August 2014
NEWS
The Southwest Portland Post • 7
OHSU Collaborative Life Sciences Building opens in South Waterfront
By Erik Vidstrand
The Southwest Portland Post
The South Waterfront has another
new building: the Collaborative Life
Sciences Building and Skourtes Tower.
It uniquely combines the resources
and brainpower of three nationally
respected universities under one roof:
Oregon Health & Science University,
Oregon State University, and Portland
State University.
The structure launches a new era in
health and science research and edu-
cation. Construction was completed a
little over a month ago.
This combination expands class size,
teaching facilities, and research activi-
ties which will benefit all Oregonians.
By sharing the $295 million state-of-
the art building, OHSU, OSU, and PSU
will effectively grow their health and
science programs without duplicating
education and research space.
With limited state resources, this ‘co-
op’ approach takes collaboration to the
next level.
“At OHSU we’ve found that when we
are open to the power of partnership,
and willing to work with others to solve
problems in the name of the public
good, the opportunities are endless,”
said President Joe Robertson, M.D.
Rather than segregate the approxi-
mately 650,000-square-foot building
among the universities by floor, the
design and construction team built
integrated labs and shared classrooms.
Every feature of the new building
is designed to encourage interaction
among university faculty, graduates,
and undergraduates.
From shared labs with electron mi-
croscopy to other highly specialized
instrumentation, OHSU, OSU, and
PSU faculty will promote frequent idea
sharing to state-of-the-art simulation
centers.
Health care providers, students, and
staff across all health care professions
will train side-by-side.
“For PSU, this building offers des-
perately needed lab, research and
classroom space for our health and
science majors,” said President Wim
Wiewel, Ph.D.
According to Wiewel, health and
science are among the fastest growing
fields of study at PSU.
The Collaborative Life Sciences Build-
ing will also provide capacity to add to
the class sizes for OHSU’s medical and
physician assistant students including
the OSU/OHSU pharmacy program.
“The Collaborative Life Sciences
Building is a wonderful example of
how well [all three institutions can]
collaborate on behalf of Oregonians,”
said OSU President Ed Ray, Ph.D.
“This new facility will have a major
impact on the OSU College of Phar-
macy’s program. It provides dedicated
and expanded instructional space and
room for additional faculty aimed at
providing the best clinical training pos-
sible for future pharmacists.”
Skourtes Tower will include a state-
of-the-art school of dentistry and den-
tal clinics that serve the public. It will
bring dental students under the same
roof with their
nursing, allied
health, pharma-
cy, and medicine
colleagues.
L o c a t e d
within OHSU’s
new Schnitzer
Campus at Port-
land’s South
Wa t e r f r o n t ,
the building is
accessible by
streetcar, aerial
tram, and even-
tually the new
Orange MAX
light rail line,
slated to open The OHSU Collaborative Life Sciences Building recently opened in
in September South Waterfront. (Post photo by Erik Vidstrand)
2015.
sity is the state’s only public academic
The building’s sustainable features
health and research university. As one
include green roofs, storm water col-
of Oregon’s largest employers with
lection for non-potable water uses
more than 14,000 employees, OHSU’s
throughout the building, energy-
size contributes to its ability to provide
efficient lighting, and climate control.
many services not found anywhere else
The building’s design and construc-
in the state.
tion team anticipate a LEED Platinum
Oregon State University is also Or-
certification.
egon’s only university to hold both the
Funded by a unique public-private
Carnegie Foundation’s top designa-
partnership model, the buildings in-
tion for research institutions and its
clude $110 million in state bonds, $92
prestigious Community Engagement
million in OHSU institutional funding,
classification.
and $83 million in OHSU philanthropy
Portland State University has about
including a $40 million anonymous gift
30,000 undergraduate and graduate
to OHSU, and $10 million from Bonnie
students. PSU will provide every stu-
and Gene Skourtes, D.M.D.
dent with opportunities to work with
TriMet contributed $10 million to the
businesses, schools and organizations
project.
on real-world projects.
Oregon Health & Science Univer-