Luckey’s, Jameson’s, The Horsehead and John Henry’s – we affectionately call it The Quad. Without these establishments, Eugene just wouldn’t be Eugene.
Luckey’s is the oldest bar in Lane County, and the oldest business of any kind in Eugene. Jameson’s is the newest bar in Eugene and already pulling in wall-to-wall customers on weekends. The Horsehead is the go-to place when college students don’t know where to go. John Henry’s is famous for its for its ’80s Nights and live music.
All four members of The Quad are in danger. Local developers Tom Connor and Don Woolley, working with the $1.4 billion real estate corporation Opus Group, want to buy all these properties, plus as many as a dozen more, to extensively revamp downtown Eugene.
Redevelopment can sometimes provide a boost to urban environments by replacing vacant or “undesirable” buildings and businesses with a more efficient and better-looking mix of shops and dwellings.
But The Quad is not undesirable to Eugene, and Connor, Woolley and Opus have gone too far. They have brought the City Council into their plans.
During the second week in January, the Council voted to direct City Manager Dennis Taylor to continue working with developers, (“Duo needs city’s aid to start redevelopment,” ODE, Jan. 17).
Further, owners of several businesses oppose the sale. If redevelopment plans continue, the developers would need the city to use eminent domain – a controversial government power used to forcibly buy property.
And “the developers have been quietly working with city officials to gauge the council’s willingness to use its right of eminent domain,” according to a Jan. 22 Register-Guard article.
The Council’s decision was a small step forward, but it’s one step closer to a day when the city might swoop in and condemn several properties downtown, including our precious bars, so it can sell them to the big-time developers. Developers who currently own plenty of retail space downtown – empty retail space.
Their argument for why the city should help them acquire more property? Downtown is rundown and riddled with empty buildings. How convenient.
Meanwhile, James Carroll opened a new bar, Jameson’s, less than two months ago, and the place is already drawing a crowd. Eugenians have made it clear – by packing into Luckey’s, The Horsehead and John Henry’s almost nightly – that they want character and community, not a mall.
There’s no place like home, and this is particularly true in Eugene. Eugene may not have all the luxuries available in a big city, such as snarled traffic and cookie-cutter businesses, but it has more charm and originality than many places on Earth. Downtown isn’t perfect, but bulldozing such a large section is not the best way to revitalize the area.
We urge the City Council not to pursue this plan, especially not the point of using eminent domain to close businesses that we know and love so well. And we urge all of The Quad’s regular customers to make your voices heard if you don’t want to see part of the heart of downtown ripped out.