Courtesy of OSU

(The new building will be 72,000 square feet and includes a "vertical evacuation" ramp.)

By LORI TOBIAS

Special to The Oregonian/OregonLive

NEWPORT -- When the Hatfield Marine Science Center's new campus is complete, it won't be just a cutting-edge research destination, but a one-of-a-kind model for how to build for the Big One.

The centerpiece building – divided into two parts connected inside and out -- is designed to withstand an XXL earthquake. That means, in the state geology department’s rating system, a 9.0 magnitude quake, the size of the one off Japan’s coastline in 2011 that touched off a devastating tsunami.

Scientists say a tsunami generated by a quake of magnitude-8 or higher has about a 20 percent chance of hitting northern Oregon, including Newport, during the next 50 years.

“We’re building this building such that it will remain standing and be safe for people to go to the roof even in the event of an XXL,” said Bob Cowen, director of the Oregon State University marine center. “The overall engineering makes this pretty much a unique building, one we are using as a demonstration project. When it is finished, people will come to see it. That’s our intent.”

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Andrew Theen/Staff

(Bob Cowen is director of Oregon State University's Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport.)

Work on the 71,000-square-foot building has already changed the Port of Newport’s skyline with a cluster of bright yellow construction equipment rising over the bay. The array includes a 100-foot-tall drill to burrow 100 feet into the earth for “deep soil mixing” – the combining of mortar with dirt.

That will create a solid foundation to anchor the building against both shaking and being lifted out of the ground by a large wave, Cowen said.

The building also will feature a ramp to be used as an escape route to a third-story rooftop evacuation site designed to accommodate 900 people, as well as an elevator and stairwell built to withstand powerful shaking.

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Mark Farley/Hatfield Marine Science Center

(The deep-soil-mixing drill at the construction site.)

The “vertical evacuation zone” would be safe ground for the hundreds of OSU students and staffers and employees at federal and state agencies working at the center.

But Cowen noted, “Anyone at all can go up there. Most of the people in that area will be Hatfield, but anyone that happens to be in the area can go there or to Safe Haven Hill." That's an elevated area nearby.

The building's auditorium is two stories high and the lab/classroom/office is three stories.

“We’re building an outside ramp that will go up over the top of the two-story building and on up to the top of the three-story building," Cowen said.

“We’re also targeting a staircase and elevator so that if there are people who are handicapped or injured they will be able to ride the elevator up to the roof. It’s tremendously hardened engineering. They have a good idea how much shaking there will be, how long, how intense. They can build the shaft of the elevator to withstand that and then we will have a generator to power it.”

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Andrew Theen/Staff

(Oregon State pumps 1 million gallons of fresh saltwater each day into its labs at the Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport. )

While the $50-plus million building will be innovative, the construction techniques aren’t largely different from other buildings – just more solid, said Tom Robbins, principal architect for the project with YGH Architecture of Portland.

“The design process required a great deal more modeling and design,” Robbins said. “The connections are stronger, more robust. The foundation construction hasn’t been used in the Pacific Northwest, but it’s used in the Bay Area and Japan quite often. It’s the first time all of that is combined for this type use and soil conditions.”

The “beefier” components include concrete stair towers, with varying thickness of concrete, as much as 18 inches in places (typical thickness is 8 to 12 inches) and a hardened shell of concrete walls around the elevator shaft, he said.

Plans to build the new campus in a tsunami zone drew criticism from then-state geologist Vicki McConnell and some OSU faculty members who said the threat of a Cascadia Subduction Zone rupture should have foreclosed the option to build on the existing site.

In February 2016, they wrote that location would “threaten lives, damage buildings and hobble the research capacity of this flagship institute.”

Leaders at OSU said they heard the criticism and moved forward with the site after what they described as a thorough engineering review. They said the current site was the best option for several reasons, including the fact that OSU pumps nearly 1 million gallons of fresh seawater from the bay into laboratories for research each day. Pumping water to higher ground would be expensive.

Brad Avy, the current state geologist, said he believes McConnell’s earlier criticism helped raise awareness.

“My perspective it really falls to the university to balance the safety and mitigate the risks,” he said. “I’m satisfied they’ve taken the steps to address those concerns.”

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Andrew Theen/Staff

(Federal and state agencies are close by the Hatfield Marine Science Center.)

The design of the new building called for a measured approach, Cowen said.

“Not only did we hire an architectural firm that included a variety of engineers that have specialties in building under seismic conditions, we also hired separately a review group of engineers to look at this every step of the way,” he said. “We brought a lot of expertise to the table.

“All of the engineers and designers converged on the best solution for each stage of the building. What was the best foundation, what was the best orientation, how do we strengthen the internal components of the build? There are other buildings intended for vertical evacuation, and deep soil mixing has been used in other areas, but the combination of how we are putting this all together is definitely unique.”

The building is set to open in late 2019 or early 2020.

-- Lori Tobias

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