Facilities dept. expands to meet construction demands

Portland State’s Facilities and Planning Department has hired 10 additional construction managers and other professionals to cope with the dramatic upsurge in building and remodeling occurring across campus.

This year, the Oregon Legislature approved a $178 million capital budget through 2009, which includes $10 million to address deferred maintenance on campus, tripling the amount the school has received for repairs in recent years.

“We are exceptionally busy right now,” said Robyn Pierce, director of facilities and planning.

Pierce has hired two new construction project managers and a capital construction manager, as well as carpenters, small projects managers, electricians and locksmiths.

The new managers will oversee renovations to Lincoln Hall and Science Building 2, costing $29.2 million and $26.3 million, respectively.

The $1.8 million Walk of the Heroines project, a walkway honoring women leaders that stretches from Hoffman Hall to the Peter Stott Center recreation field, will also be overseen by new management, as will a $1.6 million water heating and cooling distribution project, and others–the department currently has 19 projects underway.

The university has grown from roughly 2.5 million square feet in 2001 to over 4.5 million today, Pierce said, which is the rough equivalent of 52 football fields. To cope with this rapid expansion, she said, her department has developed a team of workers to take on jobs that had in the past been given to contractors.

“We’ve gone from a campus with contractors to a campus with our own staff to respond to the university’s needs,” Pierce said. The trend began in 2003, when the department had 15 employees, Pierce said.

Now, over 60 employees are working at the university in positions where job security is dependent on how much work there is on campus.

This includes Charlene Lindsay, the newly hired capital construction manager overseeing the renovation of Shattuck and Lincoln Halls, as well as the Walk of the Heroines project.

Her salary comes directly out of the budgets for those projects. Lindsay left a similar job at the University of Oregon to come to PSU, and while her job security there was dependent on the existence of funded projects, coming to PSU did pose a bit more risk.

“It has always been something that I worry about,” Lindsay said. “But I’m pretty confident that I can keep working, or I wouldn’t have taken the job.”

John MacLean, the assistant director of facilities and planning, said that using staff workers saves the university money.

For example, Lindsay’s hourly rate as capital construction manager is $66 per hour. A comparable position at an outside construction company would bill between $95 and $145 per hour. That money, MacLean said, allows the budgeted dollars to go further.

Lindsay said she feels more efficient as the manager of a few projects simultaneously, and doesn’t have to spend time orienting herself to a new environment when she begins a new task.

“You’d be hard pressed to be able to find a construction management firm that could do what I do,” Lindsay said. “We get by pretty thin with the staffing we have.”