DESIGNMatters
BY JERRY DIETHELM
Plan Migration
Here comes those ducks again
T
he Ducks are down. The Ducks are up – way up sometimes, and those other
ducks are heading south for their winter rest. In the meantime, the West
Broadway Downtown Plan has joined the fall migration.
“Housing, housing, housing,” said the mayor in a recent KOPT debate, “and a park,
but the park needs the housing around it to …” and I forget her exact quote, but it had
to do with keeping 24-hour eyes on the new public space across from the library to pos-
sess it and keep it safe.
Those of us following the unfolding of the West Broadway discussion were surprised
to hear her quoting Councilor Bettman, who has been criticizing the downtown strat-
egy because it didn’t have enough “housing, housing, housing.” But it just shows how
good things evolve, how understanding can unfold and how difficult it is to keep sensi-
ble development from becoming embodied in the body politic. Thankfully we are finally
moving away from a false contest between the Queen of Ice Cream and the Queen of
the Night.
Look, there is movement in the skies. “Nature is porous. Mind is fluid,” said the poet,
even if the wings of change do beat slowly. Everyone is now talking about a park or
open space of some kind across from the Eugene Public Library. I first wrote about this
last March (EW 3/29) in an article about “Library Square.” But I was thinking about two
proposals for this area from my fall 1999 graduate design studio, one by Ryan Carlson
and the other by Lisa Mitcheltree.
“Tree’s” scheme put a new Willamette Repertory Theater on the Sear’s Lake site.
The new 350-seat theater then combined with the library and Atrium buildings (and
new construction north of the alley where the Music Gourmet is now dining on the
Internet) to transform the Diamond parking lot into a sparkling new urban public
square.
Ryan’s scheme was all housing, housing, housing, wrapped around the parking lot
that lost its “ing” on the way to becoming a befountained green. And around the built
edges of his park he put an arcade — because it does rain in Eugene — full of all those
good services that bring a public space to life. Looking down from above were the
scores of roof gardens and balconies that put eyes down on the park and on to south
hills.
I made these students do more than just pretend to study parking on this block,
which is why I actually know something about the situation here and react negatively
when I hear someone say they’ll just pay the price and put a couple of levels under-
ground. Remember when the New York architects came to
town to design the Hult and made the same claims? “Trust
us,” they said. “We know what we’re doing. We put tunnels under
rivers where we come from.” They’d put all the parking underground. That’s not how
things turned out, of course, because the designers discovered, as it seems we must
constantly rediscover, that Eugene sits on a river terrace with groundwater about 13
feet down. Nature is porous and so are some uncluttered minds when it comes to un-
derground parking.
I
f we can get to it, we should be reaching toward some level of sustainability with
regard to parking and other forms of transportation in our West Broadway plan-
ning.
Did you know: It takes four times as much parking for retail and commercial uses as
it does for housing? As a practical matter, it will take 50,000 sq. ft. of parking for a
50,000 sq. ft. grocery store or cinema, which is why they are usually located where this
much space is available and can be provided free. A “Half Foods” store of 25,000 sq. ft.
as proposed by the WBAC, would still require 25,000 sq. ft. of parking – about 65 cars –
for just this one use. We have around 80 under the library.
Now, I know this will sound harsh and right out of the “reality based community,” but
I think that one reason — not the only reason — you’re not seeing a tangible, physical de-
sign to vote on this time is that a retail, retail, retail, parking, parking, parking scheme
here is physically hard to shoe-horn in the available space and that you might not like
what you see, especially if you are hoping to have anything remotely resembling public
space left over. Not true, you say? Prove it, I say, and as a patriotic Eugenean, even
though I think that a retail surge here is at least moderately delusional, I’ll write you a
check for my share.
And did you know that when Betty Taylor first proposed using urban renewal funds
for the library she was told that’s not what they were for. We have Betty to thank for
her imagination, persistence and precedent. What better community investment than
this kind of cultural asset? What better form of magnet for our downtown? I can’t per-
sonally get very excited about the possibility of owning another parking garage.
Hark and you will hear the increased quacking of plan migration. Here come those
ducks again for one or two more rounds. Here come those minds still turning, turning,
turning, their work not quite yet done. Alas, here comes a flying “V” for vote before its
time.
We’re getting there, flap, flap, flap, but our community and council ducks are not yet
in a row.
Jerry Diethelm is a Eugene architect, landscape architect and planning and urban design consultant, and professor
emeritus of landscape architecture and community service at UO.
blogs.eugeneweekly.com
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OCTOBER 25, 2007 13