NEWS
BY CAMILLA MORTENSEN
ALI EMAMI
ONE FLEW OVER
KESEY SQUARE
Business owner’s plan
calls for incubators and
public space downtown,
not apartments
PHOTO BY TODD COOPER
hen Ali Emami steps outside his store on
Willamette Street, he can look into the
neighboring public plaza and see the statue
of Ken Kesey. He says he remembers chat-
ting with sculptor Pete Helzer in 2003
when Helzer was working on the bronze artwork offi-
cially known as “The Storyteller.”
Kesey is a part of Eugene’s unique culture, Emami
says, and that’s something the city should be building on,
not tearing down. When Emami was in high school in
Iran, he says, he read Kesey’s books. Now, years later, he
owns the two properties that border the iconic square that
is a landmark to the famed Northwest author.
Kesey Square, also known as Broadway Plaza, is seen
as valuable open space by some and as an eyesore by oth-
ers. Emami sees it as an area with potential, but unlike
another plan recently put forth to build apartments on the
square, Emami says he wants to keep the space open and
make it more inviting. He has a concept plan calling for
opening the brick walls of the square, and building a
brewery and kitchen incubator, but he is up against a pro-
posal that has been developing, unknown to him and most
of Eugene, to build apartments on the public plaza.
Emami is both a longtime business owner in down-
town Eugene and an instructor of finance at the UO, with
a doctorate from Oregon State. He owns Northwest
Persian Rugs and Imports next to the square with his
wife Forouzandeh Emami, as well as Forouz, The Salon,
next door. In 2003, he purchased the building that now
houses Voodoo Doughnut to the east of the square.
According to documents he provided to EW, Emami first
put forth to the city that one of the walls to the plaza
should be opened in 1995. In 2004, he came back to the
city with an even more detailed proposal.
Standing at the counter of his rug store, with UO stu-
dents periodically dropping by for office hours and to
work on class projects, Emami pulls out a sheaf of docu-
ments — engineering plans, estimates for the price of
glass and more. Emami estimated in 2004 that it was
going to cost him $100,000 to open up the walls of the
square. But he says the city told him if he went ahead with
the project, because the square is public space, the
improvements would be revocable and he could not put
rain covers on the plaza’s land. That was too much money
and risk for a project that could simply be undone, so
Emami says he decided to wait.
But this fall, when he got wind of plans to sell Kesey
Square to developers who want to replace the public space
with apartments, Emami dusted off his old plans and put
together a computer model and outlined a more up-to-date
concept. He also went to the Eugene City Council Oct. 12
W
and asked to be included in any future Kesey Square dis-
cussions. Emami sent a letter to the City Council and city
manager reminding them of the previous attempts to open
the walls and asking them to consider him for purchase of
the plaza as well, should the city decide to sell.
Oct. 12 is the same day that the Eugene City Council
went into executive session to “negotiate real property
transactions,” and rumors began to fly fast and furious that
the city was pondering selling Kesey Square to developers.
On Nov. 2, the R-G posted a story, calling Kesey
Square “troublesome” and detailing a plan by architects
Rowell Brokaw, Kazem Oveissi (also a rug merchant) and
others to purchase the public square and apply for a
Multiple Unit Property Tax Exemption to build apart-
ments and retail space on the land. A MUPTE tax exemp-
tion can last up to 10 years. Under Eugene’s MUPTE
rules, developers could dedicate 30 percent of the units as
workforce housing — housing with rents equal to or less
than 30 percent of the area median income, which was
$42,000, according to the most recent census.
When the plan was made public, many Eugeneans took
to social media to criticize the potential tax break and the
takeover of public space. Oveissi, who was traveling, was
unable to respond to EW’s request for an interview before
deadline. However, in the R-G story, developer consultant
Mark Miksis says “the public plaza planned for outside of
Eugene’s next City Hall ‘will add more than twice the
space that now exists at Kesey Square.’”
City Councilor Betty Taylor tells EW it would “really
be a big mistake for the city to sell that property for a
building. There is so little [public] space left; I think there
should be places for people to spontaneously sit down and
talk.”
Eugene’s community development division manager
Denny Braud confirmed to EW that a group, including
Oveissi and Greg Brokaw, “has expressed interest in the
property.” But he says, “No appraisal has been completed.
If the City Council decides to move forward with the
proposal an appraisal would be completed.”
Braud says that the “City Council hasn’t taken any
action to proactively sell the property, but can consider
proposals received by the city manager.”
Braud says the city has set up a time to talk to Emami
about his proposal, and “if the City Council decides to
consider a proposal, it would occur at a public meeting.
The timing of the meeting would depend on when a pro-
posal is received and the council agenda.”
Councilor George Brown, who owns downtown business
The Kiva, says he is opposed to selling the square to any
private entity. “Some people say that it ‘doesn’t work very
well,’” he says. But “I would counter that notion and say that,
when someone takes responsibility and stages a public event
like a movie night, a Shakespeare play, a dance party or a
political or social rally, it can work quite well.”
However, Brown says if a council majority, “backed by
significant community support, wants to diminish the pub-
lic realm downtown by selling this property,” then City
Manager Jon Ruiz should issue a request for proposals
(RFP) so the council can evaluate all potential projects.
Emami’s proposal, which he calls a “sustainable pub-
lic-private partnership project,” calls for opening up the
walls of the buildings he owns at 941 Willamette and 20
E. Broadway, or, he says, creating a more inviting façade,
in order to “create a viable environment for cultural,
social and commercial activities in the square.”
The concept plan calls for turning one of the buildings
into a microbrewery incubator and having “frequent local
and regional competitive brewing festivals” in the square.
The other building would become a start up kitchen incu-
bator with several small kitchens, allowing food produc-
ers a space to launch future restaurants and projects while
also calling for food festivals and related events in the
square. The drawings show chairs, tables and awnings
where brick walls now stand, and the iconic Kesey statue
remaining in the space it has stood for more than a
decade.
Kesey Square’s tall brick walls have been blamed for
making the space uninviting, and at the core of the com-
plaints about the plaza are the “travelers” and unhoused
who hang out there. “As a public space it’s too small; a
cultural group will occupy it and other groups don’t feel
comfortable occupying that space,” says Thomas Pettus-
Czar, whose The Barn Light bar is across the street from
Kesey Square.
Mayor Kitty Piercy shares Pettus-Czar’s reservations
about the current state of the plaza: “I dislike the abuse
the square takes in terms of destruction of property, trash
and refuse and violence.” However, she says, “I have long
been a fan of opening up the walls that make Kesey
Square difficult to use and program.” She says she has
questions about how Emami’s proposal would pencil out,
but “I appreciate the opportunity to have that discussion.”
Emami too finds some of the activities around the square
problematic, pointing to a window of his store someone
broke with his head, but he says that is a larger societal prob-
lem that needs to be solved, and pushing people from one
corner of downtown to another won’t fix it.
“If the city wants to start building its culture,” Emami
says, “this is the plan to do it.” The square, he says, needs
vision and to be made inviting in order to bring people
downtown. Kesey is Oregon’s culture, he says — Eugene’s
culture. ■
eugeneweekly.com • November 5, 2015
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