News Stories

Crowded crest in Portland confronts crafty crew of engineers, planners

Published Dec. 14, 2020
This is a conceptual drawing of the Portland Veterans Affairs Medical Center after seismic retrofits by Portland District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Veterans Affairs Portland and Corps staff are planning and designing phase one of the project, which they expect to begin construction in 2023.

This is a conceptual drawing of the Portland Veterans Affairs Medical Center after seismic retrofits by Portland District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Veterans Affairs Portland and Corps staff are planning and designing phase one of the project, which they expect to begin construction in 2023.

The Portland Veterans Affairs Medical Center campus sits on a 450-foot-tall basalt-rock hill south of downtown. Marquam Hill is also crowded with homes, steep slopes and daily commuters (during non-pandemic times), making construction a difficult challenge that engineers and designers are grappling with as they make plans for a seismic retrofit of the hospital.

The Portland Veterans Affairs Medical Center campus sits on a 450-foot-tall basalt-rock hill south of downtown. Marquam Hill is also crowded with homes, steep slopes and daily commuters (during non-pandemic times), making construction a difficult challenge that engineers and designers are grappling with as they make plans for a seismic retrofit of the hospital.

Brigadier General Peter Helmlinger, Northwestern Division commander, toured the Portland Veteran's Affairs Medical Center (PVAMC) with Portland District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers team members who are working on designs and plans to retrofit the PVAMC, Sept. 28, 2018. The tour was a way for District staff to discuss the difficulties the team will face during seismic retrofitting.

Brigadier General Peter Helmlinger, Northwestern Division commander, toured the Portland Veteran's Affairs Medical Center (PVAMC) with Portland District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers team members who are working on designs and plans to retrofit the PVAMC, Sept. 28, 2018. The tour was a way for District staff to discuss the difficulties the team will face during seismic retrofitting.

PORTLAND, Ore. — The Portland Veterans Affairs Medical Center campus sits on a 450-foot-tall basalt-rock hill south of downtown. Marquam Hill, also known as “Pill Hill” due to the amount of medical facilities clustered on its crest, is also crowded with homes, steep slopes and daily commuters (during non-pandemic times).

              These steep and rocky slopes garnered ridicule for Dr. Kenneth Mackenzie when he initially proposed to build a medical school on Marquam in 1914. According to Oregon Health and Science University’s historical collections, “The land, unusable to the railroad company, came to be known as ‘Mackenzie’s Folly’ in reference to its location on an inaccessible hilltop.”

              And after more than 100-years of technological changes making access to PVAMC better today, the site still presents problems for modern construction when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and VA Portland Health Care System begins structural seismic improvements to three critical buildings on campus.

“The most interesting component by far, are the site limitations,” said Bryan McClure, Portland District project manager. “Marquam Hill is a pretty constrained location, with quite a bit of change of topography. We’re taking the entire façade off of the two tall tower buildings and replacing them while maintaining an active, operational hospital campus – that’s not a small effort. The constraints that are up there, I would say are the most unique thing we’re facing.”

              This partnership between the Corps and VA has been happening across the U.S. as Corps engineers have been helping build, renovate, or retrofit hospitals and other medical facilities. In Portland, the VA Portland staff and Corps staff are planning and designing in phase one of the project. The teams meet frequently and explain the project to various stakeholders.

              “Whenever we’ve had guests and visitors to come and take a look at the project site, that’s always their first comment is, ‘man, this is not going to be a very easy project site for you guys to pull all of this off,’” said McClure. “There’s just not a lot of space for laydown, there’s not a lot of space for construction parking, there’s not a lot of space for construction trailers and offices.”

              VA Portland staff understand the complexity of the site – very well.

              “This seismic project presents a lot of challenges,” said John Dodier, chief of VA Portland Facilities Management Service. “Mitigating any future potential harm to life and property is the goal and we’ll get there; it will just take continued good coordination with all our partners. The long-term safety of our veterans, staff and visitors depends on it.”

              Construction efforts will also add to the capacity of an existing parking garage and realign the main plaza and transportation corridor. Designers expect that each part of the job will lead to its own complications.

“Knowing that it’s already pretty developed, with a lot of buildings and a lot of infrastructure; roads, the concept of trying to get in very large tower cranes and be able to do some of this very large construction effort, in a very tight, constrained location all while trying to minimize the impact to the hospital operations is certainly the biggest challenge that our team has identified,” said McClure.

Corps and VAMC staff expect to begin construction in 2023 and anticipate the VA will okay further pieces of the project next summer.


How to Subscribe to RSS

Use Edge Browser
How to follow feeds in Microsoft Edge

  1. Visit the Microsoft Edge Add-on store: https://microsoftedge.microsoft.com/addons/Microsoft-Edge-Extensions-Home. ...
  2. Search for “rss feed reader”: ...
  3. Click “Get” Next to “Feeder – RSS Feed Reader”, then Confirm by clicking “Add Extension”
  4. ​ Setup your feeds: Search for feeds one-by-one, browse the library of sites or import feeds with OP
    Use Outlook
 
  1. In Outlook, right-click the RSS Feeds folder and choose Add a New RSS Feed.

  2. In the New RSS Feed dialog box, enter the URL of the RSS Feed.

    Enter the URL for the RSS Feed

    Tip: If you need help finding the RSS feed URL on a website, look for an RSS icon.
     Button image Right-click that icon, and then copy the shortcut to the Clipboard.
    Press Ctrl+V to paste the information from the Clipboard into the RSS Feed location box.

    Choose Add > OK.                                                                

    Additional Subscription Information: Microsoft How to Subscribe to RSS feed in Outlook

Use Internet Explorer

Open Internet explorer and open any USACE website. Look for the small RSS icon and click on that icon as show in this image:

Once it opens in Internet Explorer, it will have an option at the top to subscribe to this RSS feed as show here:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Use Google Chrome
Chrome Extension allows RSS Feed Subscriptions

Free RSS Feed Readerhttps://feeder.co