Back to News Index

March 23 , 2007

By Wendy Culverwell

Tearing into an old building always brings surprises.

For Venerable Group, Inc, which is renovating three buildings that constitute the White Stag Block, the exhaustive effort to create a new Portland home for the University of Oregon is no exception.

Nestled between the Burnside Bridge and Northwest Naito Parkway, the White Stag Block is getting a multimillion-dollar overhaul in the form of a down-to-the-studs remake that will transform the 66,000 square feet into an academic complex.

The university signed an 18-year lease that gives it an option to buy the property. When it opens, it will have six classrooms, event space, a computer laboratory, cafe and other facilities to support architecture and journalism studies, among other programs.

The rehabilitation will create a unified interior within the walls of three historic buildings--The Bickel (est. 1883), the Skidmore (1880) and the namesake White Stag (1907). But the exterior is a different story.

Each building will reflect its own unique architecture. Listed on the National Historic Register, the trio are considered major contributors to their neighborhood.

The best surprise to date, according to Art DeMuro, president of Venerable Group, is the unexpected iron facade workers found on the side of the Bickel building that fronts Naito Parkway.

Workers were removing the building's faux brick facade when they uncovered an elaborate iron facade hidden from view since a 1950s-era makeover.

It is a classic example of why developers who specialize in historic properties operate under the motto: "Expect the worst, hope for the best and budget accordingly," DeMuro said.

The iron facade offers a bright, if unexpected (read: unbudgeted), opportunity to bring back a long-lost architectural detail.

Venerable is spending about $100,000 from the project's contingency fund to restore the facade, which contains a catalog's worth of different pieces and styles because the details vary from floor to floor and even window to window.

Bremik Construction, the general contractor, recruited Barr Castings to repair the now exposed facade. The job involves crating more than 500 molds to replicate missing or damaged pieces.

Sadly, the original ironwork was badly damaged when those long-ago workers covered the entire facade with WonderBlock, a cement-based brick-building system. The workers simply broke away the bits of iron that got in their way, leaving jagged edges.

DeMuro said the iron facade is one of many pleasant surprises to crop up.

"They really were very stout buildings, with lots of surface details," he said.

The three buildings were in generally good condition, considering the youngest is a century old. More than 100 wooden windows in the Skidmore and Bickel buildings were in good enough condition that they could be renovated.

Even the unpleasant surprises--like finding that the weight in the Skidmore building was crushing the dense timber caps between the support columns and beams--had a positive note. They found they would re-mill recycled timber to replicate the old caps.

For construction workers accustomed to building supports with composite materials, the chance to use real timber was a rare treat. And as an added bonus, it preserves the character of the structure, said Duke Dexter, project engineer for Bremik Construction.

So far, more than 99 percent of material coming out of the buildings is being recycled, either within the project or to building-material recyclers.

It's an important consideration, both because the project is gunning for the U.S. Building Council's LEED gold certification and because it saves money.

Renovations are about one-third complete with completion set for January, 2008. Interior demolition is finished and much of the facade work is done, with iron workers putting the new pieces on the Bickel building this week. Most of the exterior brick and plaster has been repaired.

The next phase will be to create the new interior, which includes a bracing against earthquakes, new mechanical systems and a two-sided elevator that has to make multiple stops per floor since the buildings have different elevations. Using ramps to match up floors would have taken up too much space, DeMuro said.

Venerable Group, Inc. acquired the properties in 2006 from the Bill Naito Co. and formed White Stag LLC to own the property.

The complex financing behind the project entails a mix of traditional loans, tax credit financing and support from the Portland Development Commission.

KeyBank is the chief financial backer, having provided a $26 million loan as well as investments in historic and community development tax credits to support the project.

Jan McKee, relationship manager for Key Community Development Corp., called White Stag a great example of a community investment in a project that will help reactivate a struggling neighborhood.

It is KeyBank's largest commitment to date in Oregon.

And of course, no discussion of the White Stag Block is done without mention of the celebrated "Made in Oregon" sign sitting on the roof. Ramsay Signs owns the sign.

Discussions on the sticky subject of the sign's future--stay up, come down, alter?--continue.

But DeMuro noted, the sign doesn't meet modern earthquake codes and needs updating one way or another.

Click for current Business Journal

Back to top