CC Minutes - 02/10/99 WS - Laserfiche WebLink

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Dr. Palmer said that the committee found, in contrast to the "buzz" on campus, that the park was doing okay. The area was initially a gravel extraction area refilled in the 1970s with the debris from the downtown mall. He believed the land was a major asset of the University because of its potential availability for campus purposes. Dr. Palmer reminded the council that the park was started at a time of recession, and President Paul ©lum was seeking to bolster University-City relations and address the economic issues facing the community at the time by proposing the park. Dr. Palmer said that the review committee recommended that the park be continued generally in accordance with the detailed master plan developed in the past. One of the master plan's points called for the preservation of the river front. Dr. Palmer said that the committee was committed to that cause, although he acknowledged that preservation meant different things to different people. The master plan included many restrictions on what could occur next to the river, because the drafters of the plan did not want to see the river front destroyed. Mr. Giunta, consultant to the committee, described President Frohnmayer's charge to the committee, saying he had asked the committee to consider best practices for research park development nationally and internationally, to evaluate how well the park had done in comparison to other parks, to review the business terms, and to identify opportunities for the future. The committee had reviewed the extensive public record, including the feasibility studies performed for the park at its inception. Mr. Giunta said that, while the committee found the feasibility studies may have been overly optimistic in the beginning, through time they had not been inaccurate. Mr. Giunta provided the council with data comparing the progress of the River front Research Park and other research parks, specifically: 1) the University of Colorado in Boulder; 2) Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois; 3) the University of Virginia, Charlottesville. Mr. Giunta said the communities were chosen for the resemblance to Eugene's park in terms of size of the community, location of the park, and association between the college and community. He said his findings indicated the Riverfront Research Park compared very well with those parks, as well as with a composite comparison of 400 parks completed by the accounting firm, Coopers & Lybrand. Mr. Giunta summarized accomplishments in the Riverfront Research Park over the past ten years. Mr. Giunta described how the master plan protected the riparian environment along the river front, noting that more than one-half of the developable land in the park was preserved as open space. Mr. Giunta said that the park's objectives were very much in line with Eugene's recently adopted Growth Management Study policies; he pointed out the parks objectives were mapped to those policies in his report. He said that the park objectives directly supported 11 of the 18 Growth Management Study policies. Mr. Giunta noted that the park objectives also complemented the University's Strategic Plan for the 21st Century. Mr. Giunta briefly discussed public oversight of the management of the park. Mr. Giunta described other research parks and noted their locations in their communities in terms of distance from a college campus. MINUTES--Eugene City Council February 10, 1999 Page 3 11:30 a.m.