Edmonds - Edmonds Community College recently received $2,500 from the Master Builders Education Foundation to purchase tools for its Construction Industry Training program and to provide some financial assistance to students.

The training prepares students for apprenticeships and entry-level jobs in construction and the building trades. Until recently, the program was solely funded through WorkFirst, the state's welfare reform program, for a limited number of welfare recipients and low-income working parents.

With the Master Builders' grant, the college will purchase nails, screws, saws, hammers, tool belts, measuring tapes and screwdrivers and help as many as 15 students pay for the costs of receiving their scaffold user, first aid/CPR and flagging certifications.

In the past two years, 60 students have completed Construction Industry Training at the college. Recently, more students have sought to enroll in the program due to high unemployment in Snohomish County. Those with an interest in boosting the local pool of skilled applicants for construction industry jobs, such as the Master Builders Association of King and Snohomish counties, have stepped up to provide additional support to the program.

This spring, Sound Transit awarded the college $28,600 to help it enroll 20 additional students in the program and to help pay instructors' salaries.

W+T Completes Interior Space for Massage School

Seattle - Design firm Weber + Thompson helped the Brenneke School of Massage in Seattle's Queen Anne neighborhood combine its three locations into one space.

Weber + Thompson's interior design team created an environment that met Brenneke's need for a flexible space that served both massage clients looking to relax and a body of active students.

When planning its new space, Brenneke charged Weber + Thompson with combining the sense of calmness associated with massage with the energy and activity of student life. Designers responded by applying lighter, brighter colors and more active flooring in the student spaces and a more serene setting in the clinic area with deep color accents, sliding wood doors with bronze hardware and lower lighting levels.

Other project team members included general contractor S. D. Deacon, mechanical engineering firm Merit Mechanical, electrical engineering firm Evergreen Electrical Services Inc. and flooring contractor Valley Flooring.

In an effort to improve ethics and increase professionalism in the construction industry, the Northwest Construction Consumer Council recently signed a partnership agreement with the Construction Management Association of America and the Construction Manager Certification Institute.

CMAA also has partnering and alliance relationships with the American Subcontractors Association, National Society of Professional Engineers, Construction Financial Management Association, Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the Society for Marketing Professional Services.

Work Continues At Lakewood Towne Center

Lakewood - Work is continuing on the Lakewood Towne Center, a former mall that Portland, Ore.-based MBK Northwest has been redeveloping since purchasing the 100-acre site in June 2001.

When MBK purchased the site, it included a 682,922-sq.-ft. enclosed mall and about 515,000-sq.-ft. of strip retail. The goal was to create four distinct components: a Neighborhood Retail Center, a Power Center, an Entertainment Center and a Civic Center.

Crews are currently wrapping up work on Phase II of the redevelopment, which includes rounding out the Power Center. The Power Center contains a "who's who" of national tenants such as Target, Bed, Bath & Beyond, Old Navy and Barnes & Noble.

Formerly located in the property's Neighborhood Retail Center, Burlington Coat Factory recently moved into a 70,300-sq.-ft. space in the Power Center. A new 19,089-sq.-ft. PETsMART store opened there this summer. Office Depot was scheduled to open in its new space in the Power Center late last month. It moved from the Neighborhood Retail Center to 18,000 sq. ft. of new space. Pier I Imports is set to move into 11,000-sq.-ft. of space in the Power Center this month.

Phase II construction will start this month with the demolition of the former Burlington Coat Factory and smaller empty retail shops within the Neighborhood Retail Center. To further expand the Neighborhood Retail Center, MBK is negotiating leases with a national drug store and additional convenience-oriented retailers and is prepared to begin construction on the new buildings in spring 2004.

When the property is completely redeveloped, total costs will exceed $80 million.

Toledo - Tenant improvement work to the New Life Fellowship Assembly of God Church is expected to be complete by the end of the year.

Schlecht Construction of Vancouver, Wash., is the design-build contractor on the job. The new facility features a masonry and wood framed addition incorporating new electrical and mechanical systems and a new audio/visual system.

Two Washington design firms and an Oregon landscape architect have been named recipients of design awards by the American Society of Landscape Architects, based in Washington, D.C.

Of the 436 entries submitted, 33 projects were selected to receive awards by a nine-member jury. The awards will be presented during the ASLA annual meeting October 30 to November 3 in New Orleans.

Charles Anderson Landscape Architecture of Seattle won a Design Merit Award for its project, the Arthur Ross Terrace of the Rose and Priest Center for Earth and Space at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.

An Analysis and Planning Honor Award was granted to architecture firm Mithun of Seattle for its work on The Blue Ring: Seattle's Center City Open Space Strategy for its client, CityDesign.

Kenneth Helphand, FASLA, of the University of Oregon in Eugene, Ore., received a Communications Merit Award for Dreaming Gardens: Landscape Architecture and the Making of Modern Israel.