UO Looking To Hire Firms With Nike Ties For Basketball Arena

Univ. of Oregon (UO) officials for their new $200M basketball arena “plan to ask the State Board of Higher Education to approve the hiring” of Hoffman Construction, a company that has "never built an arena," according to Rachel Bachman of the Portland OREGONIAN. UO officials also want to hire TVA Architects, a firm that has “never designed an arena.” UO tapped TVA as the school was dismissing the project’s first architect HKS, which is “experienced in arena design and [was] selected through a public search.” TVA is joined on the project by Ellerbe Becket. Hoffman Construction and TVA, who both have worked on “numerous Nike projects'' with Nike Chair Phil Knight, were ''selected by a nonprofit group created within the UO Foundation and led by Howard Slusher, special assistant to Knight.” TVA designed Nike's Oregon HQs, and TVA and Hoffman paired to "design and build the Lance Armstrong center.” UO in '03 published a notice inviting architectural firms to apply for its basketball arena project, and it is “not clear whether any of the firms currently working on [UO’s] arena project applied for the job” at that time. It is “unusual for a public project as large as [UO’s] arena to proceed without an open search for contractors.” UO President Dave Frohnmayer, in a State Board of Higher Education meeting this month, said that the arena’s subcontractors “will be selected through an open selection process” (Portland OREGONIAN, 4/16).

UO Officials Seeking To Have Hoffman Construction Build New Arena

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