This article is part of an ongoing series on the University of Oregon Portland Multi-Building Renovations. Click here to meet a campus renovation dream team of four Howard S. Wright project managers.

When the University of Oregon (UO) purchased the former campus of Concordia University in Portland, Oregon, intending to move their Portland programs to the new location, they expected a fairly straightforward renovation process.

The realities of renovation and adaptive reuse are, unfortunately, rarely so simple. After the university engaged Howard S. Wright, a Balfour Beatty Company (HSW) and preconstruction work began, it became clear that the campus required far more renovation than expected, and only our team could help ensure that expansion of work was planned, designed and executed with cost savings and future-proofing in mind.

The mission was clear: renovate a safe, sophisticated and beautiful campus while also wisely managing public funding.

The key to success also soon became clear: our Relentless Ally collaborative mindset and depth of renovation experience to navigate complex existing conditions with equally complex solutions.

Mission Alignment and Scope Analysis

Our teams approach every project with an unwavering commitment to not just complete a job, but to provide support at every step, ensuring it’s completed correctly. As the UO Portland existing conditions unfolded during preconstruction analysis, it became clear that existing conditions didn’t quite match expectations, and a thoughtful plan would require more of our experts - three additional project managers and senior managers from around HSW’s operations.

In collaboration with the university, the project expanded to include more buildings, more expansive mechanical, engineering and plumbing (MEP) upgrades and even more campus infrastructure, but even within that expansion, HSW’s project leadership worked closely with the client and multiple design partners to identify every opportunity for maximized budgets and accelerated schedules.

“As work progressed, we made a constant effort to refine and repurpose scope wherever possible, advising UO on where their budget would be best spent for current utility and long-term durability,” says Senior Project Manager Todd Smith. “Items might get moved to a ‘wish list,’ but we provided the budget and scope collaboration that brought several ‘wish list’ items back into a beautiful finished product using built-in contingency.”

And each time the project team and other stakeholders collaboratively arrived at a wish list item ready for scope inclusion, the coordination only continued. After all, much of the campus had to be ready for students to move into apartments and start classes for the 2024-2025 academic year.

“From the earliest project stages through completion, every item moved on or off the client’s wish list was punctuated by close procurement monitoring, ensuring these were all items we could procure and install on time,” adds Senior Project Manager Iris Boulware. “We remained committed to the long-term mission and communicated with our designers and end-users to identify what features met both affordability goals and client needs.”

Mitigating Risks Through the Unforeseen

For UO Portland, the focus on budget maximization was always balanced by the critical importance of campus safety, especially on buildings that might need new seismic upgrades. With our team on their side, the university didn't have to choose between careful budget decisions and safety.

“Knowing our client’s mission to maximize budgets as much as possible, we balanced structural upgrades with every other priority—safety, engineering, budget and aesthetics,” Todd adds.

In some cases, seismic upgrades were absolutely necessary. While leading the team renovating Highland Hall, originally a 100-year-old gymnasium and now housing UO Portland’s new architecture program, Project Manager Michael Jansen and team performed a complete interior gut-out and essentially built a building-within-a-building. By keeping the exterior brick and tying it into an independent and all-new wood-frame interior, the building was brought into seismic code.

But doing so while maintaining the building’s historically valuable features presented an added layer of challenges.

“The building featured a beautiful wood gym floor, and we originally anticipated hard boundaries between it and new flooring,” Michael recalls. “After creatively routing new MEP components under and around the floor, we were able to feather it seamlessly into continued wood flooring throughout. This solution kept us on target for our client’s budget, schedule and desired look, all at the same time.”

Creative Savings

All of this balancing of budget, schedule, quality and finish begs the question: where does a publicly funded education client find the budgetary breathing room to maximize every goal?

At least one answer is that our team created room, value engineering every project solution in order to incorporate more and more wish list items and still save money wherever possible.

On another major sub-project, the Innovation Building, Michael and the HSW’s creative problem solving returned at least $100,000 of flexibility and possibility to UO’s budget.

Under original designs, the team would have essentially dissected the building’s concrete roof, removing sections at a time and routing new MEP infrastructure just to refill their excavations with new concrete. Perhaps a sensible solution in some cases, but prohibitively inefficient over 27 individual concrete pours.

The team instead collaborated with designers and engineers to re-route MEP pathways through existing channels in the structure, executing a complete roof replacement – all in one go – rather than the slower and more expensive piecemeal approach.

“The process required a lot of careful coordination, including a temporary tent while the roof was exposed, but the solution also enabled a steel decking system that reduced the final amount of needed concrete,” Michael says. “Our solution was more operationally efficient, but more importantly, it was the right thing to do for our client and provided even more budget flexibility for further decisions.”

Higher-Ed Construction Allies

At every step of the UO Portland project, Todd and the HSW team of project leaders considered every decision through the lens of one simple guiding question: “What path forward would best serve the university’s mission?”

Effectively answering that question isn’t enough, either. Knowing the university’s mission and executing it effectively are not inherently linked, and plenty of contractors can meet the former challenge and fumble the latter. But not HSW and Balfour Beatty’s Relentless Allies.

Our teams can see the mission clearly and exhaust every resource to see it accomplished. Intentional collaboration with partners, creative problem solving and value engineering, relationship-driven client communication and more all play pivotal roles in revealing a true diamond in the rough like the University of Oregon Portland.