to the size and number of levels served,” said Bailey. “The issue then got to speed. As building occupants moved through the building, one fast elevator can, at this level, serve better than two slow elevators.

“You therefore save the architectural enclosure and structure, yet still achieve the performance of the faster geared elevator. Essentially, the hydraulic elevator didn’t require a penthouse. Both the cable style and the new style operated at the top down, and work through the counterweight systems in a faster manner.

“This is particularly important on a retrofit or historic project because we don’t have to penetrate the roof. Thus, the integration of a new elevator into a new building becomes more architecturally sympathetic.”

The Telegram Building’s older, traditional-style elevator has been removed. The Gen2 elevator was retrofitted into a new area of the building and is accessible from both front and back, “so it’s able to accommodate multiple floor levels for handicapped accessibility,” said Bailey.

The type of technology used in the Otis Gen2 has been used in Europe for years, and in the United States for a shorter period of time.

“It’s just now that this style of elevator has been approved by the state elevator inspector and the elevator code in the state of Oregon,” Bailey said.

The Telegram Building’s Gen2 elevator system may be the first to be purchased and installed in the Pacific Northwest, but it will not be the last.

According to Silvio Albino, manager of communications for the North and South American Area of Otis Elevator Co.’s world headquarters in Connecticut, a total of 15 Gen2 systems have been sold to companies in Portland during the last year

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