North Valley Complex

In communities across the Pacific Northwest, residents live with the knowledge that “The Big One,” a mammoth seismic event involving the Cascadia subduction zone, could strike at any time.

The heightened awareness around this and other natural disaster scenarios has accelerated a trend evident for the past decade, especially among public owners. To maintain operational continuity in the face of fires, floods, earthquakes and other events, more light industrial assets are being hardened into resilient facilities.

This was the case in 2019 when the Oregon Department of Administrative Services (DAS) purchased a 175,000-square-foot mixed manufacturing warehouse in Wilsonville, a small city on the southern edge of the Portland metropolitan area. The vision was to reposition the existing concrete tilt-up warehouse into a space capable of supporting a modern research lab, office and resilient emergency center.

DAS selected the warehouse because of its spaciousness, convenient location and capacity to accommodate multiple state agencies, promoting efficiency and collaboration. An additional benefit was the presence of usable equipment, furniture and office build-outs that could be retained in the renovated building (previously, Microsoft had used the building for manufacturing).

Since opening in mid-2023, the North Valley Complex’s shared labs and lab services have been used by the state’s Department of Agriculture, Occupational Safety and Health division, DAS Enterprise Asset Management division, and the state police for its long-term evidence storage needs. The labs and lab services can also accommodate other agencies in the future.

While transforming a Wilsonville, Oregon, warehouse into a lab building and workplace for several State of Oregon agencies, Lewis and SERA Architects incorporated wood salvaged from the devastating wildfires of 2020 into new finishes throughout the reimagined space.

These wooden slats can be found in “nodes” built along the North Valley Complex’s circulation paths, adding warmth to amenity spaces while also helping to bring human scale to the 175,000-square-foot building.

The entire project team embraced the wood’s imperfections—the knots, holes, and color variations—as a poignant reminder of the fires and of Oregon’s resiliency.

North Valley Complex opened to employees last year. Lewis, SERA, and KPFF Consulting Engineers breathed new life into the former industrial building with a seismic retrofit and by adding advanced labs and shared support spaces.