The skyline north of Franklin Boulevard near the Ferry Street Bridge has been changing as a giant glass and steel structure slowly rises.
The structure is the new Wayne L. Morse Federal Courthouse, expected to be completed next summer. Construction on the 270,000-square-foot courthouse is expected cost the federal government $70 million.
Beyond its role as a judicial hub, many hope it will lead to a revitalization of downtown Eugene.
The courthouse is being built on the old Agripac cannery site at Eighth Avenue and Mill Street. The city purchased the land after it was awarded the courthouse project in 2001 over a riverfront site in Springfield.
The courthouse building was designed by Thom Mayne and his Morphosis architecture firm of Santa Monica, Calif. The Eugene courthouse will be more modern than the courthouses of old, abandoning the classic look of Greek columns and square architecture for a glass entry with curving exterior walls above it.

Though Eugene already has a courthouse, with only one courtroom it didn’t meet the needs of the area, and some had concerns about security at the building.
The new courthouse will have separate travel ways for the public, judges and prisoners, a new safety requirement for courts. The current courthouse was built before the requirement and doesn’t have separate travel ways, General Services Association Public Affairs Manager for the Northwest/Artic Region Bill Lesh said.
GSA is the federal agency overseeing the project.
“It is considered an insecure building and very crowded,” said Lesh. “The different courts are very anxious to move already.”
The building will have six courtrooms, chambers for six resident judges and offices for other federal employees, according to Lesh.
After the new courthouse is finished, the old courthouse building will be leased out by the GSA to other federal agencies, Lesh said.
The city purchased 6.5 acres for the site, 4.5 acres of which it sold to the GSA. The city plans to sell the remaining land to developers after the courthouse is built.
“We want potential developers to have a better sense of what the area will be,” Ward 3 City Councilor David Kelly said.
Kelly believes the sale money will be equivalent to the city’s costs to acquire the property.
Kelly said the city hopes the new courthouse will bring other businesses into the area. The city has already adopted a broad plan for the redevelopment, but it is too early for definitive plans, Kelly said.
“It is very much at the conceptual stage,” Kelly said.
Part of the redevelopment will be a two-phase improvement to the streets around the courthouse site, Kelly said.
The first phase will improve Eighth Avenue from Mill Street to Ferry Street, extend Ferry Street north past Eighth and improve Ferry Street south of Eighth. Improvements will include new curbs, gutters, sidewalks and trees, according to Michelle Cahill, principal civil engineer for the Eugene Public Works Department.
The second phase will be much more extensive.
Traffic headed for Highway 99 West will be diverted at Hilyard Street and run to a new road that will travel along the railroad tracks, hopefully decreasing traffic on Franklin Boulevard headed toward the Ferry Street Bridge.
“If we could unbraid some of that traffic,” Cahill said, “we could have a traffic signal (at Eighth and Mill).”
A new traffic signal would allow pedestrians to cross from the new courthouse to downtown Eugene. Currently the area has too much traffic to consider it.
“The courthouse would only be a few blocks from city hall,” Kelly said, “but if you’re crossing as a pedestrian or a bicyclist, you kind of take your life in your hands.”
The road improvements will cost around $7.7 million, the bulk of which will be paid for with federal money. Lane County will contribute $1.6 million, and the city of Eugene will pay $600,000.
Most of that money will come from the urban renewal fund, Cahill said.
The city hopes the first phase will be complete by next fall and expects to start utility construction in the area in March or April 2006, Cahill said.
Cahill said it is still too early to set a date for the second phase, but she expects the project to be complete after courthouse construction is finished.

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