Grande Ronde Hospital in La Grande is buying the first of two Tiger House projects, a two-story townhouse duplex, as temporary housing for its incoming and traveling medical staff. GCT Land Management is the general contractor, and La Grande High School's construction class and local subcontractors provided the labor on this project, which began in August 2023.

LA GRANDE — Students of the La Grande High School Tiger House Construction class have nearly completed a 2,200-square-foot, two-story townhouse duplex at 905 and 907 I Avenue in La Grande.

Upon completion in January, the La Grande School District will host an open house before handing over the keys to its buyer, Grande Ronde Hospital. The district will announce more details about the open house on its website.

“We want to honor the community that has given so much to this location and give them an opportunity to see what we’ve been doing before we sell it to the hospital at the start of next year,” LGSD Assistant Superintendent Scott Carpenter said.

It took six years of planning, researching and strategizing for the school district to bring this student-built housing project to fruition. It started with people expressing a need and supporting the leadership of school district Superintendent George Mendoza to find a way to make it happen.

Filling community needs

When Mendoza first came to La Grande, he experienced two things that became the driving force behind the Tiger House project: a lack of affordable housing and a need for students to learn trades.

“We needed to help our students to learn trade skills in construction, so that they could be the potential plumbers, electricians, concrete workers, construction managers or local contractors that we need in our community,” Mendoza said.

The community wanted to be part of that solution, so Mendoza, during his first year as superintendent, thought about making the high school woods program into a construction program.

During the second and third years with the district, Mendoza studied what other districts were doing for their home building programs. By the fourth year, the district found land and used Oregon Measure 98 to buy property on I Avenue from Zion’s Lutheran Church. The district also started teaching new construction classes and courses that would prepare students to build homes.

Strategizing for funding

Responding to community feedback, Mendoza was trying to avoid using general fund resources and find outside funding. He explained he built a relationship with Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley’s senior national resources advisor and field representative Jessica Keys, of Baker City.

“She helped me work for a path through a congressional funding bill,” Mendoza said.

Mendoza and Carpenter were able to work with Keys, and the offices of Merkley and Oregon Sen. Ronald Wyden and to get their support for a congressional spending bill that supported the Tiger House construction. The legislation passed, and Keys spent time going over the grant application with Mendoza and Carpenter.

“Through those relationships, we were able to get a $515,000 grant for building our first Tiger Home,” Mendoza said. “This was the first time we tried something like this specifically, but it worked, and we were happy to start out on grant dollars instead of general fund dollars.”

With the funding secured, the property lined up and the classes underway, Mendoza’s next action was to confirm a buyer for the Tiger House, and one organization with a need came to mind — Grande Ronde Hospital.

GRH becomes a partner

Mendoza in March 2023 reached out to Grande Ronde Hospital’s CEO Jeremy Davis to discuss his vision and whether a Tiger House would offer adequate space and appeal to working professionals at GRH.

“I loved the idea,” Davis said. “The fact that George would come up with this plan, and he knew we were short of workforce housing — I was just grateful that he thought of us as a potential community partner on that.”

The benefits were twofold. La Grande High students in teacher Parker McKinley’s home construction class got real-world experience, and the Tiger House in such proximity to GRH and its clinics makes it convenient for providers living there.

“There have been providers who wanted to work here,” Davis said, “but they could not find housing and chose not to come as a result.”

The Tiger House would allow GRH to temporarily house new physicians, nurse practitioners, nursing assistants for providers, nursing staff until they find more permanent housing. With the available Tiger townhouse units, health care providers and medical staff know they will have immediate, interim housing that they can rent from the hospital.

The hospital also is responsible for the lodging of traveling staff. Owning a place for professionals to live is much more economical than having to get them hotel rooms.

Davis commended Mendoza, the school district board and the district’s leadership for recognizing an unmet need in Union County and working with a lot of strategic partners at the local and state level to bring this to fruition.

Finishing Tiger House

The Tiger House construction started with groundbreaking on Aug. 8, 2023, and since then GCT Land Management has been the project’s general contractor. McKinley coordinates the schedule and duties of his students, who work with and learn from local tradesmen on a daily basis.

Each townhouse duplex has two bedrooms, a full bath, a laundry area and a half bath, a kitchen, and a living room. Each unit has a single car garage, and there is parking at the rear of the building too.

“Inside, there are lots of windows and some good views toward Morgan Lake,” McKinley said.

The students and tradesmen recently installed the kitchen cabinetry and are laying carpets down. The students will install stair railings, stain beams, install base trim, put sinks and faucets in as well as toilets and some light fixtures. The landscaping will be left until warmer weather.

McKinley said this first Tiger House construction experience was an excellent one for the students.

“I love it for the kids,” he said, “and I’m excited for us to have many more years in this program.” With the first Tiger House winding up, the second Tiger House at 901 and 903 I Ave. in La Grande started with the pouring of the concrete foundation in November.

“This will be a project for the next year and a half with a completion date of June 2026,” Carpenter said. “This Tiger House will be similar to the first one except we took advantage of some space above the stairs.”

GCT Land Management will be the general contractor for the second Tiger House as well.