Portland State Campus Recreation | Rec Center Construction Blog

A new feature started in January 2008 intended to provide periodic updates on the construction and opening of the new Student Recreation center planned to open during the 2009-2010 Academic Year.

September 29, 2009

The Outdoor Program is in!! On the lobby, the ODP now has a new home for their offices -- their equipment center is also in thier new home in the 'back of the house' by the loading dock -- convenient to the new Bike Hub. The pool has water in it too - the ripples off the orange wall in the morning look very much like art. The floors should all be complete by October 7th -- that means painted and finished. We are getting very close now. November 9th will be the first day we will be able to move equipment in and we should have an order at the loading dock ready to go in that day -- we'll be announcing soon what our exercise equipment will be once the contracts are signed.

September 18, 2009

It was an amazing summer in Portland - great weather, exciting events, and people just absolutely reveling in the best part of the country during these months.

The Rec Center work was full-bore. Within months, the interior went from a rough and jumbled set of walls and hallways to a refrined, beautiful space. The rock-wall was the first part to be finished, followed by the MAC Court with the dasherboards. After that, the office carpets and lights were all put in and then came the track surfaces and more. Somewhere in there the painters scoured the building; we have used a very simple color palatte to keep the building clean and simple. The Outdoor Program is moving into their new offices as we speak, getting ready to open for the first day of classes.

Behind the scenes we have been working feverishly on policies and procedures - particularly taxing has been the implementation of the software, Rec Trac, that we will be using to manage the building. Other major milestones met this summer were the selection of the exercise equipment (in which we used a first-of-kind sustainability ranking), selection of our stereo equipment, and a committment to a PA system for the building.

We're still finalizing a couple of our searches for our final touches, Erin Orndorf ouir new fitness coordinator starts next week!

July 14, 2009

We are moving along quickly now, a little under 6 months to go. We've gone to using Twitter quite a bit for construction updates, including pictures and have also put a bunch of videos up on line about the construction. At this point we have finally selected our software company, Rec Trac out of Vermont will be running our front desk and membership options.

Next week, the lockers are going in to the locker room and the flooring for the gym is going in to be conditioned. We have already seen the pool surface be completed and the rock wall get completely done. The pool is the next thing to have final completion, sometime in mid-August.

It still looks good for a Janaury grand-opening!

March 13th, 2009

On Monday, March 16th from about 8:30-11:30am the Nicros climbing wall will be flying into the building. Through the South end, where they have yet to put the windows in, each piece will be hauled in and then over the next month or so constructed. While there are other parts that are almost complete, like the track, this feels like something very tangible that will be changing - look for photos on our web-site later in the week!

Construction Update, February 2, 2009: The tower crane will be coming down!

With the setting of the glass on the front of the building there is finally a true sense of space and form. To me it now ‘looks’ like a building. And that is great timing since we are less than a year away from opening.

We recently gave a tour to some student leaders and the Daily Vanguard and you can see their descriptions of the spaces on the Vanguard website.

As you walk by the front now you can get a sense of really seeing through the spaces – you can see through the pool to the windows on the south side; you can see the track, suspended in air, and out the windows to the West Hills.

Here are some more specific benchmarks happening:

The tower crane will be coming down this Saturday, February 7th. This involves bringing in a temporary crane to help remove it. After it comes down they then go back in and fill the hole up and rely on temporary cranes the rest of the time to complete any remaining work on the roof or installation of windows up high.
The basketball hoops are installed in the gyms. Walking through with them in it has finally begun to feel like a gym and not just a big, airy room.
90% of the metal sheeting on the outside is on, helping to complete the outside ‘skin’ along with the bricks. Some of you might be wondering why the brick looks dirty, and it is precisely because it has not been washed. The masons will go back later and actually clean all of the brick on the building. The brick patterns, by the way, have been intentionally designed to match those on the Urban Building.
The 1^st drywall will be installed in the basement in a couple of weeks. They will then ‘race’ up the building – this means that we are having to make sure our electrical needs are correct so that we can hide all of the wiring we can.
The soffit (or underside) of the track is being installed. For those of you who have followed the project and seen the images, you’ll remember that the track is designed to stand out a bit, to appear almost as if it is floating above the gym. The soffit is an integral piece to that appearance.

November, 2008 - The 'skin' is going on and the pool is coming in!

What was definitely intended to be at least a monthly update has turned into more of quarterly update. The work around getting this Rec Center open and running is proving intense and consuming.

Some major milestones have occurred since I last wrote:

The Official Beam Signing Ceremony which marked the end of the construction of the steel structure. We had multiple hundreds of people attend a wonderful ceremony and everybody had a chance to sign a beam that will be going up on the top floor.

The interior of the rec center is starting to take form. The metal frames for all the walls are starting to be put up and walking around you can get a much better feeling for the size of rooms – everything is looking great inside.

The ‘skin’ of the building, mainly the brick-work, will start to go up shortly on the west side of the building.

A group of students and staff recently went to Chicago to take a tour of collegiate recreation facilities, in particular the buildings at the University of Illinois-Chicago. As a peer institution, UIC provided us a wonderful opportunity to see how an exciting building can change a campus. The link below is to pictures of their building – it is bigger than our building will be, but at least provides some idea of how urban schools are addressing recreation: http://imweb.ops.uic.edu/public/rec/facilities_srf_photos.htm

Also, on our web-site are now conceptual pictures of what the inside of the Rec Center are going to look like as well as a photo-tour of the current state of the inside of the building during construction: http://campusrec.pdx.edu/NewRecPics/index.html

Exciting news is that the pool is going to be delivered and installation begin on the 15^th of November. Manufactured by an Italian company, the Myrtha pool is made up of bolted steel sections that act as the supporting structure for wall panels. The panels are pre-manufactured in factory and treaded with a permanently welded layer of hard PVC. A Myrtha pool was used for the water polo and modern pentathlon at the Olympic Games in Beijing.

Thanks for your interest in this amazing project – please contact me if you have any questions.

July, 2008 - The Concrete is Done and the Steel is going UP!

It has been a while since I posted anything – it seems like it has simply been a blink of an eye since the last time – but it’s been a bit longer than that. Sorry for the delay.

Wow – things are really rolling along now – once all the concrete got poured which happened about three weeks ago, SkanskaUSA said the building would go up fast, but I had no idea that it would appear to go into hyperdrive. Walking by the building now, you can get a sense of the final height with one of the main shafts poking high up on the southern end. It is every kid’s dream after playing with Legos: giant steel girders are being laid in place and put together by the skilled steel workers http://webcams.pdx.edu/. When you look at the building in the webcam today, you can see, on the right, the floor for the three gyms, the overlook for a row of cardio machines, the floors for the two dance/exercise rooms, and where the pool is going to be. What you can’t see is the top, because the building is too big to fit into the picture (I’ll check in to that).

I was lucky enough to get a short tour of the actual building a couple of weeks ago after a construction meeting. Some observations: the ceilings in the lobby are high and will provide a beautiful and welcoming space; the weight room is bigger than I pictured and it seems like we’ll have plenty of room for all the treadmills, ellipticals, and bikes on the mezzanine overlooking. Also, at first blush, I was a bit nervous about the size of the indoor soccer floor when I stood in the middle of it, but when I was at the edge of it it felt appropriate (it will be a fast game that is played there, most likely 5 v 5); the pool is going to have outrageous sunshine and light; and our dance/fitness rooms should also be big enough to hold our classes.

Our team has been working extremely hard this past couple of months on the staffing and programmatic side of the new center. We have been engaged in searches for three new staff to ensure that we can be timely and thorough as we look towards an ever-nearing opening date in January of 2010. In fact, if the schedule holds true, it is likely that we’ll get the Outdoor Program office opened before that – but we’ll keep our fingers crossed. It has been a bit of a haywire couple of months though and I know many of our staff are looking forward to taking a deep breath at the end of July and into August, because there are not going to be too many times to breath in the coming 17 months.

As for the Stott Center, there is a group still working on the transition of that building to athletics and at this point there are way more questions than answers. We do know that athletics and physical education will be sharing the building and there are long-term plans to try and build an event center where the current gym and pool are. But those plans are out there a bit. Campus Rec will continue to do our programming in the Stott Center until we open the new building – which right now is 17 months away.

March 26, 2008 - Bottom of Pool is Up - Almost all ground floor done - In the last couple of weeks the building really seems to have been taken shape. The ground floor is essentially done and you can now actually get a sense of where the Outdoor Program office is. Standing in the Urban Plaza and seeing the corner of the office really made it hit home for me - students will finally have great access to this program. Also, now that they have started to go "up" - it feels like a building. If you look at the web-cam (http://www.webcams.pdx.edu) or walk by you will see that the ground floor for the pool has been laid and you can begin to see the rec center lobby. The classrooms and the admin suite should be laid in the next week or so. Finally, we are just getting ready to start the Oregon Art Commission 1% for Art process - Katy Asher, an MFA Social Practice unit student (http://socialpractices.blogspot.com/) will be the student representative.

Interesting fact of the week is that it has taken 5,000 yards of concrete to pour the ground floor.

March 10, 2008 - The Pool is Next - Sorry for the delay, I can't believe it has been over a month. The building is beginning to take form - although it reminds me that really we are still very early on. The basement is essentially finished in this stage and now the are starting to build up. Right now you can see the first elevator core being constructed and then right next to that will be the Outdoor Program, located in the main lobby. We are starting to talk about the pool and making sure that everything is ready to start that part of construction. Yes, the pool is on the 2nd floor. No, it will not leak or have any chance of spilling below. I am amazed at the detail that both the architects and our builders are capable of thinking through - layers and layers deeper than I am, that is for sure. Every inch of the building is thought through, including just where any water would go if there was a disaster.

We are also nearly done dealing with the interior color palette. Everything from lockers to paint to carpet is getting our attention.

January 29, 2008 - Concrete, Concrete - The world right now revolves around concrete. If you look at the construction site you can see that they are getting ready to "pour" the concrete on the big lobby and the main core of the building on the ground floor. Weather plays a big role here as the splatter from rain drops can really create a mess on this important part. An 8-hour window of no rain is needed and the outlook is for rain and more rain for the next week. We are also getting ready to make some final interior design choices this week as well - things like tile colors and paint accent colors and maybe the counter-top colors.

January 25, 2008-The First Part of the Rec Center is Concrete - We can finally begin to see the building taking form - sounds a bit dramatic, but now that the first floor is actually visible it is an exciting moment. The first component of the Rec Center has actually already been poured with concrete - our long-term storage in the basement! Not the coolest part of the building, but there is no turning back now. The first program space, the Outdoor Program, will have it's floor poured today if things go as planned.