PSU Magazine Winter 2004

Campus growing with new acquisitions Two properties, one that includes four downtown acres just east of campus, were purchased by the University this past year. Portland State acquired the Double– tree Hotel and its four contiguous acres on SW Fourth and Lincoln, and a 38,000-square-foot office building on the west end of the Ross Island Bridge on Corbett Avenue. The Doubletree property includes a 116,000-square-foot facility of 235 rooms, 8,000 square feet of conference space, a dining room and kitchen, and 230 parking spaces. The University will use a bond to purchase the prop– erty, including all furnishings, fixtures, and equipment for a total price of $22.3 million. Immediate plans for the property call for leasing it back to Boykin Lodg– ing Company, the former owner, until June 2004. With minor renovations the facility will be used for student housing overflow and conferences for the next three to five years. Eventually the property could support new facili– ties in excess of 800,000 square feet. For the property at SW Corbett, the University is working with the Port– land Development Commission (PDC), Oregon Health & Science University, Providence Medical Centers, and the Oregon Economic and Community Development Department to create a business acceleration center for start– up companies. The PDC has selected lCF, a con– sulting firm specializing in business acceleration, to outline the center's business and facility space plan. It will also designate which business sectors to target. Part of this plan will include determining appropriate interactions with PSU and OHSU faculty and stu– dents, use of university facilities, and other support services needed to ensure the success o[ small businesses. It is anticipated that the first company will move into the center in February. PSU is leasing the Corbett building with an option to buy from Thurman Partners, which bought the property in July from the engineering firm of David Evans and Associates. The University's proposed Northwest Center for Engineering, Science, and Technology (design pictured here) received $2.5 million in the past year from Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel Corporation, and his wife, Betty; almost $2 million in federal funding from the Small Business Administration and the U.S. Department of Education; and $500,000 from the Bill&: Melinda Gates Foundation. Students create 2004 High Asia calendar High Asia is a land where beauty and brutality exist side by side in such February places as Afghanistan, Kashmir, Nepal , and Tibet. Most of us know little of this region, and that is why PSU students and the Associa– tion for Nepal and Himalayan Studies have created a 2004 calendar with maps, text, and most promi– nently, photographs by artists from around the world. The calendar was begun by a group of students for their Senior Capstone project. The team included 20 students from 17 majors, ranging from business administration to architecture, under the guidance of Barbara Brower, pro– fessor of geography and international studies. The students selected images, researched and developed text, and designed the calendar. They solicited bids for production and overseas print– ing, prepared marketing tools, hunted down sponsors and donors, made pre– sales, and developed a strategy for mar– keting and distributing the calendars. "We were novice calendar creators wrestling with technology that we had to learn as we went along," says Bower. During the process the students learned about the culture, geography, and issues of High Asia and how to communicate that knowledge to others. The $12 calendar may be purchased by calling the Himalayan Research Bul– letin in the PSU Department of Geogra– phy at 503-725-8312 or email hrb@pdx.edu. A new group of students plan to take on a 2005 High Asia Cal– endar: Tibetan Peoples and Landscapes. WlNTER 2004 PSU MAGAZINE 3