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"You have to have some faith on a project like this, and we certainly had surprises along the way during construction," Reaves says. "But you could see that the building had so much potential. And the location was incredible — this front row seat on the city."

Half a century ago, the Holman Transfer Building, as the warehouse was then known, bustled with activity as part of a riverfront supply chain. In the mid-1960s, it was condemned to make way for the new Mount Hood Freeway, only to be granted a reprieve when a local campaign against building the freeway was successful. (That effort helped set Portland on the course of greater pedestrian- and transit-oriented planning in the 1970s, which has led to the city's modern downtown successes.)

In 2001, the city built the now-popular Eastbank Esplanade along the river, abutting the Holman warehouse. At that time, the local government's development wing, the Portland Development Commission, purchased the Holman Transfer Building. The development commission envisioned replacing the building's parking lot with a city park, a move that would have made finding a client for the warehouse very difficult.

Still, when the official request for proposals was issued by the development commission, Jeff Reaves got interested quickly. "I think a 95,000-square-foot [8,800-square-meter] space probably scared off a lot of potential developers," the architect says. But with Group Mackenzie already assisting Coaxis in the search for a new headquarters, and the architecture firm itself outgrowing its Portland office, the project seemed plausible. One of the pre-renovation tenants — the nonprofit Portland Boathouse, which provides boat storage and boating educational programs — even wanted to stay.

Following lengthy, nearly two-year negotiations with the City of Portland, and after addressing issues of site contamination, the first construction goal was to bring the building up to current seismic codes. This required the addition of new cross bracing and sheer walls. Today those visible additions, along with pock-marked concrete floors and countless pipes and ducts, both new and old, impart an unfussy industrial aesthetic to RiverEast.

The most dramatic architectural feature inside, particularly in the space in which Group Mackenzie set up its offices, is the series of original 20-foot- (six-meter-) high concrete columns. Located inside a double-height space surrounded by a mezzanine, the column forms become a kind of star attraction, not unlike the signature lily pad-shaped columns in Frank Lloyd Wright's famous Johnson Wax Building.

"The structural clarity with its tall columns and then the shallower mezzanines was what attracted us," says Dick Spies, another principal at Group Mackenzie. "It's very three-dimensional compared to most offices. That adds a lot of visual interest." To preserve the pattern made in the masonry by the original wood casting forms, the surface of the columns was acid-washed rather than sandblasted.

The next challenge was to bring in natural light and transparency to support the higher lighting requirements of the building's new uses. A common design move for such a wide building would be to introduce a central atrium. "That was the point we started from," Reaves remembers. "But you lose a lot of square footage that way, and it kind of dictates the layout you have for the rest of the space."

Instead, the architects decided to cut into the building's exterior concrete walls, ultimately removing as much as 30 percent of the facade. Even so, the remaining concrete provides helpful thermal mass to minimize temperature swings, thus reducing heating and cooling costs.

Almost all of the concrete that was removed was reused onsite. Some of it was refashioned for a series of outdoor sculptures by artist Linda Wysong.   >>>

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SUBSCRIPTION SAMPLE Following the renovation completed in 2007, the Holman Transfer Building was renamed the RiverEast Center and is now home to the headquarters of Coaxis, Inc., the Portland office of Group Mackenzie, the Portland Boathouse, and other tenants. Photo: Gary Wilson Photo/Graphic The open southwest corner of the Holman Transfer building was enclosed during renovation to form a third-story gathering space, now used by Coaxis. Photo: Sally Painter Extra Large Image SUBSCRIPTION SAMPLE The simple Art Deco detailing around the main entry to the RiverEast Center, recently renovated by Group Mackenzie, expresses the building's origins as an early-1950s warehouse. Photo: David Owen / Artifice Images Before renovation work began in 2005, the Holman Transfer Building in Portland, Oregon, had suffered years of disrepair and a number of incongruous modifications. Photo: Sally Painter Mezzanine areas overlook double-height spaces in the Coaxis offices of RiverEast Center. Photo: Gary Wilson Photo/Graphic In the third-floor Coaxis lobby, custom glass pieces adorn a shear wall, one element of the substantial seismic upgrade required in the RiverEast Center renovation. Photo: Gary Wilson Photo/Graphic Site plan drawing of RiverEast Center. Image: Group Mackenzie Extra Large Image Ground-floor plan drawing of RiverEast Center. Image: Group Mackenzie Extra Large Image   Click on thumbnail images to view full-size pictures.