CC Minutes - 09/22/99 WS - Laserfiche WebLink

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Mr. Papd said that if there were only $7.5 million to purchase a site and develop a design, was the council willing to go forward and pay the difference? Mr. Torrey suggested that there was an opportunity to politically enhance the size of the funding involved. If the GSA was not, the community must be prepared to decide what it wished to spend. He did not think the council was in the position of answering it, or that it should be answered from a negotiating viewpoint. Mr. Rayor again expressed concern that the council's actions could make the federal government change its position on locating the courthouse in downtown. Ms. Nathanson left the meeting. D. Work Session: Downtown Issues Russ Brink of DEI provided a summary of the Downtown Summit, which occurred in May 1999. Ms. Nathanson returned to the meeting. Mr. Meisner recalled that attendees at the Downtown Summit had other suggestions for West Broadway outside of reopening it. He asked if any of the recommendations for filling the vacancies in the area had been followed up on. Mr. Brink said no. There had been some brown-bag lunches where people gathered to discuss possibilities, but no focused effort. Planning and Development Department Director Paul Farmer provided a presentation entitled Downtown Eugene: Where do we go from here? He asked the council to consider the presentation in light of three questions facing the City regarding the downtown: 1) what is it that we want to do about the downtown; 2) what is the role of the City; and 3) how do we want to pay for it. He noted the options for action before the council, and recommended Option 3, Fision Update and Opportunity Area Focus. Mr. Kelly wanted a strategy that produced both near-term and long-term results. He suggested that a preferred option would include placemaking as envisioned in Option 2 in the shorter term funded from council contingency funds, and a visioning process as suggested in Option 3 that took place in context of the fiscal year 2000 budget. He wanted further staff input about that concept and noted his need for information about the size of the council's Contingency Fund. Mr. Kelly said he also needed to understand better the deliverables from options 2 and 3 and the associated future commitments. Mr. Papd asked Mr. Brink if he supported the reopening of West Broadway. Mr. Brink said yes, citing several reasons, including the provision of on-street parking, safety, access, and the viability of adjacent properties. Mr. Rayor said that the situation was a planning exercise, and he did not know what the deliverables would be and if the results would be contentious. He preferred to install $250,000 worth of park benches to $250,000 worth of improvements. He also thought the public could do better in planning for downtown than the private sector. MINUTES--Eugene City Council September 22, 1999 Page 7 5:30 p.m.