With the long-awaited Downtown Riverfront Park open, Eugene is popping its focus to an adjoining plaza.
The three-acre park, which stretches a couple of third of a mile alongside the Willamette River between the DeFazio Bridge to southeast of the previous Eugene Water and Electrical Board steam plant and East Eighth Avenue, and the long run plaza are key items of town’s plans to reconnect downtown to the river and construct a riverfront neighborhood.
Metropolis staff, contractors and consultants spent years designing the park after which reworking the previous EWEB operations yard into inexperienced house, bike and pedestrian paths, and river overlooks.
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Now Eugene is starting work on the one-acre plaza house, which at present is open house subsequent to the park. The town has $4 million put aside for the plaza, and the Oregon Legislature gave town $5 million to shut a funding hole and assist town put in water options and different gadgets on the neighborhood’s want record.
The town is working with Walker Macy, a Portland-based panorama architect, to refine the design for the plaza.
Chelsea McCann, the agency’s principal, introduced two design choices throughout a latest digital open home.
The 2 choices — often known as “Headwaters” and “River Move” — have related components however a unique appear and feel, McCann stated. The agency will ship a remaining idea design subsequent month, she stated.
Folks can provide suggestions on the designs till Aug. 27 by an internet survey at have interaction.eugene-or.gov/plaza/survey_tools/plaza-survey.
Design work on the plaza will wrap up subsequent yr, and town expects development to start out within the spring of 2024 and take a yr.
Related options, completely different format
Each designs have water options, a play house and splash space, timber, a garden and a walkway connecting to the riverwalk, although they’re laid out in another way.
The “Headwaters” design is impressed by the “thought of a pure stream” coming down from the mountains, McCann stated.
The water options begin off small and calm then get greater and extra lively shifting towards the river, with the splash space for youths closest to the riverwalk.
Timber close to the water options are organized in bands, giving a sightline by the park.
The design additionally options a big, open plaza with a degree garden house for occasions.
In distinction, the “River Move” design is a bit of softer and options extra curves.
The timber are in clusters close to smaller, calm water options.
There’s nonetheless a splash pad ingredient, however it’s proper by the play space and separate from the calmer water options.
The garden is mounded as a substitute of flat, and the play space a bit of extra “clever,” McCann stated.
With both design, there’s flexibility for a spread of occasions, she stated.
Smaller occasions may simply use the plaza, McCann stated, whereas medium occasions may use extra of the park space however not the riverwalk, and bigger occasions just like the Riverfront Pageant may use the riverwalk, plaza and the park and prolonged road areas.
Interpretive artwork primarily based on Millrace
Just like the park, the plaza may have interpretive art work.
Walker Macy and town are amassing tales concerning the Millrace, which Eugene’s earliest white settlers dug in 1851 to spin waterwheels that powered town’s first industrial growth.
These tales will then change into expressive typography, McCann stated.
“The thought can be that it turns into phrases within the pavement,” she stated.
There are alternatives for a way that turns into a actuality, together with laying them in bronze and engraving them within the concrete, McCann stated. Plans for really writing out the tales are nonetheless in an early, conceptual section.
A part of bigger neighborhood
When the riverfront property is totally developed, the one-acre park plaza can be nestled between multi-family housing buildings and a restaurant.
Portland-based developer Atkins Dame is constructing lots of of models of housing, beginning with 381 models on three parcels — 3B, 3C and seven. Metropolis Council unanimously accredited a multimillion-dollar, 10-year tax break in March that Atkins Dame stated will make all of the distinction in constructing housing for the brand new downtown riverfront neighborhood.
The town additionally continues to be working to develop the previous Steam Plant constructing, which Metropolis Supervisor Sarah Medary described in the course of the grand opening of the park as the following “unattainable” mission.
Councilors voted in January to promote the practically 100-year-old constructing to a growth staff that may overhaul the constructing to function a southern anchor for the Downtown Riverfront Park growth.
The Dream Plant LLC staff, led by Mark Miksis of deChase Miksis Improvement and Arcimoto CEO Mark Frohnmayer, plans to protect and redevelop the constructing right into a mixed-use constructing with public house on the bottom flooring and roof.
Plans embrace a boutique resort and alternatives for neighborhood artwork.
Contact metropolis authorities watchdog Megan Banta at mbanta@registerguard.com. Comply with her on Twitter @MeganBanta_1.
Contact metropolis authorities watchdog Megan Banta at mbanta@registerguard.com. Comply with her on Twitter @MeganBanta_1.
