Fred Meyer, preparing another bid to build a south Eugene store on the Civic Stadium site, is ready to share details with fans and foes. The retail and grocery store chain’s representatives and its proposed developer will meet with residents in south Eugene on Tuesday evening. The open house in the South Eugene High School cafeteria will give representatives a chance to share information about the proposed development and hear what residents have to say about it, Fred Meyer spokeswoman Melinda Merrill said on Friday. She and other representatives will stress that Fred Meyer will not build a “big, white west Eugene or Santa Clara box store on this site,” Merrill said. In recent years, Fred Meyer has built and remodeled stores using designs influenced by local residents in Wilsonville, Vancouver, Wash., and Seattle, she said. The design of a Fred Meyer in downtown Portland that is currently being expanded and remodeled was influenced by the public, she said. “The stores look more like the community where they are located,” Merrill said. “They can have some wood or stone, and some of them have vines on the front and darker materials or glass. We will have some of those images with us on Tuesday. And all of those stores have been developed with the help of the neighborhood.” The 10.2-acre Civic Stadium site is owned by the Eugene School District, which is accepting offers for the property near 20th Avenue between Willamette Street and Amazon Parkway. Fred Meyer and Peter Powell, its proposed developer for the Civic Stadium site, will submit a joint proposal to purchase the property by the school district district’s Dec. 3 deadline, Merrill said. The Eugene Family YMCA also is expected to submit an offer to acquire or lease the property, which contains the stadium’s 75-year-old wooden grandstand. The Y wants to build a new recreation and community center on about half the land, leaving the rest for a possible housing development. Both the Y and the Fred Meyer development would raze the historic grandstand and ballfield, which was last used by the Eugene Emeralds minor league baseball team four years ago. It will be the second try for Fred Meyer and the Y to acquire the site. Two years ago, Fred Meyer and its developers offered the school district $4.75 million to buy the property if it could secure the needed land use approvals from local governments to build the shopping center. The developers offered to lease the property for $330,000 a year while they sought the approvals. In 2011, after extensive community debate, the Eugene School Board rejected proposals from Fred Meyer and the Y, plus an offer from Save Civic Stadium, a nonprofit group that wanted to convert the ballpark into a home for soccer and other sports. The Fred Meyer offer would have provided the school district with the most money of three proposals, but it also was considered the most controversial. Many south Eugene residents opposed the shopping center, and some school board members doubted whether the developer could secure the needed land use approvals to complete the deal. Merrill on Friday said Fred Meyer executives know there is opposition to the development. “We recognize that there are people who just don’t want us to come there,” she said. “We will listen to that and we will hear that out.” In June, Powell, the proposed developer, wrote a letter to Eugene School Superintendent Sheldon Berman offering to purchase the property for $4.75 million, as long as a Fred Meyer-anchored shopping center could be built there. Merrill declined to say if $4.75 million will be the purchase offer submitted to the school district next month. The Fred Meyer for the Civic Stadium site would be in the 100,000-square-foot to 120,000-square-foot range, she said, which compares to the 160,000-square-foot Santa Clara store and the nearly 180,000-square-foot west Eugene outlet. Powell would build other commercial buildings on the site, and possibly housing, Merrill said. An amphitheater or other public space “would absolutely need to be part of the development,” she said. Carlos Barrera, vice chair of the Friendly Area Neighbors, said he doubts if the Fred Meyer proposal will generate much neighborhood support. The plan appears to be similar to what was presented two years ago, said Barrera, who wants the city to buy the property so Civic Stadium can be preserved and, he hopes, renovated. “I do think a Fred Meyer going in there would be damaging to the existing business district” on Willamette Street, he said. What’s next Fred Meyer representatives will meet with the public on Tuesday to share information about the company’s proposed development for the Civic Stadium site. When: 6 p.m.-8 p.m. Where: South Eugene High School cafeteria, (behind school) 400 E. 19th Ave. registerguard/rg/news/local/30740362-75/fred-meyer-eugene-site-south.html.csp
Posted on: Sun, 17 Nov 2013 21:35:40 +0000
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