Warehouse Temple: Visiting Works Partnership's Olympic Mills Commerce Center

Yesterday I made a long-intended visit to the Olympic Mills Commerce Center, the circa-1927 cereal mill that has been renovated by Works Partnership Architecture and Beam Development into a series of flexible creative spaces for mostly design-based tenants. Some rough edges not withstanding, I like this building and its rehab a lot.

The original structure, known since 1950 as the B&O warehouse (for the former Baggage and Omnibus Company), has an eight-story concrete grain elevator and extends to nearly a full city block with its two-story warehouse.

A series of four courtyards cut into the warehouse with skylights to bring in natural light. These double-height courtyards, encircled by second-floor catwalks, are the most pleasant and photogenic portions of the building. They’re clad in slatted wood (made of 2x6 flooring) that was re-milled from several wood grain cribs that had been part of the tower’s grain elevator.

In a recent home magazine article I wrote, the homeowner talked about enjoying the high volumes that existed even in rooms with relatively small square footage. I thought of the same with these four spaces. Rather than one huge atrium, like you’d find at Montgomery Park, you have four that are small enough to feel intimate yet large enough to feel expansive. And the slatted wood is gorgeous. This some will surely find too hyperbolic, but while the Olympic Mills Commerce Center may not be quite at this level of sophistication, inside the courtyards of this huge, rough-edged former cereal mill, I felt the hint of a Buddhist temple, or some light filled Alvar Aalto building like the Mt. Angel Abbey Library.

The architects had different plans for furniture than the identical red couches in the quartet of spaces. “We were also hoping that each courtyard would be populated with a different furniture strategy,” Works’ Bill Neburka said in a recent email. “One would be old work tables for impromptu meetings, one would be salvaged wood chairs of all types. I was always really intrigued by how you could see a record of human patterns by the residual chair placement in Bryant Park in NYC: sort of like tracks in the sand. We're still working on that one.”

Even so, getting accomplished a historic renovation like this one, which could have been full of countless surprise-expenses, I don’t think the couches are so bad for a start. Maybe it’ll just need to be up to the tenants to take initiative in creating that kind of community—tables or no tables. There is also a lot of artwork, banners and other stuff hanging from the walls, perhaps too much in my taste. But I can see its effectiveness in encouraging these tenants to form that kind of intra-building community.

Although most of my time was spent exploring the interior courtyards, I also took the elevator up to the top floor of the grain elevator. It is still unoccupied, unlike most of the rest of the building, and there seemed to be some residual construction going on there. But as the tallest building in the Central Eastside (or at least close to it), and just across the river from downtown, Olympic Mills offers some tantalizing views.

When the building was purchased in 2005, the tower and base of the building were painted two different colors, which broke up the mass of the huge old mill. But this time around, the new paint job, a sort of earthy orange, was used throughout the exterior. As a result, one gets a much stronger sense of the building as a big portion of Portland’s east-of-the-Willamette skyline.

It makes me wonder what modern buildings might someday be built in the neighborhood to contrast the wonderful historic industrial structures like this one. Hopefully we won’t make the same mistake as some did in the Pearl District, pairing new faux-industrial with the old warehouses. That’s certainly not happening at the Olympic Mills Commerce Center, though, which has new life but nevertheless feels, in its materials and character, like one connecting thread from past to present and beyond. "It's a super-cool building," Neburka adds. "We just tried to stay out of our own way."

Comments

[Eves]

Correction: The majority of the wood slat walls are actually made from the 2x6 wood floor decking laid edgewise that was removed to cut the two story holes for the courtyards. These boards will cut in half and milled to get the quantities needed for the walls.

There was only one grain bin left in the building, on the 7th floor prior to the renovation. (I am sure some of that wood also made it into a slat wall.) Most of the grain bins were removed and the tower floors filled in during a renovation that took place in the early 80's.

[Raymond Brigleb]

Great writeup, Brian! We saw you taking that second photo (that's our scooters in there)... I wish I'd realized it was you, I would have said hello! I made mention of your post in our blog, as well.

One thing I'll say about that space is that it looks even prettier in the early morning, when the sun is streaming through the skylights, through the wood, and into our office. We've been super happy with this office!

[h-lin]

These court yards are sublime. People should visit.

[somestories]

A few years ago I was at a dance party in the building. It was the night the building changed hands and someone had a key. The elevator was broken and we treked the stairs, the doors to each floor, primarily storage, signed ominously with, "don't open alarmed". International DJ. Very dusty and dirty, but the dancers did not care. Later in the evening, I walked up to the next floor in total darkness and sat in an unprotected, about 10 foot square, cutout in the floor watching the dancers and DJ below. Sweaty, fun, storied.

[Fred Leeson]

It's wonderful to see old buildings emerge for new uses in creative ways. This is one reason Portland is a great place. Let's keep it thst way!

[Brian Libby]

Incidentally, I'm sorry for not posting anything for several days, but I'm out of commission with a pinched nerve in my back. Back to duty on Monday, hopefully...

[Jim Johnson, CRS]

Portland has some really cool old buildings.