Portland Community College invests in Sylvania campus

Daily Journal of Commerce (Portland, OR), Sep 5, 2003 by Ray Hughey

Students returning to classes this month at Portland Community College's Sylvania campus will find they have company.

This fall they will share the Southwest Portland campus with hard- hatted construction workers making improvements and additions under a $144 million construction bond approved by voters in November 2000.

Emerick Construction Co. of Portland has worked through the summer on a $7.5 million campus improvement project for the Southwest 49th Avenue campus.

The campus, situated between Lake Oswego, Tigard and Portland, is the largest of PCC's three campuses. It serves 26,000 students annually and is home for the PCC nursing and dental programs.

The Emerick Construction improvements come as a mixed bag of projects under one contract, ranging from remodeling portions of the Health and Technology building to upgrading air conditioning and fire sprinklers and installing new electrical systems in other buildings on the campus.

Emerick's crews have been on campus since May. When classes let out for the summer, their work began.

Workers are finishing up the remodeling of the Health and Technology building that they began in May, said Dennis Barstad, project manger from Emerick, which is the construction manger/ general contractor for the project.

We are totally redoing our dental clinic, our early childhood education lab school, nursing lab and various faculty office areas, said Alice Jacobson, PCC executive dean of the Sylvania campus.

Emerick crews remodeled about 20,000 square feet of classrooms and clinics in the three-story building and put in new ceilings, carpets, lights and casework, Barstad said.

We're moving people back into those areas now, he said. Over the next two weeks we'll finish up and they'll move back in before school starts.

During the summer, Emerick also began installing conduits and concrete vaults for a new power distribution system. Portland General Electric will install the medium voltage wiring in the conduits and new transformers this fall, Barstad said.

In about a week, Emerick will come out with a bid package for work to bridge the gap between the new transformers and electrical panels in the existing buildings and new emergency power generators. That work will be done this fall or winter, Barstad said.

Other electrical components of the project include new emergency power generators, upgrading the entire emergency lighting and a UPS - or uninterruptible power supply- power system in the existing five buildings.

Emerick will also add two new cooling towers, chillers and stand- alone rooftop equipment to fully air condition the buildings.

Some buildings have general air-conditioning capabilities, while classrooms in other buildings are using wall-mounted air- conditioning units. All the campus rooms will be air-conditioned in the upgrade, he said.

The project will also upgrade the campus fire sprinkler system to provide total coverage in all the buildings, Barstad said.

Emerick Construction will coordinate its work with school officials to keep the campus operating and safe for students, staff and employees.

Opsis Architecture, CBG Consulting Engineers, James D. Graham & Associates and Group Mackenzie are partners with Emerick on the PCC Sylvania Bond project.

Opsis also designed a new $7.6 million three-story technology classroom building currently under construction on the Sylvania campus. That project is expected to finish next summer, in time for fall 2004 classes.