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Portland State’s new art school building opens amid $35 million budget gap
Portland State University has opened a four-story, mass-timber home for its art, art history and design programs. The $90 million project arrives as the university plans cuts to address a major budget shortfall.
Portland State University’s art students now have a shared campus home: a $90 million building on Southwest Broadway that brings the university’s art, art history and design programs together under one roof.
The four-story, 106,000-square-foot Jordan Schnitzer School of Art + Art History + Design building opened this week, the university announced Tuesday. Designed by LEVER Architecture, the mass-timber structure occupies an entire city block.
The new space brings several disciplines together in one building for the first time. College of the Arts Dean Leroy E. Bynum Jr. said the building is intended to support collaboration and artistic expression at PSU and across Portland’s arts community.
The school is named for donor Jordan Schnitzer. He and his late parents, Harold and Arlene Schnitzer, have given Portland State more than $26 million over time.
The opening comes as PSU faces a $35 million budget deficit. In July, the university said it would eliminate the Conflict Resolution and University Studies programs and cut 36 full-time positions as part of its response.
Meanwhile, the university is also part of a proposed major performing-arts project. In September, Portland City Council voted to advance recommendations for a new Broadway-capable venue at PSU that would replace Keller Auditorium.