Historic quality of downtown
spared with new building site
■ Letters and e-mail give voice to
residents’ opposition of
downtown building site
By Brian Goodell
Oregon Daily Emerald
Pressures from community members and
Congressman Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., have
prompted the Eugene City Council to sup
port the development of a $70 million feder
al courthouse in place of city hall, rather
than the more controversial site next to the
Fifth Street Public Market.
At an impromptu Thursday night meet
ing, the council also formed a committee
to recommend a plan for relocating current
city hall operations to a new location
should the city hall site be adopted. Ac
cording to DeFazio, the General Services
Administration, the federal agency that
initially chose the Fifth Avenue site, is
anxious for the committee to begin its
analysis.
“The council considers this a win-win
situation,” City Communications Director
Phil Weiler said. “They saw this as an op
portunity to get out of a building that is too
small and would crumble in an earth
quake.”
In addition, the GSA will avoid public
scrutiny for dropping a gigantic, 10-story
federal courthouse in the middle of down
town Eugene’s commercial district next to
the Fifth Street Public Market. DeFazio’s
office and the City Manager’s office re
ceived several hundred letters and e-mail
messages from Eugene residents voicing
their disdain for the GSA’s original pro
posed site.
“The character of downtown Eugene is
important to residents and visitors,” Uni
versity employee Kim Mangun wrote in
one of several hundred letters sent to May
or Jim Torrey. “Residents appreciate the
quaint and historic nature of the area, and
visitors bring in much-needed revenue to
Station Square, Fifth Street Public Market
and the Pearl District. What a shame it
would be to erect such an enormous build
ing that would overshadow the rest of
downtown.”
However, no official site has been cho
sen. According to a Sept. 23 Register
Guard article, Jay Pearson, the regional ad
ministrator of the GSA, said his decision
was final last week and came after consid
ering comments from two public meetings
and a year-long analysis of three down
town sites.
But in a telephone conversation on Fri
day, DeFazio informed Torrey that the
GSA is reconsidering its site selection for
the new federal courthouse.
“The GSA’s original decision was based
on what they thought was in the public’s
best interest,” Weiler said. “So there’s no
reason why they wouldn’t reconsider
putting a 10-story building on Fifth Av
enue. It would wipe out all surface lot
parking, block out the sun and change the
overall feel of that part of town.”
The tally of the council’s vote was six to
one, with Councilor Gary Rayor as the lone
opposition vote. According to the motion,
the council agreed that the Fifth Avenue
site presents significant challenges of
scale, compatibility and neighborhood im
pact.
Weiler said the council also took into
consideration the need for a new city hall.
However, their concerns did not appear in
the text of the motion.
“When city hall was built 35 years ago,
building codes were different than they are
now,” Weiler said. “Back then, people didn’t
know that the Willamette Valley had earth
quakes.”
Jeffrey Stockton/ Emerald
The proposed site for the new federal building is now City Hall, located downtown on 7th Avenue E.
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