The Park Blocks in downtown Eugene will soon make way for a new Town Square, as the city works through the finer details of its design plan.
The Town Square will still be home to the Eugene Saturday Market and the Lane County Farmers Market, as well as the Lane County Courthouse and Service Building. The city’s concept plan shows that it will also feature a new City Hall building, a pavilion for both markets, a stage, a fountain and newly planted trees throughout the Park Blocks.
Town Square analyst Josh Berman said, “if everything goes smoothly,” the city expects to begin construction in fall 2020 and complete the Park Blocks and the Farmers Market Pavilion by spring 2021. He said the City Hall will most likely be completed in 2022.
Berman partly attributed the timing of the plans to an increased focus on downtown Eugene. He said that in recent years, the city has come to recognize how integral downtown is to Eugene and that making it “more livable and walkable” can help reduce its carbon footprint. Berman also said the city has its sights set on August 2021, when Eugene will host the World Athletics Championships.
“We think that this would be a really great place to kind of feature the best of Eugene,” he said. “We’re definitely looking forward to hosting the international community in the Town Square.”
Berman said one of the standout features of the Town Square will be the Market Pavilion, which will be built at the Farmers Market’s current spot on 8th Avenue and Oak Street. He said the Farmers Market will operate under the pavilion on Saturdays and Tuesdays and will be able to expand to the full Farmers Market block during warmer months. The city is considering operating the Farmers Market at the pavilion year-round, Berman said, and the Saturday Market will remain at the southeast and southwest Park Blocks.
He said that at roughly 70 feet by 130 feet, the pavilion will be a covered structure with “an indoor-outdoor feel.”
Angela Norman, the executive director of the Farmers Market, said the Town Square is the kind of expansion that people involved with the market have wanted for “probably over a decade.”
“We’re thrilled, and we’re finding good partnership in the city and with the design team, and the community support has been fantastic as well,” she said. “So we are looking forward to having an expanded market next year.”
Norman said the current Farmers Market’s space only allows for 60 to 65 of its 100 vendors on a given Saturday, but that the Town Square would double the space it currently has.
She said she hopes the Town Square will bring an expanded space where new members and farmers can be supported “and have a vibrant marketplace to sell all that they grow and create for our community.”
The perennial talking point surrounding the design plan has been the addition of a City Hall, which Berman and Semple say the city discussed for several years before the Town Square became a consideration. After the city began pursuing a larger-scale project about two to three years ago, Berman said that he worked with the landscape architecture firm Cameron McCarthy to develop three draft concept plans.
From then on, the focus shifted toward public outreach. Berman said that part of his role in the planning process has been “going out into the community, holding tables and looking for input on the designs as they were being developed, as well as organizing the public events that we used as kind of these important milestones to show off the designs and get feedback.”
Berman said the final draft of the concept plan was a mixture of different elements from the three drafts that were well-received by the public. More than 1,000 people offered their thoughts on the drafts through a survey the city created, according to the final draft of the concept plan. The plan shows that the top three preferences among voters were natural and active fountains, event space across Oak Street and 8th Avenue and restrooms and storage in the Farmer’s Pavilion.
Other planned features Berman highlighted were an interactive fountain, which he said children could run through and use as a play space, as well as a covered stage that would occupy the east Park Block and be used for various performances. He also said the city is looking to incorporate curbless streets into the Town Square to allow cars to pass through, while ensuring that the people there are comfortable and can treat the area as “one big public space.”
“I hope for just gathering, just chance encounters, the things that really make downtown great,” Berman said. “I think that we’ll be able to have amazing events as well as just, like, having coffee in the park or going to a food cart and just eating a nice lunch by the new fountain.”
A digital simulation video takes viewers through what the Town Square is expected to look, feel and sound like, based on the concept plan.
The city is still discussing the logistics of the Town Square and what aspects of it should be prioritized. City Councilor Emily Semple suggested first finalizing the new City Hall and Farmers Market before building a Town Square around them. “Sure, it could be much spiffier,” she said of the Town Square, “but it functions, whereas farmers market and City Hall do not.”
Semple said she was “excited about the possibilities of the space” and wanted it to feel catered toward the public.
“The biggest thing I’m looking forward to is a feeling of a commons, at least in the in the middle, and when the market isn’t there, a place where people can gather,” she said. “I think it’s important to have a place where everyone feels ownership of it.”
