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