dedicated entrance to bike
parking facilities.
Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU) — a school that has grabbed our attention several times in the past for their encouragement of bicycling among faculty and staff — has a new building in the works and they say it, “will set a new standard for the quality of bicycle facilities.”
Those are lofty words, so we got a closer look at the plans from Campus Planning and Development Director Brian Newman.
The $295 million, 500,000 square-foot Collaborative Life Sciences Building will be built off of SW Moody Avenue adjacent to OHSU’s other campus buildings in the South Waterfront district.
Newman tells us that bike parking has been dispersed throughout the site and that, when completed, it will include 418 total spaces. The bike parking includes 268 short-term spots scattered throughout the sidewalk and plaza areas and 150 long-term spaces inside the building (with an additional 150, secure long-term spaces possible if demand warrants).
Here’s another image taken from a recent presentation OHSU made to the Portland Design Commission:
One of the most impressive aspects of the building is the dedicated, secured bicycle entrance “in a highly visible location” at the corner of SW Moody Ave and Porter Street. The bike parking entrance just so happens to be right across the street from the new cycle track on SW Moody Avenue and it will be easily accessible to people bicycling to the building from the future TriMet light rail bridge.
OHSU’s Newman says the location of the bike entrance is symbolic: “It is easily the most visible corner of the building which is a timely change from bicyclists being relegated to the “back” door.”
In addition to the indoor bike parking, there will be fully-featured daytime lockers, bathrooms and six unisex shower/changing rooms, two changing rooms without showers, and an interior stairways leading from the bicycle area into the main building lobby.
With so many people already biking in and around OHSU’s South Waterfront campus and with many more projected in the years to come, they are very smart to include them in this design.
Construction has already begun on the building and it’s slated to open in August 2013 and be fully completed by the spring of 2014.