The Lane County Board of Commissioners has accepted a federal grant of $1.5 million for new renovations at the Lane County Events Center, which will be used for disaster relief.
Eugene’s Lane Events Center has long been a community resource, holding many events such as fairs, concerts or major conferences. In recent years, the facility has been used more as a resource and emergency shelter due to natural disasters, which include storms, floods and wildfires that affect the community.
With this grant, the event center is looking to develop the building, specifically the ice center, to make it a place of shelter and a place to store food during emergencies or times of disaster.
Through these developments, the County Commission aims to make the Lane Event Center better prepared to handle the influx of people and supplies that usually follow a disaster. The facility has already provided temporary refuge after significant incidents, such as the 2020 Holiday Farm Fire.
Lane County Public Information Officer Devon Ashbridge stated in an interview that “the ice rink hasn’t been used as much in part because of the structure of the building. We want to restructure the roof so that the building can also be used in case of something like an earthquake.”
The building’s earthquake resilience is one of the primary areas for improvement, but general upgrades are also necessary, such as making it a place of shelter, a place to store food and a bigger space in case of emergency.
The grant has received support from local organizations and citizens, who have pointed out that a well-prepared Lane Event Center may make all the difference in the wake of a disaster. The building serves as a focal point for recovery activities because of its convenient location and easy access to main roads.
“Growing up around Eugene, it’s great to hear that there is going to be such a great grant going into restoring something so iconic to Lane County, and if the grant is going towards disaster relief that’s just one thing to make the community feel that much safer,” Eugene local Catherine Lloyd said.
The Lane County Board of Commissioners believes that it is important for this grant to go towards disaster relief, as it is no secret that Lane County has been through conditions like ice storms and other bad weather disasters in the past. Not only will the grant help with disaster relief, but also to maintain the structure and state of the building itself.
The grant is important to the Lane Event Center since the building is a historic and iconic place for Lane County which the board hopes to restore and maintain.
“The Lane Event Center is a big property and it was built many decades ago, so to have an investment that allows us to extend the life of the building is something that we couldn’t have achieved without the grant,” Ashbridge said.
The $1.5 million federal grant gives hope that the Lane Event Center will continue to serve as a community lifeline, ready to offer assistance when needed as the county deals with the realities of rising natural disasters.
