Carpenters laid out boards and nailed them into place, creating steps to the mezzanine of the soon-to-be-opened Springfield Art Center on Main Street. In the background, judges for the Aug. 25 Mayor’s Art Show looked over paintings and sculptures for debut at the Springfield Filbert Festival.
All the activity was just part of what Springfield Communications Director Rosemary Pryor called the “renaissance of the downtown area,” which she said was coming at the tail end of widespread development in the city.
“If people haven’t been to Springfield lately, they haven’t seen Springfield, because it simply doesn’t even look like the same town it was 10 years ago,” she said.
Pryor talked about “miles of off-street pedestrian paths resplendent with landscaping, lighting and benches,” the new indoor “wave pool” and the other recently renovated community pool. There is also a new city hall building, the preservation of historic sites, the Gateway Mall area and lodgings, the construction of upscale homes in the Thurston and Hayden Bridge areas, the critical-care hospital and economic diversification.
But all these bright spots fade in comparison to the topic that most quickens her speech — that Springfield’s downtown area is on the short list for a new federal courthouse.
“We’re all, of course, watching with bated breath this whole saga with the federal courthouse,” she said.
“If the federal government should decide to site a major federal facility in downtown Springfield, there’s no question in my mind that that will simply unleash a torrent of interest in downtown Springfield. Investment opportunities exist like crazy there.”
Pryor said the General Services Administration has been narrowing down preferred sites between Springfield and Eugene.
She also said that had Springfield not been changing over the past 10 years, it would not even be on that list now.
“The whole identity of Springfield is evolving significantly,” she said. “We were once a timber town, and our roots will always be there.
“To be blunt, we’re very proud of that because it’s good, honest labor,” she said. “But we’re no longer a timber town.”
In fact, only one forest products company, Weyerhauser, makes it into the top three employers in town. Weyerhauser boasts slightly more than half the number of employees of McKenzie-Willamette Hospital and approximately just over thirty percent of the employees working for the Springfield School District, according to Pryor.
SONY comes in as the fourth largest employer at 430, she said.
Moreover, there are more people employed in the wood-products industry in Eugene than there are in Springfield, she said.
But the image of Springfield, even aside from the 1998 Thurston High School shooting, may still be tainted.
In an informal poll on the University campus during inter-session, six out of eight people approached declined to comment about the city of more than 50,000 people just across the Willamette River. One simply said, “It’s going to be all negative.”
“What we know is true, from the comments that we hear and the experiences that we have, is that some people haven’t updated their picture of Springfield,” Pryor said.
Both people who would speak about Springfield were residents of that city.
“I love it. It’s just a good place to live,” said Paula Jenson, an employee of the University Alumni Association. “I don’t think it has any pretensions about it.”
Dorothy Lee Batten, an employee of University Campus Recycling, said that living in Springfield is “like living in a garden.”
“Everywhere you go, there are flowers,” she said. “It’s biker-friendly, and it smells sweet. You can ride to the woods and the river in five to 10 minutes from wherever you are.”
At the Gateway Mall, Glenn Noll, a resident of the Eugene Mission, said the array of 29 theaters at the complex is an attraction, especially since Wednesday shows at Cinema 12 are only 50 cents before noon.
Noll said he has seen Springfield growing in business over the last few years.
He pointed to six new businesses in the mall area — the Roadhouse Grill, the Outback Steakhouse, Big Five Sports, Hollywood Video, Circuit City and the South Umpqua Bank.
The wave pool Pryor mentioned is in Thurston, and gets 1,500 to 2,000 visitors a day during the summer, said Christine Crutcher, aquatics supervisor for the Willamalane Park and Recreation District.
“They come from all over the state,” she said, pointing out that Portland is the only other location with a similar facility.
Another bright spot on the economic front is the number of minority-owned businesses.
“Hispanic-owned businesses are a recent development,” said Dan Egan, executive vice president and general manager of the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce.
He said the city has 20 to 30 Hispanic-owned businesses — “still quite small in the total scheme of things.
“But I also think that less apparent are the Hispanic professionals — architects, attorneys, accountants, doctors, police officers, teachers, executives and directors,” Egan said.
Egan also spoke of easy-entry into community involvement in Springfield.
“If you ever said, ‘I want to give to my community,’ you can do that here,” he said.
“It is so easy to get involved. Springfield is really open to citizen involvement. In that way, we’re still not too large a town.”