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About Eugene weekly. (Eugene, Oregon) 1993-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 22, 2026)
B R I C KS $ M O R TA R ment. It was close to major highways. It was big enough for the county and PeaceHealth buildings and parking. And it was inside Springfi eld’s urban growth boundary, so it could be built on. The county staff , the majority of county commission- ers, and PeaceHealth gushed about the benefi ts of the site and a joint facility. The problem of the restrictive zoning was barely mentioned in county documents and meetings in the fall of 2024. In an October 2024 meeting of county commissioners, the county’s capital projects manager, David Ward, told commissioners the county would “look at rezoning that property… we’re moving to rezone that, with a medical component.” IN THE LEGISLATURE In early 2025, the county quietly switched from the idea of asking the Springfi eld City Council to rezone the site to seeking the super-siting law. After the Legislature convened in January, there ensued months of back-room wrangling between the county and city of Springfi eld legal staff and lobbyists over the super-siting language, public records show. Through- out, the county kept its language secret from the city, the city’s lobbyist told the Springfi eld City Council in a memo last summer. Among the city’s worries about the project: Would it increase traffi c jams on city streets and the nearby Interstate 5/Beltline interchange? The county disclosed its fi nal super-siting language to the city only in the last days of the session in June, the city lobbyist wrote. In the end, though, the county “addressed our most critical concerns,” the lobbyist wrote. The lobbyist wrote that the city — it’s unclear who in the city — decided not to oppose the bill, even though “the city does not support super-siting policies in general.” Once the bill was signed into law, Giustina and Rich- ardson were left with a daunting option: to try to undo the law itself. In their lawsuit, they fault the secrecy of the county and of the legislative process, and the scant time anyone — legislators, lobbyists, the general public — had to scru- tinize the giant bill. Giustina and Richardson are prominent names in Eugene-Springfi eld’s business elite. Giustina heads a family ownership group that owns dozens of major estate holdings throughout Eugene-Springfi eld and beyond, plus extensive timberlands. Richardson’s factory is touted as a national-level sportswear success story. vote on whether to annex the International Way site into the city limits. Until the property is annexed in, the county can’t legally build on it. Will the council oppose or support annexation? Does it even have the legal right to reject the annexation? There must be a public hearing before the vote. What will the public say? The county earlier this month fi led its annexation request, which will come before the council in the next few months. Annexation applications are typically routine: a landowner wants to annex, explains that the development will obey the city’s existing zoning and other rules, and then gets a unanimous thumbs-up from a happy council. ‘These types of facilities, there are a lot of people who don’t want it in their backyard.’ — FLOYD PROZANSKI, OREGON STATE SENATOR This annexation is anything but routine. In its paper- work, the county invokes the super-siting law to override the great majority of the city’s “campus-industrial” land- use rules and other restrictions. In eff ect, the county says, the city is obliged to annex the land and let the project proceed. Does the city agree? That’s not yet clear. The City Council has the power to deny annexation if it fi nds a project is not consistent with the city’s zoning and other rules, says city spokesperson Elyse Ditzel. Also, the council can set conditions for annexation and “has the discretion to weigh competing or confl icting policies and determine which are paramount to the city,” she tells Eugene Weekly. In its communications to the county, the city contin- ues to complain the county has not suffi ciently addressed traffi c jams the facility might cause, city records show. FULL SPEED AHEAD? Is the road ahead clear for the health-care project? That’s hard to know. The supersiting law left intact several technical local land-use hoops the county must jump through. A key one is this: the Springfi eld City Council must MORE QUESTIONS Many questions linger. Loveall, Giustina and Richardson have asked: Why doesn’t PeaceHealth put the project on its own vacant land next to RiverBend? There, PeaceHealth owns a 35-acre Casa en venta 485 Scotts Glen Springfi eld, OR Casa actualizada de dos dormitorios y dos baños en una calle sin salida. Cocina y baños remodelados. Amplia yarda trasera cercada incluye una terraza cubierta, un tejaban de herramientas y dos salas adicionales (posibilidades infi nitas: ofi cina en casa, almacenamiento extra, gimnasio, estudio de arte). Cochera techada además de un espacio para estacionar un RV/Lancha. $175,000. Renta de espacio solo $765/mes. Parque familiar. Recorrido a puertas abiertas el domingo 25 de enero de 1:00 a 3:00 de la tarde Open house Sunday January 25th from 1-3 pm Updated two bedroom, two bathroom home in a cul de sac. Remodeled kitchen & bathrooms. Spacious fenced backyard includes a covered deck, a tool shed, and two bonus rooms (endless possibilities: home offi ce, extra storage, gym, art studio). Carport plus an RV/boat parking pad. Newer siding and a newer roof. $175,000. Space rent only $765/month. All ages park. Kit & Rich Sixel REAL ESTATE BROKERS SIXELre.com CONTACT US TODAY 541-954-1915 Million Dollar Service in Any Price Range ©2025 Sixel Real Estate • Licensed Real Estate Brokers in the State of Oregon. 8 January 22, 2026 tract of open, multi-family-zoned land that it has listed for sale. It also owns parcels ranging from one to eight acres, totalling 40 acres, that are separated from each other by a web of city streets and access roads. A PeaceHealth executive told the county Board of Commissioners the joint facility could not be fi tted onto any of those pieces. Loveall, Giustina and Richardson don’t buy that. “The people I represent still have some heartburn with PeaceHealth not being overly transparent with the 75 acres of land they have, of developable property around [RiverBend],” Loveall told commissioners in a meeting last July. PeaceHealth pushed for the International Way fi lbert orchard site because hospital executives “haven’t fi gured out yet” what to do with their land, he said. PeaceHealth anticipates selling the 35-acre residential tract and wants to keep the remaining 40 acres of small parcels “for future services which are required to be located immediately next to the emergency department or operating rooms,” says Alicia Beymer, chief administra- tive offi cer at RiverBend. The county stabilization center and PeaceHealth psychiatric hospital “do not require that proximity,” Beymer tells Eugene Weekly. PeaceHealth does not want RiverBend to become “landlocked,” she says. As for Giustina’s and Richardson’s pitch that the fi lbert orchard should be preserved for industrial development? County leaders and staff don’t buy that. The fi lbert orchard has been designated for industrial use for decades, and no buyer has materialized. Some other corporate or industrial uses in the Gateway area have fi zzled: The Sony CD disc manufacturing plant shut- tered in 2003 and laid off all its workers. The factory was bought by PeaceHealth and turned into a lab and offi ces. The former Royal Caribbean call center building has sat vacant for six years and is now for sale. A religious-facilities loophole in Springfi eld’s campus-in- dustrial zoning rules allowed the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to build a colossal temple on Inter- national Way, a fi fth of a mile from the planned county project. To rebut Giustina’s and Richardson’s arguments, county staff produced a study that found the 18 acres the county and PeaceHealth want for the health center are a fraction of the available campus-industrial-zoned land in Gateway. The county project “is the continuation of the shift [away from industrial] rather than the initiation of the shift on International Way,” a county staff er told commissioners. Residents of Springfi eld and the rest of Lane County “are suff ering because we do not have a complete behav- ioral health care system,” says Commissioner Trieger. “This facility will benefi t everyone. It will become a crit- ical piece of our health care infrastructure.” Bricks $ Mortar is a column anchored by Christian Wihtol, who worked as an editor and writer at The Register-Guard in Eugene 1990- 2018, much of the time focused on real estate, economic development and business. Reach him at Christian@EugeneWeekly.com. Discover your ne dinner spot in w favorite tow an ad in our pa n from ges? Tell them yo u saw it in Eugene W eekly ! 25% OFF 20% OFF VETERANS WISDOM ONE COUPON PER VISIT cal rt lo o p sup ses ! 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