Olympic Mills Commerce Center

The Olympic Mills Commerce Center project consisted of the adaptive re-use and placement on the National Register of Historic Places of the former Grain Mill built in 1906. The Olympic Mills, at 7+ stories, totaling over 172,000 square feet was built in 2 sections requiring in-depth structural augmentation to reverse the effects of differential settlement. The project represents one of the largest historic buildings to receive a full seismic upgrade ever in the City of Portland. Beam worked with the National Trust for Historic Preservation and Bank of America to secure Historic Tax Credits to fund the gap in construction financing. The renovation required a design-build process that responded to the lack of uniformity discovered in current building conditions. Permitting was achieved through the City of Portland’s Facility Permit Program allowing work to begin while the discovery and design processes continued.

Like the Eastbank Commerce Center and Water Avenue Commerce Center, the Olympic Mills Commerce center features flex work-space in a menu driven format. Highlighted improvements in the reuse of the historic building include transformation of the basement into a parking garage, two new elevators, full seismic upgrading, completely new infrastructure and new window openings. Beam had to negotiate with the State Historic Preservation Office and the National Historic Preservation Trust throughout the design and construction phases in order to achieve many of the major improvements in a historically sensitive manner. One of the primary challenges was in opening more than 40 new windows into the building in such a way as to not upset the historic integrity of the building. The building has been successfully renovated and tenanting began in March of 2007.

Visit the Olympic Mills Commerce Center web site.