This story is part of KLCC's "Down by the River" series. To read the entire series, click here.
If you cross High Street from the Riverfront District, you head into another part of downtown Eugene that’s also a former industrial zone.
The buildings along Fifth Street once housed a sawmill, wool and poultry processing plants, and a factory where a product called excelsior was made.
“(Excelsior) was shredded cottonwood. It was a packing material. Before bubble wrap, they used excelsior,” Eugene Historian Randy Gudeika said during a walking tour of the neighborhood.
In the 1970s, as those plants shut down, a new project moved into the area. A local developer bought the building at Fifth and High and opened a spot that would accommodate six small, casual restaurants.
Gudeika said what exists now is a revitalized neighborhood spanning six blocks, and he said it is thanks in large part to one man’s vision.
“In the 70s, he became a planning commissioner, city councilman, and then in the early 80s, he was our mayor,” said Gudeika.
The developer is Brian Obie of Obie Companies, and the property is the Fifth Street District.
During the course of interviews for these stories, Obie and the Fifth Street District were routinely mentioned as both inspiration and a consideration for the Riverfront District.
“Fifth Street Market is a great success story and a great example of incremental development over a couple of generations at this point,” said Eugene Mayor Kaarin Knudson.
The district also made planners reconsider how much retail and restaurant space to consider.
“There had been a provision–an allowance–for riverfront restaurants, and there were going to be several,” said Riverfront District developer Jim Atkins. “We felt it was much better to extend the energy that Brian Obie created from the Market District and extend it directly to the river down Fifth Street.”
“We envisioned this as a mixed use neighborhood, and Fifth Street Market is part of the neighborhood. So the retail, the restaurants, that all contributes to the mixed use of this neighborhood,” said Eugene Planning and Development Executive Director Denny Braud.
And while the Riverfront District is developing around a master plan, the same was not true for the neighbor that affected those plans.
“Certainly we did not start with this vision that it has developed into, but have kind of looked at the next opportunity, the next thing that made the most sense,” said Obie.
What did inform Obie’s plan was a concept he learned about during his time with the City of Eugene.
“One of the things that we studied, or that I became aware of, was a concept called the urban village,” he said. “It was all about people living and working and playing in the same place. And that concept stuck with me as this began to evolve.”
That urban village has been a draw for many local businesses, be they new or established.
“Poppi’s Anatolia is a great, great example,” said Obie.
Poppi’s co-owner Shanti Walling told KLCC recently that concerns about downtown are among the reasons the restaurant moved from a location near Willamette Street and 10th Avenue to the market.
“It has gotten quite hard to conduct business outside,” she said. “I’ve had people move in from outside tables enough that it’s noticeable. And, of course I have tons of compassion for the folks out there but it does make people’s dining experience a bit challenged sometimes.
Walling also said the new location will better accommodate the restaurant’s busiest nights, with more seating and a larger kitchen.
Obie said he welcomes his new neighbors to the east–he lives in the 5th Street District–and he does not see the new construction as a rival.
“It’s a compliment, frankly, that they would choose to make those kind of investments adjacent to us, and well over $100 million invested there that is benefiting from what's gone on here. And we benefit,” he said.
There are details in the Fifth Street Market that continue to tell its history.
Sitting atop the fountain on its first floor is a sculpture of a chicken. It is a reminder of the building’s past as a poultry processing facility.
There is also a map showing Eugene Skinner’s original plan for downtown Eugene
“I'm glad they put this here. It's a wonderful thing to have, to see where we've come from 1850 all the way to now,” said historian Randy Gudeika.
And while this plat did not extend east of High Street, the history of the city certainly found its way east.
In Part Three of "Down by the River," how history and ecology are incorporated into the design of Eugene’s Riverfront District.
