As students returned to campus this fall, they were met with numerous construction zones across and near campus, particularly on East 13th Ave. Here is a quick breakdown of some of the biggest construction projects on the street.
Friendly Hall Deferred Maintenance and Renovation Project
The Friendly Hall Deferred Maintenance and Renovation Project was initiated on June 30 and construction is ongoing along East 13th Ave. around Friendly Hall and the Collier House. The expected end date of the project is Dec. 31, 2027.
The total cost for the project is $82.97 million. Roughly $75 million of that is from the state, and UO has matched 10% of those funds with $7.54 million. $72 million is dedicated solely to improving seismic safety.
(Alyssa Garcia)
The renovation aims to eliminate safety defects by providing seismic safety updates, reinforcing the masonry, renovating the basement and updating its ADA compliance by adding more wheelchair-accessible ramps into the building.
“We’re at the stage now of starting interior demolition, and then all the seismic structural work will continue and the project will be done by the end of December 2027, which includes some exterior landscaping work around the space as well,” Planning Associate and Owner’s Representative Martina Oxoby said.
Friendly Hall is one of the oldest buildings on campus, built in 1893, but the renovation will modernize the classrooms and include a career-ready center. Office and study spaces will also be added to “enhance learning,” while the exterior of the building will remain predominantly unchanged.
Among the modern updates is the “dangerously out-of-date” fire egress that will be updated, asbestos will be removed from the building, the HVAC systems will be updated and obsolete equipment will be replaced.
“When we say things are not code-compliant, that usually means they were (code-compliant many) years ago when they were put in, but the code has changed. Once you go in and renovate a building to the extent that we’re doing, things are no longer code-compliant,” University Architect Michael Harwood said. “We need to catch everything up to today’s code so it’ll be even more safe.”
Barriers, fences and construction trailers currently surround and block off Friendly Hall, the sidewalk beside the building and much of the Collier Lawn. Those areas will remain occupied and fenced off for the duration of this project.
“The reason we’re on the sidewalk and taking the Collier Lawn is so that we didn’t have to use the courtyard between Friendly and Fenton and potentially damage some of those trees,” Harwood said. “It was kind of picking the lesser of two bad choices: blocking pedestrians or damaging some of our landscaping more extensively than we’re having to impact it.”
Once completed, the building will act as the home for the School of Global Studies and Languages, which are currently spread across several buildings on campus. According to the project’s information page, over 1,000 students are enrolled in the Global Studies and Languages college, which has since been renamed to the Schnitzer School of Global Studies and Languages.
East 13th and Alder
This fall, construction began on a new highrise apartment building on the corner of 13th Avenue and Alder Street in Eugene, on the edge of the University of Oregon campus. The construction has shut down Alder in both directions to car traffic.
The building, which will be called “The Ellis,” is a 14 story, 256 unit multifamily-style unit. There will also be restaurant/retail space at the ground level. The contractor for the project is John Hyland Construction.
The construction company behind the project is Arris Studio Architects, a Portland and San Luis Obispo, CA based development company.
Previously, the space was occupied by a 7-Eleven, which was demolished in 2022 to make space for the project. This project comes after the opening of two other apartment buildings on the block — Flock 13 and Chapter at Eugene.
According to the Arris Studio Architects website, there will also be amenities such as a fitness center, a study lounge, a basketball court and a rooftop barbecue area. The project is expected to be completed by Fall 2027.
PeaceHealth
PeaceHealth at University District was listed for sale on Mar. 10. The hospital which has been closed for nearly two years now, has recently been boarded up in anticipation of a potential demolition.
The Eugene Weekly reported in August that the prospective buyer had plans to build more student living spaces on the land. Certain buildings have also been sold to Bushnell University.
The sale of the property is pending and there is no clear timeline of when any potential demolition of the hospital would take place.
Hamilton Hall
Demolition of Hamilton is currently underway. The over 60 year old building is currently undergoing asbestos abatement ahead of its.
The construction began in June with a salvage operation, or removing all the usable furniture and appliances from the building. Abatement, the containment and removal of hazardous material to minimize risk to health and the environment began in August.
Hamilton, which was constructed in 1961, is known to contain asbestos. Asbestos, commonly found in wall insulation, is a known carcinogenic and now banned material. Exposure could happen if the material covering it, such as paint or drywall, is damaged, making abatement before demolition vital to protecting public health.
The demolition of Hamilton will be followed by the development of a new green space. After renovation is completed, which is currently expected to be summer 2026, there will be 20% more green space in the area. This green space will replace Humpy Lumpy Lawn, the lawn on which Unthank was built, and will also include three beach volleyball courts.
Actual demolition is scheduled to begin in November with the brunt of the work planned to be completed over winter break in order to minimize student disruption.
Editor-in-Chief Tarek Anthony, Associate News Editor Joseph Chiu, News Editor Reilly Norgren and News Reporter Angelina Handris contributed to this reporting.
Greg Bryant • Oct 8, 2025 at 10:59 am
If you feel like the projects presented here, pushed by the campus administration and Wall Street corporations, make your life more difficult and expensive, you’re right. Consider these observations. 1) Friendly Hall tore down heritage trees for this renovation, and has a giant staging area, because the giant construction corporation doing the work, and the UO executives, don’t want to consider smaller, less expensive, less destructive building improvements. At the same time they are wasting $80 million on this unnecessarily overblown renovation, Johnson Hall is actively threatening the entire global studies program, which will supposedly go into Friendly, because the UO has become a donor-directed campus, where a broad, liberal education is not important. 2) The investor-backed student housing project on 13th and Alder replaced not just a 7-11. It destroyed two well-loved and well-used historic buildings and businesses in the neighborhood, The Glenwood and The Excelsior. It will also raise your rents. Each of these investment-grade student housing projects is part of price-fixing and artificial-vacancy-fixing scheme, which steadily raises rents and destroys neighborhoods in Eugene. 3) The UO could have bought Peacehealth to create a great medical school and hospital complex, but decided to spend the money on sports instead. Peacehealth itself destroyed countless historic buildings and businesses during its unchecked growth, and then abandoned the City when profits were insufficient. And the City of Eugene, perpetually uninterested in quality-of-life, also avoided taking over the hospital. More expensive student rentals on the site will also continue to raise everyone’s rent. 4) The UO shamefully decided to get rid of already-paid-for, affordable housing on its own campus, which would have provided more units and put downward pressure on rents across the city. Hamilton’s 400 permanently affordable units could provide more genuinely affordable public housing than has been built in Eugene for many years. But UO housing doesn’t want affordable housing. They are trying to get the same profits as the 14,000 Wall-Street-backed student units in Eugene. Which, by the way, suck over $20 million a month from the local economy, making everything more expensive here.