There’s a rumor going around that Williams-Sonoma and/or a large shoe store will take over the block at 160 Oakway.

Williams-Sonoma stores are often found near PF Chang’s, so Williams-Sonoma does seem likely. According to KMTR, ground will break in Feb. 2008.

According to the Register-Guard, Bello Day Spa will move out to the impressive new Crescent Village in North Eugene.

Popularity: 27% [?]

Judging by the numbers of homes closing each week in Trulia, and the 6% annual growth rate in Eugene homes prices reported by Zillow, housing prices and demand for homes in Eugene remains strong.

What’s most interesting to those who follow the local real estate market and home listings, is how Eugene is both resilient to the national housing slump and changing almost monthly:

• Sub-prime lending in Eugene does not compare with the level of sub-prime lending that took place in larger, more exposed and inflationary markets. The vast majority of Eugene homeowners have been conservative about their borrowing, and local lenders conservative about who gets the money.
• The City is finally doing something about downtown – a complete renovation of West Broadway.
• The City is getting serious about the need for another large hospital to handle population growth.
• Phil Knight just donated $100 Million for a new basketball stadium.
• The airport is getting another runway.
• Eugene will host the summer Olympic Trials next year.
• Pottery Barn is opening in the North. There will soon be a new REI in the South. PF Changs opened this year as well.

When you live here it’s easy to take these changes for granted, but the way all of these developments have arrived at once says something about where Eugene is headed. Opportunity and change are happening right in front of us. Both elements are needed to ensure a vital real estate market, and a strong local economy.

Popularity: 31% [?]

The unofficial word is that REI is coming to the 29th and Willamette mall, the one that hosts the new Market of Choice, Asada, Ben & Jerry’s, &…

Popularity: 26% [?]

Given that most 3BR homes in Eugene have been selling for $300K+, and especially homes in safe, family-friendly neighborhoods like this one, this one should go quickly. The price may be discounted a bit due to proximity to a large nearby electrical station, as well as the freeway. The freeway noise isn’t bad however, and I believe that this entire corridor will be getting a sound wall built as per the new overpass. That leaves the electrical station, which some people will find more bothersome than others. It’s interesting that there are three homes near this one, all selling at a discount. Do your homework; ask the neighbors why those four homes are for sale at once. They might simply be investment homes.

Popularity: 17% [?]

I received this email, from an email list being passed around amongst friends. Not sure how much play this has received, but posting it here can only help further educate the “silent majority” into being proactive when it comes to the development of Downtown Eugene. Downtown is not just for struggling artists, entrenched landowners, and latchkey kids. It’s for all of Eugene, including those of us who don’t live there. In fact, real “diversity” is when each segment can coexist without each being more offended than the other about who’s getting more political chips. Politics needs to involve some compromise or it becomes an oligarchy of the radical few!

Well, this is it. Next week the City Council will decide if and what steps will be taken on West Broadway Redevelopment. Those who oppose revitalizing downtown have told their story, now we need to tell ours. Take 5 minutes right now to email and/or call and ask them to vote Yes on the KWG project. If you are so inclined, you may also tell them you are a member of Shop Eugene. More detailed information about Shop Eugene
and the KWG proposal below.

mayorandcc@ci.eugene.or.us 682-5010

And/or send individual emails to the swing votes:

Kitty.Piercy@ci.eugene.or.us 682-5010 (message)

Alan.Zelenka@ci.eugene.or.us 344-5721 (message)

Chris.E.Pryor@ci.eugene.or.us 484-6896 (message)

Andrea.F.Ortiz@ci.eugene.or.us

If you are not currently on the listserv for Shop Eugene, email shopeugene@comcast.net. You will receive updates on what’s happening with downtown development, how you can get involved, and an invitation to a strategic planning gathering.

Shop Eugene’s Purpose

Each year, Eugene residents spend millions of dollars shopping outside of their community. Shop Eugene is a coalition of local people who want to create a thriving downtown with a mix of eateries and local and national retailers that offers an inviting and safe place for individuals and families to shop, see a movie, bump into friends and neighbors, and feel part of our community. Shop Eugene supports Eugene’s incredible array of locally owned businesses such as the members of Unique Eugene and Downtown Eugene Incorporated. We wish to see anchor stores in downtown Eugene such as Crate & Barrel, Restoration Hardware, and Nordstrom that will increase the number of local and regional visitors to downtown and help ensure the success of our unique locally owned stores. We support building on the successes of 5th Street Public Market and Oakway Center and envision Eugene joining cities like Portland and Seattle by becoming a regional Shopping destination.

We support a larger, more comprehensive development plan that will help tie both ends of Broadway together and realize our tax dollars may be needed to help make this happen. We are thousands of people who want to shop in Eugene, help create new jobs, and restore downtown to a vital economic engine.

KWG Proposal (covering 3% of downtown)

Redevelop the entire block bounded by Charnelton, Broadway, 10th and Olive, the two half blocks facing Broadway between Olive and Willamette and the properties on Olive at the northwest corner of Broadway to
create an intense “West End” retail/entertainment district with a multiplex theatre, boutique hotel, over 400 housing units and 200,000 feet of retail along Broadway between Charnelton and Willamette. KWG intends to remake West Broadway into a dynamic 24 hour community with restaurants, a multi-screen movie venue, night clubs, a mix of national and local retailers, a large grocer, a high-end hotel, and a dense mix of rental and for sale housing. In essence, these two blocks of Broadway would be recast into downtown Eugene’s entertainment hot spot. The proximity of the proposed entertainment cen ter to the Hult Center, and
other cultural venues in the adjacent blocks creates the opportunity for tremendous energy in the Redevelopment Area. The adjacent Eugene Transit Center and the new EmX rapid transit system provides a convenient link to the West End entertainment hub from all over the Eugene/Springfield metro area.

More detailed information is available at www.eugene-or.gov. Go to Planning, Downtown Planning.

Popularity: 14% [?]

In a couple of posts I have talked about Eugene Hippies. About how radicals in Eugene often control the development debate centering around how to rebuild downtown.

Since I like to garden, ride a bike, trail run, eat organic vegetables, and recycle, I thought it would be appropriate to clarify what “Hippy” actually means in Eugene. Especially for people planning to relocate.

Basically, it means nothing. It’s more of a spectrum of hippyness vs. a black and white world of hippies and suits duking it out. Those metaphors are better suited to The Simpsons than to real life. Or maybe to Springfield.

So let me point out how Eugene is unique, different, and just a little more fun than most cities with 170K people:

• Eugene Hippies sell joke books. Good or bad jokes, it doesn’t matter because they’ve already broken the ice.
• Eugene Hippies make Saturday market a REAL old fashioned market.
• Eugene Hippies prevent homogeneity. They make minorities feel comfortable in a State with so few minorities.
• Eugene Hippies aren’t so attached to material competition or gains as the general public. Their value system tries to put human beings before economic interests.

Now that the days of Anarchists in the street are over, Eugene has brighter days ahead. Yes, there are more street urchins passing drugs around downtown than you will find in most cities of this size. Yes, debate and decisions about downtown can be hijacked by current tenants downtown, some of which only add ’smoke’ to the debate. Ok, that’s life. Difficult people are everywhere.

It just so happens that our true “Hippies” in Eugene, or left of left spectrum, the Eugene political power brokers, side with difficult people. Very difficult people.

So here’s what happened. A city of abnormally tolerant and open-minded people became critics of “Hippy” political domination when the eco-terrorists and anarchists decided in the late 90s that a lot of hardworking people in this town just don’t care what happens to Eugene. Or to Downtown.

Many hippies sided with the anarchists..a huge mistake. Tree-climbing w/poop-bag drops, riots, and general political and social mayhem brought a lot of ridiculousness to downtown policy and politics. This tipped the political scale in favor of development away from downtown. Many of those developments becoming very successful.

So as the City of Eugene attempts to put together a plan for downtown Eugene, they should consider how we got here in the first place and how to avoid getting here again.

Popularity: 12% [?]

I love Eugene for the way its thought leaders in the local media provoke outrage..in the most laid back, passive-aggressive way imaginable. This can’t be called hypocrisy because hypocrisy requires a carefully constructed image of impermeable resoluteness, something Eugene is not exactly known for.

Or maybe it is. I don’t know..whatever you say man..

So that’s why this article in the Eugene Weekly really makes me laugh. Is there anything left to tap once the Eugene Weekly has tapped the public’s reservoir of rage towards those who have acquired or accomplished more than they? I feel exhausted after reading the Weekly sometimes, like I need a fresh IPA and some banter to bring me back to life.

In its latest, ongoing attempt to reshape public opinion about Downtown projects, the Eugene Weekly stereotypes KWG, the developer behind the most ambitious proposal for West Broadway yet, proposer of “The West End,” as a greedy developer out to bilk the taxpayers of Eugene out of $50 Million.

Does this city really lack the ability to look past stereotypes about developers and consider the facts?

• The best bid will win. Unlike Eugene’s elected leaders, developers and business people face real competition every day. They are not all a bunch of greedy local subsidy raiders. Yes they’re business people who expect a profit commensurate with risk. No they’re not TV caricatures of developers the way the Eugene Weekly likes to portray them. This isn’t The Dukes of Hazzard.
• West Broadway is embarrassing. Downtown is embarrassing. There’s nothing more that can be said here. Sure there are pockets of greatness downtown, but ask the majority of people who live downtown if they think it’s an ideal place to live and they’ll tell you the idealists are holding it hostage.
• About 1,000 construction jobs would be created for a period of about 18 months. Nevermind, Eugene doesn’t need jobs.
• All parking would be underground. That means another great place for the dropouts to smoke a joint or ten.
• Cost is estimated to be over $30M. This is NOT the City’s cost. And nowhere is it stated in the proposal that the City’s cost is $50 million. I challenge the Eugene Weekly to produce facts to support that price, net income from the project and $6M+ in grants from the Federal Brownfield Program.
• KWG is not proposing a “Mall-like Megaproject” as the Eugene Weekly calls it. That’s a complete suspension of the truth. This proposal looks nothing like a “mall” the way Oakway or Valley River Center are malls.

If KWG won the bid for some or all of West Broadway land for sale, 174 rental units over the grocery store (the one Eugene ran out of downtown once already?) would rent to households earning 60% of median income. For Eugene, that means about $29K for a family and $22K for an individual. This sure sounds like mixed-use to me.

KWG built a low income project in Downtown Vancouver called Esther Short Commons. The building won several design awards. Unfortunately, some of the liveability issues surrounding low income housing also leaves very little to the imagination. This isn’t KWG’s problem, this is the city of Vancouver’s problem. Just as it’s the City of Eugene’s problem.

KWG cannot solve the low income housing or downtown development problems for Eugene. Yet maybe if Eugene faced its reckless core more courageously, with more ambition and willingness to innovate, a developer would meet the City halfway.

Then someday the people of Eugene might be proud to say, like citizens of Portland can, that downtown is a fantastic place to live, work, and play.

Popularity: 23% [?]

Back in December 2006 the results from a community survey came out. You can read it here.

First, this was a very methodical survey. I remember very little from my statistics class in college, however, I recognize the variance elements, beta, etc. It’s solid information.

Secondly, the results of this survey paint a far different picture of Eugene than what you see via some of the elected officials. Cats, sustainability, and downtown are not the public’s #1 priority. Important, but not #1. Security (fighting crime), jobs, and education are.

To put it succinctly, here are the concerns showing the largest growth in interest, consistently, every year, since 1998 (or 2001).

• Is Eugene’s population growing too fast?

  56% said yes in 1998, 31% in 2006. Either this means people think Eugene is slowing down, or they’re more accepting of the pop. growth needed to maintain a vibrant community. Probably the latter. Eugene doesn’t seem to be slowing down.

• In 1998, 45% of people surveyed believed their economic opportunities were getting better.

  That % fell by nearly 40% to only 25% who believed the same in 2006. This is significant. Obviously people feel that the city gov’t is not doing enough to encourage job growth, especially in the form of “living wages.”

  And yet..about 45% of Eugenians for almost eight years have believed that the City shouldn’t provide businesses with tax incentives. I feel for the Mayor here. But then that’s what leadership is about – telling people what they sometimes don’t want to hear.

  Springfield is dominant in the area of job and economic growth. As Springfield house prices catch up with Eugene’s, providing a larger taxable base for the City of Springfield, Eugene city leaders will discover that you can’t just opt-out of competition for resources. Eugene doesn’t “deserve” economic benefits any more than Springfield, right? That’s got to be earned.

• Safety – Business areas vs. neighborhoods.

  60-65% of people on average, over the last five years have felt very safe in their neighborhoods. Only about 27% on average say the same about business areas – hitting a five year low of 18% in 2006.

  Safety is a real issue for many, and especially women (it says so in the report). I would not feel comfortable having my wife walk alone at night to meet me downtown. I would rather walk to her. Suburbia, with all its bourgeois hubris and “Desperate Housewives” mythology, is safe. Suburbia is also an enormous asset to the city.

Everyone is aware of the successes of Eugene city government – good parks, decent schools, a great library system. What we don’t have very often in this town however is an open debate where people refuse to offend easily. Where conflict leads to resolution and a better city.

Ironically, most Eugenians with a thick skin simply hope the pollsters call them once a year. They’re too busy for the other nonsense.

Popularity: 22% [?]