This site is shared with project stakeholders for discussion purposes. Enter the access code to continue.
Need access? Contact [email protected]
The teams translating the Edgewater vision into an entitled masterplan, a proof block, and the district systems beneath both.
Our Owner's Design Consultant RFP (January 2026) drew two strong multidisciplinary teams, both of whom invested deeply in understanding the district, and we hold active relationships with both. Rather than an either/or award, our working strategy looks forward to each team contributing where its strengths concentrate: the Held coalition is purpose-built for Phase 1's proof block, while CannonDesign and its engineering partners bring the capacity and district-systems experience to shape the masterplan and green infrastructure. Their full proposals, converted for web reading, are linked below. New to the delivery model? Understanding the ODC explains the Owner’s Design Consultant role, the hybrid method, and the vocabulary.
Now City holds the Owner's Project Requirements baseline and the interface between teams, so the district always has one design conversation, not two.
The masterplan sets the framework Phase 1 designs within: land use, open space structure, phasing logic, and district standards.
A common BIM execution plan keeps models coordinated across teams, phases, and the eventual design-build delivery.
Both teams sit in the quarterly Partner Council, where the design bench meets the delivery, capital, and operating bench.
Held leads with Passive House-rooted, human-centered architecture: efficient envelopes, airtight prefabricated construction, and biophilic, place-based design. The decisive credential is The Cannery, a mixed-use riverfront redevelopment on the Willamette delivered with AKS through Salem's own zoning and entitlement process, featuring mass timber, geothermal systems, native landscapes, and a community wellness focus. It is the nearest true comp to Edgewater, and Held has reassembled the same coalition for us: AKS Engineering & Forestry (civil, surveying, urban land use, geotechnical, traffic, natural resources), IMEG (structural, MEP, acoustics, LEED/WELL/Fitwel, PHIUS consulting, smart-city integration), Lango Hansen Landscape Architects (Kurt Lango, Principal), and MRGC Group (cost estimating).
A 1,500-person global design firm with a 50-year Portland practice and a Living-Centered Design approach, backed by a consultant bench built for district systems: PLACE (landscape), Sherwood (water systems), PAE (energy and MEP), Holmes (mass timber structural), Century West and DKS (civil and transportation, both with prior work in the West Salem urban renewal area), RLB (cost), Glumac (facade), and ABD (acoustics). The team's shared track record is OSU-Cascades: Eric Ridenour led the award-winning Long Range Development Plan, PAE framed the net-zero campus energy concept, Sherwood led the net-zero water study, and CannonDesign delivered the district geo-exchange system plus Edward J. Ray Hall, Central Oregon's first all-mass-timber building, built at cost parity with steel and concrete.