The Oregon Ducks’ new indoor football practice facility is one step closer to becoming a reality.
The Eugene city council voted to authorize City Manager Sarah Medary to finalize an agreement with the University of Oregon on a proposed land swap, which will allow UO to reroute Leo Harris Parkway and build a new 170,000-square-foot indoor practice facility and maintain two outdoor practice fields.
The city council voted 7-1 during its work session Monday night to move forward in the process of the proposed land swap, with Ward 2 councilor Matt Keating in sole opposition. The swap calls for UO to trade eight acres south of the Willamette River to the city for four acres of undeveloped land across from the UO athletics complex, which the university previously owned in the 1970s and ‘80s.
While outlining terms of the proposed exchange, Denny Braud, the Eugene city planning & development administration executive director, said the land the city was acquiring is “a beautiful piece of property” of “pretty comparable value” to that being reacquired by UO.
It’s yet to be determined how the city intends to use the land it will acquire once the deal is finalized.
“We don’t have a definite plan for the property yet,” Braud said.
Monday’s hourlong discussion about the proposed exchange centered on the affect to parking, especially adjacent to the Eugene Science Center, and the $1 million UO has pledged towards a joint project “of mutually agreed upon community benefit” with the city.
“I don’t think they’re winning here,” Ward 4 councilor Jennifer Yeh said. “I think they’re being barely made whole.”
According to Braud, 230 parking spaces would be affected. UO’s board of trustees approved a proposal in September that calls for the university to enhance some of the unpaved parking areas south of Leo Harris Parkway, constructing between 240-300 parking spaces near the Cuthbert Amphitheater, around the Eugene Science Center and east of the footbridge over the canoe canal.
Braud stated that a condition of closing on the land swap is the city amending its present lease with the Eugene Science Center, which he characterized as “anxious” because that deal had not yet been reached. But, he added, the land swap also will not occur until UO is “ready to build the new facility.”
The indoor facility project was announced in Oct. 2021 and was scheduled to be completed in the fall of 2024, though it’s not clear whether the 15-plus months of negotiations with the city has altered that timeline.
“The university and city continue to work together on next steps,” the university’s website read following Monday’s city council meeting.
As for the $1 million pledge from UO toward a joint project of “mutually agreed upon community benefit,” several members of the council had initial suggestions for where it could be spent and put to good use. But Yeh felt it was insufficient.
“I think that’s terrible,” she said. “We’re not going to get much for $1 million. ... (It) makes me a little grumpy.”
Yeh still voted to authorize Medary to proceed with negotiations, but asked for the final deal to include more concessions from UO.
Keating was again the lone vote in opposition to the proposal, as he was when the council originally authorized Medary to negotiate with UO to advance the proposed exchange in July 2022.
“I find it hard to believe that a school that’s already in a top recruiting class, that we would be benefiting them that much by adding a third practice center,” Keating said. “I find it difficult to see that that translates into a Rose Bowl game or National Championship. It’s really a stretch for me. I recognize there are some valuable points here, but I am dubious and will be likely be voting no.”
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