BY ALAN PITTMAN
Hospital vs. Riverfront
Should we pay Triad $25 million to pave
over riverfront, or build a park?
M
cKenzie-Willamette/Triad hospi-
tal’s proposed relocation to the
riverfront EWEB property appears
headed for stiff opposition as the relocation
has linked itself to one of the most controver-
sial development plans in the city’s history.
Triad’s
hospital plan
Plans for the new hospital include a new
highway along the riverfront through the
UO’s controversial Riverfront Research
Park. The UO’s and city’s plans to develop
the riverfront natural area have been stymied
for decades by strong community opposition.
In 1998 about 650 members of the university
community signed a petition opposing the
riverside development and 250 students and
community members marched to the river to
protest the project.
“I think it’s a terrible idea,” says Friends
of Eugene President Kevin Matthews of the
hospital road proposal. Matthews says the
new road along with the railroad tracks and
an already planned new highway along the
south side of the tracks will create a 200-ft.-
wide barrier to accessing the river. Long
stretches of the roadways, he notes, will be in
deep trenches to descend down to under-
passes under the tracks. The road plans are
“completely contrary” to the city’s adopted
plans to reconnect downtown to the river,
Matthews says.
At a City Council meeting last week,
Councilor Bonny Bettman warned that the
hospital was “guaranteeing delay” by tying
itself to the controversial Riverfront
Research Park road.
Councilor Betty Taylor said she “would
never vote for” degrading the riverfront by
extending the Research Park road to the hos-
pital. She said it appeared the city was using
the hospital as “a back door” excuse to de-
velop the research park area.
The council approved a motion for staff to
study other options for accessing the site, but
a strong majority of councilors appeared to
back the riverfront road.
Councilor David Kelly, a possible swing
vote should the issue reach the newly elected
council in January, said he was willing to sac-
rifice the riverfront for the hospital. “I recog-
nize that is something that may have to give,”
he said of protecting the riverfront from the
new road.
But even if the city does find an alterna-
tive to the riverfront road, building such a
massive hospital along the river is a bad idea,
Matthews says. The hospital will be like “a
large tall wall of commercial development
between downtown and the river,” Matthews
says. “The hospital is way too much intensive
commercial development for that site where
it should be Eugene’s downtown riverfront.”
A better option for the EWEB site would
be to create a riverfront park with pedestrian
walkways and perhaps small restaurants and
a city natural history and local history mu-
seum in a renovated EWEB steam plant, ac-
cording to Matthews.
Other cities, such as Portland and San
Francisco, have gone to great time and ex-
pense to remove riverfront highways and
create parks to reconnect their cities to
the river, Matthews points out.
“It makes me shake my head,”
he says.
Jan Spencer of Citizens
for Public Accountability
agrees that the area should
be a park. “There are cities
all over the country that
would love to have a riverfront
like that,” he says. “It just doesn’t make any
sense.”
The cost of the hospital will be more than
a lost riverfront park. The city also plans to
give Triad up to $25 million for the project.
Most of the money will come from using a
controversial urban renewal district to divert
property tax revenues from city and county
services and schools to instead fund new
roads to serve the hospital.
“It seems like a big waste of money,”
Taylor said.
The taxpayer subsidy will support higher
profits for Triad, a for-profit Texas corpora-
tion that owns 53 hospitals across the nation.
Triad paid its CEO James Shelton $1 million
in salary, plus a $1.1 million bonus, plus $5
million to $13 million in stock options last
year, according to a 2003 annual report.
It’s unclear exactly what the city will gain
from the huge expense in riverfront land and
tax subsidies. The city will meet its goal of lo-
cating a hospital near downtown. But Triad’s
design features acres of surface parking lots
paving over the entire site almost to the river
and appears to do little to encourage the use
of alternative transportation and won’t create
an attractive, walkable urban area.
The city will gain new hospital workers
near downtown, but it will also lose 460
EWEB employees when the utility likely re-
locates to the edge of the city. It’s also unclear
how the site is better than other central loca-
tions for the new hospital, such as in
Glenwood.
But despite lingering questions, the city
appears to be rushing forward with the mas-
sive project. The council meeting on the mo-
mentous decision lasted only 30 minutes and
the plans never went to the city Planning
Commission nor to a public hearing.
Taylor said the city has been too secretive
about the plans and should leave the decision to
the next mayor and council. The recent election
“showed pretty clearly that people were un-
happy with the policies of the current council.”
“For this to be going forward willy-nilly
with zero public process is just really shock-
ing and horrible,” Matthews said.
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