Mayor Sam Adams

Vestas Chooses Portland for Permanent Headquarters, Strengthening Portland and Oregon as Nation's Capital of Sustainable Energy Businesses
Portland's Economic Development Strategy helps to successfully secure international wind turbine manufacturer

Today's announcement by Vestas is a massive victory for Portland. Vestas' permanent headquarters decision strengthens Portland and Oregon as the nation's capital of sustainable energy businesses. Through our joint public/private efforts, we were able to retain 400 living wage jobs, put 450 construction workers back to work and pave the way for 100 to 200 new jobs in the next five years. The decision speaks to the strength of our strategic economic development plan, which focuses on leveraging our competitive advantages and sustainable leadership to create jobs and grow local businesses. For more information on the strategy, click here.

The combination of Vestas – a global leader in clean technology – partnering with our local world-class green building professionals speaks to the true depth of Portland's green economy.

I want to thank Vestas for making this commitment to our City and to all of the partners who made this possible. I would especially like to thank Governor Kulongoski and Business Oregon, Portland's Federal delegation – specifically Senator Wyden, Senator Merkley and Congressman Blumenauer, Congressman Wu and Congressman Schrader, the entire team at Gerding Edlen Development and the Portland Development Commission.

NEWS RELEASE from Vestas Americas:

Vestas to Move North American Headquarters to Historic Meier & Frank Depot Building in 2012
Historic space in Portland's Pearl District will be transformed into LEED Platinum-certified building

PORTLAND, Ore. — Vestas, the world's leader in producing high-tech wind power systems, announced today it will move its North American sales and service headquarters into the historic Meier & Frank Depot Building at 1417 NW Everett St. in Portland's Pearl District.

Gerding Edlen Development, Inc., will transform the sturdy structure, vacant since 2001, into one of Portland's newest and distinctive buildings. Construction is expected to begin in October 2010. Vestas plans to occupy the space in early 2012. The building will be designed with the intent to achieve LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Platinum certification. There are only 15 buildings in Portland designated as LEED Platinum, the highest rating given by the U.S. Green Building Council.

Gerding Edlen, headquartered in Portland, Ore., is one of the nation's largest developers of LEED-certified properties having developed more than 40 LEED projects since the inception of the U.S. Green Building Council.

Built in 1928, the Meier & Frank Depot Building will undergo a complete historic renovation. When redeveloped, the building will be 172,000 square feet that will include a 22,000 square-foot addition on the fifth floor complete with an ecoroof terrace and gardens. Additionally, the building will have what is believed to be the largest roof-mounted solar energy array in Portland's central business district. The total project cost for the developer is estimated at $66 million.

"We are making a long-term commitment to Portland," said Martha Wyrsch, president of Vestas-American Wind Technology, Inc. "As a company devoted to wind power, it makes sense for us to be part of a community that so strongly supports clean energy."

Working with its development team, Vestas will maintain the integrity of the building's historic façade. Construction plans call for: contiguous, open work space on five floors; a central auditorium to accommodate up to 250 people; a cafeteria; locker facilities; ample parking; and bicycle storage.

The building plans to include environmentally friendly construction and design such as:

• A system that will collect rainwater for reuse in the building
• Raised-access flooring with under-floor mechanical ventilation
• Insulated exterior walls and thermally insulated operable windows to reduce energy use
• A central, multi-story atrium to provide natural light and reduce energy use

"I am so pleased that Vestas is making a long-term commitment to grow their business here in Portland," said Mayor Sam Adams. "Today's announcement shows the success of working strategically to grow quality jobs by building on our competitive advantage as a leader in clean technology and sustainable industries. Moreover, our joint efforts mean that local architects, construction workers and engineers will get to work now converting a Portland landmark into one of the most energy-efficient buildings in the United States."

Vestas, which employs nearly 400 people in Portland, has occupied its primary building at 1881 SW Naito Parkway since 2004. It also houses employees in two other buildings nearby and another, an IT center, on SW Washington Street. Employees in these four buildings will move to the new headquarters. Vestas also employs 14 people at its training facility near Portland International Airport. These employees will remain in their current location.

"We are intent on growing," Wyrsch said. "Our new headquarters gives us the flexibility to accommodate up to 600 employees."

The second floor also can be converted from parking to office space to accommodate an additional 250 employees, if necessary, bringing the total capacity to 850.

"This is a great day for Vestas, for the City of Portland and for the state," Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski said. "This building represents the very best in public and private partnerships. Our collective investments in this project will pay off now and in the future in the form of more green jobs in Portland. It also will establish a stronger renewable energy foundation for Oregon as a whole."

When complete, Vestas will occupy a majority of the building. Tenant and retail space will be available on the first floor.

The building renovation team is led by Gerding Edlen Development, Inc., in association with GBD Architects, Glumac, KPFF, HHPR, Peter Meijer Architects, Skanska and Ankrom Moisan Architects.

Vestas' Portland employees work in such fields as engineering, sales, project management, training, technology, accounting, human resources, legal services and marketing, among others. Vestas, which employs about 2,400 people in the United States and Canada, also has 30 full-time employees in central and eastern Oregon who maintain and service wind turbines.

Vestas first moved its North American headquarters, along with 75 employees, from Palm Springs, Calif., to Portland in 2002. The first Vestas office in Portland was at 111 SW Columbia Street. Vestas occupied the space for about two years before moving into its current location in 2004.

About Vestas
Vestas, the world leader in producing high-tech wind power systems, has supplied more than 40,500 turbines globally since 1979. Vestas sold its first wind turbine in North America in 1981 and since has supplied more than 11,000 turbines to the United States and Canada. Vestas' North American headquarters employs about 1,200 people in sales and service positions across the continent. The company's North American manufacturing operations are based in Colorado. This includes a blade factory in Windsor, a nacelle factory in Brighton and a tower factory — the world's largest — in Pueblo. Vestas has research and development offices in Texas, Wisconsin, Massachusetts and Colorado. Vestas' global headquarters is in Randers, Denmark.

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Worksystems, Inc., the City's partner in workforce training program development, recently released their Quarterly Snapshot, Summer 2010. The Snapshot provides a quick update on the regional workforce system, and includes briefings on Business Services, Youth Services, and Adult/Dislocated Worker Services. 

The bulletin includes an announcement that the Portland metropolitan region has received $9 million from the Department of Labor for Green Job training grants. These grants support training for newly hired individuals in the following industries: Renewable Energy, Energy Efficient Building, Construction and Retrofit, Clean Technology, Emerging Green, and Green Industry Supply Chain Manufacturing.

Click here for more information.

Click here to participate and take the Business Input Survey.

Portland, Ore. -- Portland City Council today unanimously supported a resolution directing the Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability (BPS) and the Portland Development Commission (PDC) to initiate schematic design for the Oregon Sustainability Center. 

"The Oregon Sustainability Center is a pioneering project. We're doing something here that's never been done before at this scale,” said Portland Mayor Sam Adams. “We're seizing an opportunity to show the world that Portland's engineers, architects, developers, contractors and building professionals are at the forefront of green-building innovation. By becoming a tenant and investor, the City of Portland again demonstrates we can be the leading city in clean technology innovation.”

Demonstrating federal support for this unprecedented project, Congressman David Wu (D-OR) spoke at City Council this morning, alongside representatives from the offices of Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR). 

“The history of America, the history of our economy is innovation,” said Rep. Wu. “The Oregon Sustainability Center will serve as a focal point for people, ideas and innovation focused on green energy and efficiency."
The delegation also announced this morning that they have secured a $300,000 appropriation for the OSC in the Senate Energy and Water bill. 

“Portland has long been the green-building industry leader for the nation,” said Johnell Bell, representing Sen. Merkley at Council. “To stay the leader, we must continue to evolve. Senator Merkley remains committed to the Oregon Sustainability Center and to Oregon becoming the hub of the new clean energy economy.”

As one of the highest performing commercial buildings in the world, OSC will achieve triple net-zero performance in energy and water use and carbon emissions.  It is designed to meet the world’s most stringent green building criteria:  the Cascadia Region Green Building Council’s Living Building Challenge™.

The design will cost $900,000 to complete, split equally between PDC and the OUS. The design team, led by Sera Architects, Gerding Edlen Development and GBD Architects, expects to commence schematic design in mid-September.     

OSC is a first-of-a-kind synthesis of unparalleled environmental performance with an integrated sustainability agenda, serving both as a technological model and as a hub for sustainable practices, policy, education, research and entrepreneurship.

Testimony by representatives of SolarWorld, Intel and General Electric emphasized the private sector’s enthusiasm for the project’s job creation potential as well as its capacity to create an immediate market for Oregon products and services and incubate the commercialization of new products.   

“Building the OSC will not only create a physical structure, it creates a nexus for innovation, for creating new discoveries, new products and new policies,” said Scott Shull of the Intel Corporation. “We stand ready to contribute in-kind technology to help make this project a success.” 

Design and construction of the Center will create more than 1,300 jobs in the near term, with workers gaining unique experience in innovative prototype building that will accommodate a growing demand for green construction.

“Thirty-five percent of the construction industry’s skilled laborers are out of work right now,” said John Mohlis, representing the Northwest Trades/Columbia Pacific Building Trades Council. “They’re ready and eager to get back to work, but I know they’d be proud to put their skills to work on such a cutting-edge project.”

Located on the edge of the Portland State University campus in downtown Portland, OSC will bring together academic, government, nonprofit and business sectors to advance the region’s innovation in sustainability.  It will be a replicable model for meeting the challenges of the 21st century economy by creating new industries and spawning new green jobs.

“Having the OSC on campus will provide us with a world-class teaching and research facility,” said Lindsay Desrochers of Portland State University. “This facility will serve to further PSU’s already strong reputation as a leader in the research and development of green technology.”

A robust research agenda will maximize OSC’s experimental opportunities. A solid connection will be made between the research agenda and the businesses that can turn research into marketable products and services.  
The OSC demonstrates the intersection of Portland’s Climate Action Plan and Portland’s Five-Year Economic Development Strategy, both led by Mayor Adams and adopted by City Council in 2009.

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The program and code work is complete, the applications have passed the test and the judges have had their say.

Last night Mayor Adams announced the prize winners for the Civic Apps contest. The event was hosted at NedSpace in Portland, Oregon and was attended by Executives from Microsoft, Webtrends, SAO, OEN, O'Reilly media; and representatives from the local software community.

The prize winners for each respective category are:

Best Ideas ($500 award, each) for the CivicApps Ideas Challenge phase

1. Sara Sharp for "Use Sidewalk Data to Improve TriMet Walking Directions"
2. Robb Shecter for "Community-Contributed Datasets"

Most Useful App ($1000 award)

1. John McBride for "myTrimet.com", judged most useful and utility to Citizens overall

Runners-up for Most Useful App awards include:

Andy Wallace for "PDX Bus"
Max Ogden for "PDXAPI.com"
Darrick Wong for "Bike Parking Map"
Nick Jacobsen for "CivicApps Data Installer"
Edwin Knuth for "Portland is my Homeland"

Most Appealing App ($1000 award)

1. Andy Wallace for "PDX Bus", judged most appealing in terms of design and usability

Runners-up for Most Appealing App awards include:

John McBride for "myTrimet.com"
Gary Kee for "Clackamas County Fire/EMS Twitter" feed
Max Ogden for "PDXAPI.com"
Darrick Wong for "Bike Parking Map"
Edwin Knuth for "Portland is my Homeland"

Most Original App ($1000 award)

1. Edwin Knuth for "#pdxhash", judged best originality, uniqueness, and inventive

Runners-up for Most Original App awards include:

John McBride for "myTrimet.com"
Nick Jacobsen for "CivicApps Data Installer"
Max Ogden for "PDXAPI.com"
Darrick Wong for "Bike Parking Map"
Andy Wallace for "PDX Bus"

Best Use of Data App ($1000 award)

1. Max Odgen for "PDXAPI.com", judged best overall utilization of the datasets

Runners-up for Most Original App awards include:

John McBride for "myTrimet.com"
Nick Jacobsen for "CivicApps Data Installer"
Edwin Knuth for "Portland is my Homeland"
Darrick Wong for "Bike Parking Map"
Andy Wallace for "PDX Bus"

Civic Choice ($1000 prize award)

1. Gary Kee for "Clackamas County Fire/EMS Twitter" feed, received most public votes.

Best of Show ($3000 prize award)

1. Andy Wallace for "PDX Bus", judged top app overall of the winners

For more information about the Civic Apps Contest click here. 

City Auditor LaVonne Griffin-Valade released a report today on the local stimulus initiative, which concentrates on already planned projects the City of Portland put on a fast-track to help the local economy.

The report finds that City staff have "moved quickly to improve and expand existing programs" and recommends continuing efforts to calculate job creation and the speed of contracting and permitting. The report notes some of the results of the initiative to date:

You can read the complete report, Portland Job Creation and Stimulus: Construction spending is up, while actual job creation remains unknown, including Mayor Adams' response here.

Mayor Adams announces launch of the Business Portland Web portal: 
www.pdx4biz.com

After several months of beta testing, the city of Portland re-launched the fully functional version of Business Portland, a new Web site that connects Portland businesses to resources to help them grow and prosper.

The Web portal was developed by the City
of Portland, in partnership with the Portland Development Commission (PDC), and is envisioned as the go-to resource for local companies to find information related to business assistance:

• financing
• government resources
• incentives for business development
• sustainability
• mentoring and business counseling services
• links to business associations and local chambers of commerce

"This is our electronic welcome mat for local businesses that need help or want to expand, and for businesses thinking of locating here," said Mayor Adams. "It's going to be another tool in the toolkit for supporting business success here in the city of Portland."

Social media platforms, including Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter have been integrated into the site to offer multiple points of access for businesses to engage the greater Portland community. In addition to social media technologies, the business Portland Web site will play host to an interactive feature section for a online discussion forum, a business directory to promote products and services, and a marketplace to post business to business opportunities.

The City of Portland's Business Hotline, 503.865.4BIZ (4249), will remain a complementary resource to the Web portal by helping businesses identify the many City resources available.

Business Oregon offers new programs for small business assistance.

The Access to Business Capital Act (Oregon Senate Bill 1017) was signed into law and effective April 1, 2010. SB1017 changes the qualification criteria of both the Oregon Business Development Fund (OBDF) and the Entrepreneurial Development Loan (EDLF) to widen access to resources for businesses during hard economic times.

The OBDF will expand its eligibility criteria to include applicants who have been denied financing by two or more lenders and have no other available options. Changes to the EDLF amend its loan program qualifications to include to larger and more established enterprises with annual revenue, for the previous 12 months, of less than $500,000; in addition the EDLF will now include businesses owned by a person certified as having a severe disability.

Oregon House Bill 3698 – Building Opportunities for Oregon Small Business Today (BOOST) is a component of the Oregon Business Development Fund (OBDF) -- effective May 28, 2010 until June 30, 2013 -- to promote access to working capital to spur immediate job growth and retention by making loan monies available and awarding grants to Oregon's small business traded sector. BOOST targets employers that expand employment, create full-time positions, and fill the positions with employees who have been unemployed for a minimum of 60 days at the time of hire.

A maximum of $5 million in funds is available for the 2009-11 BOOST program, which receives funding from the newly established Tax Enforcement Fund.

• BOOST Grants may not exceed $2,500 per new full-time job filled after the date of application approval and applicants may not receive more than $50,000 in any calendar year.
• BOOST Loans are to fund working capital and may not exceed $150,000 and a term of four years

Review of applications will begin June 1, 2010.

To see a breakdown of the guidelines and changes to the Business Oregon finance programs please click here.

Business Oregon works to create, retain, expand and attract businesses that provide sustainable, living-wage jobs for Oregonians through public-private partnerships, leveraged funding and support of economic opportunities for Oregon companies and entrepreneurs.

Please join AKT LLP, CPAs and Business Consultants for an information session about the Healthcare Reform Act and how it will impact individuals and business owners -- June 16 from 4:30 to 6 p.m. at the PBA (200 SW Market Street, Portland 97201)

Topics to be discussed include:

• Payroll Tax Implications
• Tax on High Cost Insurance
• Medical Expense Deductions
• Small Business Tax Credit
• Employer Mandate
• Q&A Throughout

This is a free event but please register with the PBA by June 15.

The 3rd annual 2010 Greenlight Greater Portland Economic Summit will be kicked off by five mayor's of the Portland Metro region, Tuesday, June 22 at the Portland Art Museum.

Event highlights include:

• Spotlight on success stories, from startups and stalwarts
• Fashion show -- Mort Bishop III presents Pendleton's new edge
• 2010 Report Release -- The Greater Portland Prosperity Index
• Keynote: Nike Vice President Jerry Karver, "Unlikely bedfellows? Partnering with your competitors"

Pre-event registration or table sponsorship

Event Agenda

Registration opens at 7:30 a.m.

Morning sessions start at 8:30 a.m.

Luncheon to follow at noon

Adjourn at 1:30 p.m.

Key Event Sponsors:

The Standard

Regence

Oregon State University

US Bank

Key Bank

Melvin Mark

Miller Nash

U of O

Portland Business Alliance