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About Eugene weekly. (Eugene, Oregon) 1993-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 17, 2005)
Frohnmayer and Moseley to The Oregon Daily Emerald, the university would be eager to purchase parcels around the Williams Bakery site for the envisioned basketball arena. Frohnmayer told the State Board of Higher Education that he hopes to leave a land bank east of campus and along Franklin Boulevard as his legacy. The president has not yet suggested that the university sell his state-owned home, worth more than $1 million, for the effort. The leak in housing Moseley told the University Senate that money from the Westmoreland sale will eventually be re-invested in student housing. Eyster mentioned a critical need to renovate and construct new dorms on campus, and Dyke assured the state board that the UO will make its cash flows transparent. She said that because the funds from university property sales are “unrestricted,” there’s no guarantee that the revenue from the Westmoreland sale will stay in the housing department. Although the UO’s Business Affairs website describes KERA ABRAHAM Although the complex has incurred rela- tively low maintenance costs to date, Eyster has said that the apartment buildings will need new sewer lines and other infrastructure improvements within the next 10 years, an investment that the UO is reluctant to make. Li counters that the 45-year-old Westmoreland buildings are well-maintained and in better shape than the 60-to-80-year-old housing units east of campus. Built in the early 1960s with bonds that were paid off years ago and tax exempt, Westmoreland generates an estimated $150,000 in monthly rent. The excess money is pooled and used, in part, to pay off loans on the university’s newer Spencer View Apartments. According to Li, Eyster told tenants at a University Housing Board meeting last year that the Westmoreland apartments could last another 50-100 years with good maintenance. That leaves the university with only one uncontested reason for selling: its desire to acquire more land closer to campus, particu- larly along Franklin Boulevard. Westmoreland has been appraised at a fair market value of $15-$18 million, money that can be re-invested in land near campus. The UO has already purchased the Williams Bakery site, and Frohnmayer hopes to place a basketball arena there — provided the uni- versity can acquire adjacent land — for an estimated $180 million. Frohnmayer has said that the proposed Westmoreland sale “has nothing to do with the construction of an arena.” However, he described the sale as strategic to university interests, saying that the UO needs a nest egg in order to buy land close to campus in the rare instances when it becomes available. According to statements made by housing as a financially independent depart- ment, the UO has historically used housing money for other purposes. In the 1960s, the UO used $200,000 in housing funds to purchase campus-area prop- erty on the north side of Franklin Boulevard. The stated plan was to build residence halls, but in the 1980s the university built the Riverfront Research Park instead, with plans to reimburse the housing department $220,000 in 2003. UO general counsel Melinda Grier later advised that the UO can use housing money for purposes unrelated to housing. The UO reimbursed Housing only $35,000 for the Riverfront purchase. University housing issues flared up again in the early 1990s, when the administration announced plans to raze and replace 300 low- rent apartments at 24th Avenue and Patterson Street. The old apartments, known as Amazon Family Housing, rented for about $175 monthly for a two-bedroom unit. The Spencer View Apartments, which replaced them, now cost $580 for a comparable unit. Sen. Bill Morrisette, who has been an UO officials Mike Eyster and Frances Dyke present to the metro area’s Housing Policy Board NOVEMBER 17, 2005 13
