The Oregon Treasury Building was built to withstand the Great Building

It was built to withstand not only the 9.0 Cascadia subduction zone earthquake, but all kinds of disasters, from winds and ice storms to fires and civil disturbances.

Salem, Oregon. Oregon’s brand-new Treasury building is an architectural marvel, with millions of dollars in safety upgrades designed to withstand a major earthquake and a laundry list of other potential disasters, but the average person who passes by might not know it. The more modern building is located off Interstate 22 in southeast Salem, behind Denny’s parking lot.

Its security features attracted national attention with a feature in the New York Times.

Michael Kaplan, Oregon Deputy Treasurer, accompanied KGW on a tour of the unique building.

“Our intention was an exercise in the imagination,” Kaplan said, of the building’s plans.

It was built to withstand not only the expected 9.0 Cascadia subduction zone earthquake, but all kinds of disasters, from winds and ice storms to fires and even civil unrest.

“Having a building that would support treasury functions during any kind of disaster is what we’ve been aiming for,” Kaplan said.

“The old building we were in, we weren’t sure it would still stand after an earthquake.”

Kaplan said the roughly 34,000-square-foot building could transition to “full island mode,” where the entire space could become fully self-sufficient for 80 to 100 Treasury employees in the event of a disaster for at least 96 hours. That time can be extended. This depends on energy use and the number of people inside the building.

“The idea here is that we can tolerate just about anything and have a building with functional water and energy that can support life within the building,” Kaplan said.

He said the building had backup batteries, diesel, solar panels and a water backup well. Fresh air is also continuously filtered and pumped indoors.

The first stop on the walking tour offered base insulators in the basement of the building. They are fad tools that keep the building safe and functioning in the event the “big building” should happen.

“Traditional building fixed to the ground. What the base insulator does is it elevates the building and then places a flexible layer between where the building is anchored to the ground and the actual structure itself,” Kaplan said.

This means that the building does not actually touch the ground. In the vault, the elevator shaft floats above the foundation. Think of core isolators as really big shock absorbers, designed to reduce vibration in the event of an earthquake by up to 75%.

In addition, the structures inside the building are built to move as the building sways in the event of an earthquake.

“In this case, 18 inches horizontally, a foot and a half in any direction, so you can absorb the vibration and the energy of the earthquake.”

You wander through the new disaster-resistant OregonTreasury building and can’t help but think that this is the place to be in the zombie apocalypse. Seriously, disasters are supposed to withstand so that the state can continue to operate in an emergency. Embarrassed. Story at 6:30 on KGWNews pic.twitter.com/q4dRYzkI48

— Kristin Petawanich (@CPitawanichKGW) April 30, 2022

Throughout the building, exposed pipes are noticeable at the top. Kaplan said the design was intended, not only to reduce the overall weight of the building but also to allow for faster visual inspection of conduits and other structures immediately after an earthquake.

A hand-painted mural inside the building pays tribute to indigenous cultures and lands.

The windows in the building look normal to the casual eye, but are also supposed to withstand shocks in the event of civil unrest. They also bring in more natural light to reduce power consumption, allowing standby power sources to operate for longer. The next stop on the tour was the roof, where the building’s solar panels are located.

“The main resilience advantage is our ability to generate our own electricity. So, we do that primarily through solar energy,” Kaplan said.

“Plus, as a sustainability benefit, so far we’re not consuming grid power, we’re actually contributing to it. So it’s only been open for a month but we haven’t taken power off the grid,” Kaplan said.

“We’re actually totally below net zero.”

According to Byron Williams, chief administrative officer for the Oregon Department of the Treasury, for nine months out of the year, the building generates enough solar energy to fuel operations. Some batteries and diesel can be used for the remaining three months of the year.

So why the Treasury Building? Kaplan said the state treasurer led the effort with the knowledge that the Oregon State Treasury is the center of everything the state does. The Treasury is also responsible for making sure that state employees get paid.

In addition to a disaster-resistant building, Kaplan said, software products have been moved to the cloud and the state has made sure employees have laptops and can be mobile, all to make sure they are prepared in an emergency. For example in an emergency, such as a fire, front line crews will need funding.

“If we have a disaster and FEMA wants to send money to Oregon, and if the treasury isn’t ready, we can’t accept that money,” Kaplan said, so we are literally at the heart of everything that comes in or out of the state, so nothing is working on. State level, from a financial perspective, if we weren’t here.

Like many other state agencies, the Treasury is the tenant on the premises. It’s renting the space from a developer who has pumped about $40 million into the roughly two-year construction process. Kaplan said the agreement stipulates that the Oregon Treasury will remain a leasehold for the next 100 years.

“It was a public-private partnership in the best possible sense,” Kaplan said.

While the building is complete, planning continues as staff build stocks of potable water, emergency food, and even satellite phones.

Kaplan said the Treasury is the only government agency that operates out of a disaster-resistant building. The hope, he said, is that other state, local and federal agencies will start thinking about how to move toward more sustainable and resilient buildings so that important government jobs can continue during a disaster.

“We have to make investments. We have to take risks doing these kinds of things to prepare for what we know is inevitable.”

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