SUBMITTED BY: LEASE CRUTCHER LEWIS
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The evolution of office space has come to downtown Portland.
Nestled by the Willamette River in the Northwest Industrial District, the team of Project, Hacker and Lease Crutcher Lewis made a statement with Field Office.
Field Office is more than 300,000 square feet of office and retail space in two distinct, contemporary, six-story buildings surrounding a central courtyard that is meant to break down the barriers between indoors and outdoors.
There are times to celebrate small, boutique projects done well. This is not that. Field Office is a $61.5 million, LEED Platinum-certified statement about what office space can be in the 21st century.
Project wanted the development to reflect the Pacific Northwest, “a region people move to for lifestyle, and to be engaged by the outdoors and to be outside,” said Jonathan Ledesma, a partner at Project.
“For typical Class-A office, why do we find ourselves hermetically sealed in these boxes?” Ledesma said. Project wanted to “blur these lines between inside and outside.”
“WE WANT A TENANT THAT CAN APPRECIATE WHAT WE’VE DONE WITH FIELD OFFICE.”
— JONATHAN LEDESMA
To that end, each floor has its own outdoor patios with garden spaces planted with native flora chosen by Lango Hansen Landscape Architects. That’s meant to democratize outdoor spaces so every tenant has access to outside work and play spaces.
Mike Sager, project manager at Lease Crutcher Lewis, said the project team wanted to “break the paradigm of having people sit in cubicles with artificial lighting.”
Plenty of contemporary office developers talk about breaking out of cubicle culture, but Project went further than most with Field Office. On the ground floors of each building, the large windows roll up like garage doors. Bicycle-share users can park their bicycles outside. Interior hallways are lined with Forest Stewardship Council-certified woods, including juniper, cumaru and Douglas fir.
On a recent visit, tech employees were seated on wooden benches and stump-like chairs throughout the courtyard,
which includes a wetland space that is designed to accommodate winter rains. The plants will grow over time to appear more wild and natural. The flora was chosen around the idea of a restorative landscape reflecting what would grow there in a natural ecosystem.
The ground floor of the west building even includes a visually striking moss wall from Italian maker Benetti that acts like a furry and verdant green reminder of nearby Forest Park.
“We wanted to bring the outdoors in,” Ledesma said.
The entire roof area is committed to sustainability save for a photovoltaic array.
THE PROJECT TEAM OPTED FOR A SINGLE, UNUSUALLY TALL FLOOR OF PARKING. THAT ALLOWED THEM TO FIT 149 MECHANIZED LIFTS THAT PROVIDE 298 PARKING SPACES ON A SINGLE FLOOR.
The west building was completed first and has attracted large office tenants in Adpearance and Ampere. Other tenants include Four Point Legal; The Good, an e-commerce marketing firm; and Forth, an electric transportation nonprofit group. Commissary Café recently opened on the ground floor.
The slightly smaller east building is in want of an anchor tenant. A privately run gym, Formula Three Fitness, has opened there.
“We want a tenant that can appreciate what we’ve done with Field Office,” Ledesma said. “It’s a campus environment, not for one tenant, but for many tenants.”
Recruiting an east-building anchor tenant will presumably be the top priority for Field Office’s new owners. The project recently sold for $118 million to a joint venture of Goldman Sachs and Lincoln Property Co., brokerage firm Newmark Knight Frank announced recently.
Field Office came about from longtime partners. Both Lease Crutcher Lewis and Hacker had worked for Project previously, and were familiar with the developer’s large-scale vision and values.
Project acquired the site at 1895 and 2035 NW Front Ave. from Guardian Real Estate Services, paying $7.95 million in 2015, according to public records.
In building the development, the project team opted for a single, unusually tall floor of parking. That allowed them to fit 149 mechanized lifts that provide 298 parking spaces on a single floor. That saved the developer the expense of building a second floor of parking.
“We saved a substantial amount of money by not having to go down another floor,” Sager said.
The lifts also require a valet, adding another amenity for tenants.
“It’s becoming more common, but this is probably the biggest use of them,” Sager said.
The project team opted to place bicycle parking in an easily accessible groundfloor indoors area that includes wood paneling and six showers.
“It isn’t a dark room in the basement,” Sager said. “It’s a key element of the building. (The developers) really wanted to step up the presentation to commuters and make it nice.”
The development’s technological features include an innovative building skin to seal the buildings against inclement weather. The project team worked with Fred Shearer & Sons to pre-fabricate the metal stud framing
and sheathing of the exterior walls.
The team then utilized a custom purpose-built robot to install the panels, saving time and money, the project team wrote in its TopProjects submission.
Lease Crutcher Lewis also had to go underground with a complex system to stabilize the buildings on the site, which is in a liquefaction zone. Consultation with the city of Portland geotechnical engineers resulted in 860, 6-foot-diameter columns reaching 20 feet in depth to provide soil stabilization and flexibility during an earthquake. To withstand pressure from the water table, the columns were tied into the mat foundation with rebar uplift anchors.
Approximately 50,000 gallons a day of groundwater were filtered and treated on site as heavy rains dealt another complication to construction. Water quality exceeded drinking water standards before being discharged into the city’s storm water system, according to Lease Crutcher Lewis.
PROJECT TEAM + STATS:
Location: Portland
Cost: $61.5 million
Start Date: July 2016
Completion Date: March 2018
Owner/Developer: Project
Architect: Hacker Architects
Engineer: PAE Consulting Engineers
General Contractor: Lease Crutcher Lewis
Engineering Partners: Alliant Systems, Cherry City Electric, Humber Design Group, KPFF Consulting Engineers, Total Mechanical
Field Office Subcontractors: Alliant Systems, Aluma-Systems Concrete Construction, Apply-A-Line, Axiom Custom Products, B&B Tile and Masonry, BergerABAM, Blue Flame Specialties, Building Materials Specialties, Cedar Landscape, Cherry City Electric, Coffman Excavation, CG Gredvig Inc., Iron Horse LLC, Taylor Transport, CRJ Construction, Culver Glass, DeaMor Associates, Dero Bike Rack, DGM Systems, Electric Time, Encore Glass, Engineered Products a Pape Company, Farwest Steel Contracting, Forms & Surfaces, Fred Shearer & Sons, GC Sales Associates, General Sheet Metal Works, GeoDesign Inc., Harding Steel, Hollman Inc., Humber Design Group, Interior Technology, Jones Lang LaSalle, L.J. Pearson Construction, Landscape Forms, Lango Hansen Landscape Architects, LaRusso Concrete, Loy Clark Pipeline, Mayes Testing Engineers, McDonald & Wetle, Mid-Valley Glass & Millwork, Mobile Mini, Modern Building Systems, Morrow Equipment, Ness & Campbell Crane, Northwest Tower Crane Service, Nystrom Inc., Otis Elevator, Pacific Foundation, Park Office, Patriot Fire Protection, Pioneer Waterproofing, Plover Building Maintenance, Ralph’s Concrete Pumping, REFA Erection, RF Stearns Inc., Roedel Tile Contracting, Safway Services, Sahnow’s Air Photos, Sign Wizards, Statewide Rent-A-Fence, Sterling Floors, Total Mechanical, Town & Country Fence, Umpqua Roofing, Wessco, Western Partitions, Williamsen & Bleid