Engineering Firms Merge

Portland - HDR, a multidisciplinary consulting firm, has acquired the operations of LCA Town Planning & Architecture, based in Portland, and Sargent Town Planning. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed. Going forward, the firms will conduct business as HDR/LCA+Sargent, Town Planning.

Steve Coyle, LCA's founding partner and principal, will manage community planning and urban design services in the downtown Oakland and the Portland offices. David Sargent, Sargent's managing principal, will direct community planning and urban design services in the Ventura office. Under the new corporate structure, Coyle and Sargent will operate as principals with HDR/LCA+Sargent, Town Planning.

Car Dealership Under Way

Portland - R&H Construction recently began work on the new Wentworth Building in Southeast Portland. When complete, the building will house a 5,700-sq.ft. ground floor showroom for the Wentworth Subaru Dealership, ground floor retail tenant space and second floor office tenant space. Designed by LRS Architects, this 22,000-sq.-ft. steel framed structure will feature a brick façade with cultured stone accents and a full height glass window entrance. In order to make room for the new structure, six existing buildings on the full block site were demolished with much of the materials salvaged. Several of the former buildings contained basements which were filled in order to level the site for construction.

Portions of the work are being self-performed by R&H Construction including all of the concrete, interior metal stud framing and miscellaneous finish carpentry. Sitework and demolition began in November, with the project due for completion in July of 2005. The project owner, Wentworth Dealerships is working with partial project lender, Portland Development Commission (PDC).

Water Treatment Facility Started

Portland - The Sunrise Water Authority, in cooperation with the North Clackamas County Water Commission, recently broke ground on one of the Pacific Northwest's first US filter/memcor submerged membrane water treatment facilities. The new $13.5 million fast-track facility incorporates low pressure submerged membrane technology designed to effectively treat Clackamas River water and increase the water supply to several communities in the Portland area.

The facility includes a 15-mgd capacity microfiltration water treatment plant housed in a 9,300- sq.- ft. building, a powdered activated carbon feed system for taste and odor control, drying beds for solids handling as well as links to existing raw water and treated water pump stations. The filtration building will house all of the ancillary facilities to the membrane operation as well as a new control room, maintenance area and chemical feed facilities.

The expanded facility, designed by MWH, creates a unique combination of old and new water treatment technologies. The new microfiltration plant will operate in parallel with an existing 10-mgd slow sand filter plant placing the oldest and newest in drinking water filtration technology side by side on the same site.

MWH's fast track approach to design and construction shortened the overall schedule by nearly a year, with an estimated completion of the new facility by Summer 2005, just 17 months after notice to proceed with design.

Local Firms Encourage Tsunami Relief

PORTLAND - Otak, Inc. and WRG Design each donated funds to help with tsunami relief efforts. Otak donated more than $20,000 to Mercy Corps and Northwest Medical Teams. WRG Design, Inc. also donated $22,000 to Mercy Corps International.

"Organizations like Mercy Corps and Northwest Medical Teams are among the first to respond, the first to provide care and the first to give hope when people are affected by tragedy," said Nawsad Othman, company president.

Otak employees donated more than $10,000 to tsunami-relief efforts, with Otak providing a corporate match of $10,000. Mercy Corps and Northwest Medical Teams each received a check from Otak for slightly more than $10,000. A representative from Northwest Medical Teams then gave a brief presentation highlighting the organization's efforts in remote areas of Thailand and Sri Lanka.

At WRG, funds for the donation were raised over a two week period. All employee donations were matched 100% by WRG. Employees from all five WRG Design offices, located in Portland, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Sacramento, and Boise participated with the relief fund effort.

Non-Flush Urinals OK'd

Portland - Oregon officials have voted to approve an interpretive ruling to permit the installation of waterfree urinals in city, county, state and federal government facilities. The approval promotes and enables unique and effective water conservation measures throughout the state.

The ruling was prompted by calls for alternate technologies to address the growing shortage of fresh water throughout the region. Interest in waterfree urinal systems has grown across the nation as civic leaders adopt a greater sense of urgency about finding solutions for a future where fresh water may be less available and more costly.

Testing of waterfree urinals began in Oregon during 2001 at 13 locations to quantify water savings, effluents, and potential odors. The summary report to the Oregon State Plumbing Board concluded that the waterfree urinals in the pilot program are safe and fall well within acceptable limits established by the Department of Environmental Quality.

Port Opens Mega Facility

The Port of Tacoma and the Evergreen Group celebrated the grand opening of Pierce County Terminal, a new 171-acre mega-container terminal in February.

Built on 51-foot deep water of the Port's Blair Waterway with efficient road and trans-continental rail connections, the terminal is designed to efficiently move international containerized cargo to both regional markets by truck and throughout the United States by rail.

At $210 million, Pierce County Terminal redevelopment represents the largest construction project in Port history.

The new terminal's 12-track intermodal yard, which accommodates 72 double-stack cars, is directly connected to the two major trans-continental rail lines, BNSF and Union Pacific, through Tacoma Rail, a regional short line service.