I hate that building, good riddance!
there is a rendering of the new center in the paper, but I can't find it on PSU's website.
PSU targets old building for new rec center
Thursday, November 16, 2006
Fred Leeson
The Oregonian
As Portland State University prepares for its next leap into the future, a sure victim is the Portland Center for Advanced Technology.
The low-lying blue-brick building at 1800 S.W. Sixth Ave. is neither advanced nor, anymore, technological. And it sits on a block where the space-hungry urban university could build several stories of something new.
Which is exactly the plan. University officials will ask the state Emergency Board soon for permission to replace the P-CAT, as it is known, with a six-story structure to house a student recreation center and classrooms. A second phase could add two more stories of classrooms and offices, topping out at eight floors and filling the block bordered by Fifth and Sixth avenues and Montgomery and Harrison streets.
Lindsay Desrochers, PSU vice president for finance and administration, says the university has been working with the city and TriMet to speed up the project to coincide with reconstruction of the Transit Mall on Fifth and Sixth avenues.
PSU needs approval from the Emergency Board, rather than waiting for the 2007 Legislature, to meet the accelerated schedule. "We all want the construction done so when light rail rolls out in 2009 it will be as successful as possible," she says. Completing the projects simultaneously would reduce downtown disruption.
The P-CAT building started life in 1962 as Blue Cross of Oregon -- hence the blue exterior. The city acquired it and made it the Water Bureau headquarters for about a decade before PSU bought it in 1983. Its high-tech functions were transferred to the Maseeh College of Engineering and Computer Science completed this year.
The P-CAT site is the third for the proposed recreation center. The university originally considered its Stott Center athletic building, but expansion wasn't feasible. The second site was at Southwest 12th and Market.
"We thought it made better sense to have this high-intensity use adjacent to the new light-rail station," says Ernest Tipton, PSU's campus planning manager.
Given that PSU is the single largest destination of transit users, the light-rail station near the rec center probably will be the busiest stop on the revamped mall.
Nothing has been designated yet for the Market Street site, but it won't sit indefinitely. "We are very space-poor," Desrochers says. In the next decade, PSU expects to see enrollment climb by 10,000 students to a total of 35,000. If that happens, the staff would grow from 3,420 to nearly 4,800.
The proposed rec center would allow students to swim, jog, play basketball, lift weights, do aerobics and climb a rock wall, among other things. Desrochers says PSU hopes to land "a fairly large restaurant" on the ground floor to complement the popular urban plaza adjacent on the north.
The first phase carries a $51 million price tag, to be paid over time mostly by student fees and retail leases. Adding the additional two stories would cost an additional $30 million, to be financed with gifts and state higher education bonds.
If the Emergency Board approves, demolition of P-CAT could begin next spring, to be followed by the first phase of construction.
Fred Leeson: 503-294-5946;
fredleeson@news.oregonian.com
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