Many residents feel downtown Eugene lacks a vibrant commercial center and community feel that invites them to come enjoy the heart of the city. But city councilors have been working for the past 1 1/2 years to put together a plan that will fix the broken pieces of past redevelopment failures and turn dilapidated buildings and excavated holes into revitalized hubs of employment, entertainment and retail.
But the city won’t know exactly how much money they have to work with until next month. That’s when voters will decide whether to approve Measure 20-134, which allows another $40 million to be spent on urban renewal.
The measure allows the city council to authorize spending of the additional money over the next 23 years, but it will not raise taxes or guarantee the city will spend that amount of money. If the measure is passed, the money can only be spent in a specific way and in a specific area – on downtown urban renewal in the downtown Urban Renewal District. Currently the city only has $4.5 million to spend on the area.
“The community has an amazing opportunity to create something to be proud of and something that will generate revenues,” said Robert Canaga, curator and co-owner of Robert Canaga Studio and Art Gallery, at one of the West Broadway Advisory Committee meetings this summer. “Visitors come to my gallery and (ask) me where downtown is, and my response is – you’re here.”

The West Broadway project is a redevelopment plan by the city council to give downtown Eugene a facelift along two blocks of West Broadway, or about 5.2 acres. West Broadway, between Willamette and Charnelton streets, has two old and run-down buildings, very limited parking and a massive hole in the ground where an old Sears was located.
The city councilors wanted to know the public’s vision for downtown, and decided to form the West Broadway Advisory Committee, which consists of 11 community members appointed by Mayor Kitty Piercy. The WBAC held two public workshops and nine public input meetings over the summer in which they studied recent policy and initiative documents, explored what revitalization techniques have done in other cities and considered local ideas and suggestions leading to a final recommendation package submitted to the city council.
“The countless hours and meetings that the WBAC put into this final recommendation is what the city and the people who live here want their city to look like,” Councilor Mike Clark said. “One of our 10 goals we at the council had for the city was to significantly revitalize our downtown core.”
Implementing that plan meant finding a developer whose vision matched the council’s goal, and eventually two plans were selected, one from KWG Development Partners and the other from Beam Development.
KWG’s proposal was a $191 million complete re-development project of the area, including a five-story cinema, a high-end boutique hotel, retail stores, rental housing and underground parking.
Beam’s plan was more conservative – an $18 million price tag that was directed at rehabilitating existing buildings, and constructing a one-story building in the portion of the hole adjacent to the Centre Court building.
City councilors decided to merge both plans, and the majority of the public input agreed with their choice. However, it also left a few opponents who “didn’t get their way” and are now responsible for getting a ballot measure on the special Nov. 6 election, Commissioner Clark said.
“There are a few people who don’t want to see downtown changed, and I believe the majority of people want to see it revitalized,” Clark said.
The recommendations submitted by the WBAC passed a super-majority vote 6-2 by the city council and have been forwarded to the two developers. Once KWG and Beam approve or amend the recommendations, the city can move forward with finalizing the revitalization plans for downtown and begin construction.
Councilors Bonny Bettman and Betty Taylor were the two dissenting votes, and have been strong opponents to the council majority’s approved recommendations. Bettman is also opposed to measure 20-134, and will debate Councilor Alan Zelenka, a supporter of the measure, Oct. 9 at a special forum in the Downtown Athletic Club.
While Eugene residents have the choice to approve the additional money when they vote this November, the city will go forward with the revitalization no mater what the ballot’s outcome.
“When I first moved here, I was talking about the unproductive nature of debates in Eugene on this issue and a native Eugenian explained it to me this way: There’s a 1950s old-fashioned chamber of commerce crowd in town and a 1960s/’70s hippie crowd and never the twain shall meet. She said it wouldn’t change until new people moved to town and helped move the discussion out of these old, stuck paradigms,” Eugene resident Mary Conley said in an e-mail to Mayor Piercy concerning the downtown redevelopment plans. “I hope my friends and I who support this project can be part of that forward movement. Eugene is too special a town to die the slow death it is suffering.”
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