Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

June Board Report Gives Bond Program Update

Photos and story by Gina Whitehill-Baziuk

Bond Program Update:

The Bond program has accomplished a multitude of things over this 2010-2011 academic year. All the campuses have been engaged with stakeholder engagement to make sure as many people as possible have a chance to voice their ideas, ask questions, and understand how decisions are being made for the work around the district. These processes tend to take a little longer upfront but will ensure better decision making as we go through the work at all the campuses. Rock Creek and SEC are done with their campus planning/master planning, Cascade is in the process of narrowing down campus plan options, and Sylvania is working on renovation work and some campus planning. The district bond program as a whole is on schedule and where it should be with all the campus planning work and inclusive processes. Over the next year we will move out of campus planning into building programming and begin some construction of new facilities around the district.

The Transportation Demand Management Steering Committee had its second meeting on May 20^th to begin identifying guiding principles that will be used to frame the TDM study and support the Committee’s final recommendation to the Cabinet and Board, due at year’s end.  Also in May a series of TDM open houses were held at the four campuses to hear directly from students, faculty and staff about their travel experiences when accessing PCC.  An increase in parking, more frequent shuttle service and additional bike facilities were the most common suggestions heard.

The Voice over IP (VoIP) installation has begun at Sylvania and continues through the summer. Planning discussions for the Sylvania and Rock Creek telecom room upgrades discussion continue with decisions expected to take place in early July.

In May we distributed and reviewed the multidisciplinary survey results to the cabinet, campuses, and student groups. Several areas were identified as needing further information from students and faculty. The format for further information gathering is focus groups, participation from students and faculty is key to making the most of these one-time group discussions. With the end of the academic year approaching we have chosen to postpone these important discussions until September 2011.

Discussions and exploration continue into the “learning commons” model that has been in discussion for the past several months. A group from the bond program and design teams toured Oregon State University’s newly renovated library spaces that has some of the same features of a learning commons.

The district-wide solar development assessment is coming to completion.  The purpose of this study was to recommend the optimal solar development opportunity under two different scenarios:  1) PCC-only capital employed and the scope limited to the State’s “1 1/2% for Solar” program requirements; 2) the optimal development not confined by the State program rules.  The answers we’ve received are clearly different, with the latter approach yielding more generation more cost-effectively, which seems to be in the public interest.  We hope to review this report at the July Board meeting.

Campus Updates:

Newberg:

The building is officially “dried in”, which means the interior is now protected from the elements.  Exterior brick has been installed and the curtain wall is nearly complete.  The roof is covered with the cap sheet being installed in mid June.  Interior improvements are underway, with all walls framed and sheetrock nearly complete.  The interior slab has been ground and covered to protect its finish. Interior finishes have begun and will continue through June and July. The south parking lot has been paved and Werth Blvd is expected to be complete in the next couple weeks.  The exterior sidewalks and courtyard are being formed and will be ready to pour once the weather dries out for a 3-4 day duration.

A group made up of faculty, management, staff, and bond members have been working on soliciting and choosing artwork for the new facility. Artists had to submit pictures of their art through a competitive process and the committee worked together to choose pieces made from several different mediums. All the artists are from the local Newberg community.

Rock Creek:

As part of our Bond planning we are supporting a District wide effort to look at how library services and student support services are delivered on the campuses.  Rock Creek had students, faculty and staff attend the Pierce College tour and followed up with a discussion the next week about what we liked and what could be applied on the Rock Creek campus.

The BISC (Bond Internal Steering Committee) had a very productive meeting with a presentation from the West Zone committee (Farm, BCT, Parking, Vet Tech, LAT, & Grounds) The committee has been working collaboratively to reduce the scope to meet the budget provided.  They presented their preliminary recommendation to the BISC for review.  Next month, the group will again return to the BISC with any modifications to their proposal.

There has been planning in the surrounding community with the North Bethany plan and our neighbors at CP07.  We continue to attend meetings with both groups keeping us informed of up and coming changes as well as PCC RC team engaging with our neighboring community.

The Bond Design Team will be working on a stormwater master plan as required by Clean Water Services (CWS) prior to doing any work that could potentially impact water quality.  The proposed service road to 185th was rescheduled for summer of 2012 to allow the time to plan for the impacts of all new Bond development as a whole on the water quality of our area. This stormwater master plan will make the permitting process more expeditious and help prevent extra costs due to unknowns. The North Bethany Planning is moving into a design phase with the infrastructure, so we are staying coordinated to use our Bond dollars wisely and efficiently.

The Rock Creek campus community has given so much of their time and energy in the planning over the last eighteen months, they are to be commended for their dedication beyond their day to day jobs.

Southeast Campus:

Several “bring to budget” meetings occurred with the campus leadership, bond team, and SRG.

The group arrived at solutions that bring the campus expansion within budget and presented those solutions to the campus Advisory and Executive Committees for their consideration. This allowed SRG to continue preparing our conditional use permit. Draft Conditional Use permit applications documents are under review for SRG to incorporate into the final draft, which will be reviewed by PCC administration prior to submission to the City. We expect to submit our application in July and receive our permit between four to six months.

Part of the budget reconciliation discussions included programming and occupancy for the German American Society main building. The campus leadership with input from others has decided to move Community Education staff and campus leadership into the facility. As the permit is being reviewed by the college and the City of Portland we will continue to move forward with planning on the German American Society facility.

The bond team and campus leadership participated in a Montavilla Neighborhood workshop to listen and address concerns about improvements at PCC’s perimeter along SE 80^th Ave. as well as activities the neighbors wished to discuss, such as parking and smoking.

An end-of-term information session and bond update will be held on campus in early June. This will allow students, staff, and faculty to see where the planning is at the campus before many of them leave for the summer.

Cascade Campus:

The campus planning activities continue to narrow the campus site development design options.  Currently there are 12 design options under consideration by Cascade’s Executive Committee, Strategic Work Group, student groups, and the Bond Advisory Committee, made up of neighborhood representatives.  The design options place a parking structure, new academic building and student center at different locations on campus.  Using a set of guiding principles such as parking access, commercial viability and character of open space, each group is tasked with evaluating the design options in effort to narrow them to six.  The goal is to narrow the design options to three by June when the selected options will undergo a costing exercise.

The Cascade Campus is sponsoring three classroom remodels over the summer. With Bond oversight, two classrooms in Jackson Hall and one in the Student Services Building will see a more efficient room layout and by Fall test the use of netbooks in science and math classes. Construction is anticipated to begin in July.

Sylvania Campus:

The design team has concluded its first round of meetings with the building groups, TSS and FMS for the SS, ST and AM buildings to develop a building framework plan.  Those plans and narratives have been issued to HSW for pricing and schedule.  The ground floor of the SS building will begin renovation construction in June and finish before Fall term this year.

The HT and ST framework plans have been completed and HSW is working to establish pricing for each.  The CT framework plan is nearly complete pending input from Glumac and Interface Engineering.   GBD and the Bond team are continuing to meet with the various groups inside the CC to create a framework plan that can be budgeted much the same way at the SS,ST,AM,CT and HT Buildings.

A Sylvania Site Committee has made recommendations for site improvement projects.  The first of these projects is the completion of G Street which is scheduled to begin and end this summer.

We are continuing E6 projects.  Projects currently underway include the installation of paddle fans in the HT gymnasium and filter/rack changes to the Air Handling Units at several of the buildings.  The next E6 project scheduled to begin in June is the modification of the HHW (Heating Hot Water) loop which will make the current system more efficient and reduce energy costs to the college.