PORTLAND — Oregon State University offered its first look at the architectural designs for the school’s planned $50 million expansion of its Newport campus.
Plans for the 72,000-square-foot building at OSU’s Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport were revealed Wednesday afternoon during a public meeting at the coast. OSU hopes to start construction next spring and open the building by 2019.
The long-planned expansion will occur in a tsunami-inundation zone, but OSU says the building will offer one of the first “vertical evacuation” zones in the country.
Designs show a long ramp stretching from ground level to the top of the center’s auditorium, with another ramp rising to the top of the three-story building. According to the university, the building will be 47 feet high and able to accommodate more than 900 people during an emergency.
“This new building will not only meet our programming goals for the Marine Studies Initiative, coastal and oceanic research, and public outreach,” said Bob Cowen, director of the Hatfield Marine Science Center, “but it will include added safety options for the Hatfield campus through its vertical evacuation.”
OSU announced in August 2016 that it would build the new home for its Marine Studies Initiative in the tsunami-inundation zone, despite vocal concerns from some faculty members. OSU President Ed Ray said last fall the state-of-the-art building would be built to sustain a 9.0 magnitude earthquake and the ensuing tsunami.
The building, designed by Yost Grube Hall architects in Portland, will be built by Andersen Construction.
OSU’s Marine Studies Initiative is a long-term planning effort that aims to boost research and marine studies at the campus by 2025, potentially housing as many as 500 students each year.
The school started the initiative in 2015 with the goal of making the campus an international leader in research. The new center will have a three-story academic and research facility along with a two-story wing with an auditorium, lab space, a community gathering area and other facilities.
State lawmakers approved $24.8 million in bonds for the project.
OSU also plans to build a nearby dorm on five acres purchased from Oregon Coast Community College. The building, which could house 360 students, is not in the tsunami zone, the statement said, and construction will run concurrent with the marine studies building.
OSU’s Marine Studies Initiative is a 10-year program to foster innovative approaches to addressing key issues involving the coast, the ocean and ocean literacy. It builds on OSU’s deep history of nationally ranked programs in marine sciences and natural resources, faculty excellence, and “world-leading research and premier facilities,” said Jack Barth, executive director of the Marine Studies Initiative.
