New $90 million business building

Portland State is planning the construction of a new building for the School of Business Administration in order to meet increasing demands for space.

The new building will be located at the southwest corner of Market Street and Southwest Park, and is slated to cover the entire block. The space is currently home to the Harder House and the Extended Studies buildings, as well as a five-story student residence, the Parkway building.

“We are in pre-design now,” Lindsay Desrochers, vice president for finance and administration for PSU said. “I think it’s a little early to say [when they will start construction]; my hope is that we will be able to break ground in 2011.”

In addition to housing the SBA, the new building is also being designed with office and retail space in mind.

The primary focus on the design of the new building is space. Building plans currently aim to construct a facility that is roughly 200,000 square feet.

Of the total building space, 120,000 to 140,000 square feet will be solely for the SBA.

According to the dean of the School of Business Administration, Scott Dawson, the building could be anywhere from seven to nine stories tall.

“A lot of business education involves work in teams, and we currently have no space for teams,” Dawson said. “We are going to have 30 or so [team spaces].”

Within the Oregon University System’s $1.1 billion operating and capital budget, which was recently approved by the State Board of Higher Education on July 11, is a $90 million line item for the construction of the building.

Of the $90 million budgeted, $30 million must come directly from PSU, $30 million must be raised by the SBA from private donors and the remaining one-third of the funds will come from state government bonds, should the governor and state Legislature approve the OUS 2009-11 budget.

However, the government bonds are contingent to be released to the school only if the SBA raises their $30 million share through donors.

Another goal for the building design is LEED certification (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design).

According to Desrochers, planners are also considering the possibility of constructing the building to meet the Call of the Living Building Challenge.

The challenge, put forth by the Cascadia Region Green Building Council, states that buildings be as environmentally sustainable as possible, with built-in aspects such as harvesting and treating its own water or producing its own renewable energy.

“We will see if we can do that with a large building,” Desrochers said. “It has not been done with such a large building. We will make this the greenest building possible.”