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Fair
Market Value
"Noa, you're fired," says Kate Penhallegon, chair of the Lane County Farmers' Market board, on Aug. 14, to the Farmers' Market Director Noa O'Hare. When such words are spoken it sends shivers up your spine, and I never fathomed encountering such distress as I sat in a green plastic chair for my interview with O'Hare on the future of the Farmers' Market. There we were, cooling in a minute piece of gold-spotted shade behind vegetable, fruit and flower laden booths along 8th Avenue, and the bomb was dropped. I turned to Penhallegon who had stuck her head from a shelf of stiff, planted shrubs, sending honey-bees helter-skelter and infusing the afternoon with the sweet scent of lavender. "You're firing me a lot earlier this week," laughs O'Hare with a smile, decoding the joke. So far, none of the faux firings have stuck. I sighed, looked to the sky and wondered for the hundredth time that afternoon … what's really going on with the Farmers' Market these days? Maybe, if I were lucky, I could dig up something juicy and squash some rumors.
First of all … The market wants to expand. That's the official position of the Farmers' Market board, chaired by Penhallegon. Second of all, if you want to read on and learn where you might get your fresh chard in the future, your flats of juicy, red raspberries, be warned in advance: I'm gonna do it my way. We got interviews, we got the occasional (and rare) poignant insights from yours truly and we got quotes from one dusty old history book called Market Days, by Stan Bettis, to inform you how the past of the Farmers' Market may shed light upon its future. Quotes in italics are from that agricultural tome. The story begins long ago, when a bearded man named Eugene Skinner strode his skinny ass up a hill and looked out over a peaceful valley … No, it doesn't, it starts with a home, or the lack thereof.
There's no place like home
"The board's expressed," says O'Hare, "the ideal situation of having a central, permanent structure that can sell around the week and from which we can establish satellite markets; north, south, etc., to distribute agricultural products well and make sure that there are adequate markets for local farmers. I'm trying to create as large a capacity as possible." "The perfect plan," says Penhallegon, "would be to have accessible parking for growers and customers, to have bathrooms, to have electricity to do more than just wash the vegetables, and to have an area where people could come to learn about agriculture in the county. We just need a home."
I do not believe that there is a merchant in the city who does not realize that the prosperity of the city is wrapped up in the prosperity of the surrounding county. This plan has worked very successfully in other cities and I think it would be well for Eugene to give it a trial. It would establish a sort of bond between the city and the country. — DIKE COOPER, member of the Eugene Commercial Club (forerunner of the Chamber of Commerce) speaking to the club in 1915, just before the establishment of the first Eugene Producers' Market.
So what now? Rather than quote market statistics about how booming a business the market is doing or that how in one single year the farmers' market in Olympia, Wash., went from $100,000 in sales to $2.3 million by building a permanent structure for their market, I'd like you to Google that stuff yourself. There have been EW (see June 15, 2000 and May 15, 2003) and R-G articles on shortening the link between producer and consumer, and how that's good for the community. But, because Penhallegon told me that "site shopping" is under way, and because in my verbosity I suddenly fear that surpassing my 2,000 words is nearer to reality than coming in under, I'd rather jump to a series of short interviews with Lane County citizens, farmers and politicians.
Setting the table When something expands, it often expands directly from where it's situated. When you eat a caramel-dipped, fried African jungle grub, it's usually your belly that extends, not your neighbor's. It's the same way with Farmers' Markets.
No really, when the Farmers' Market wanted to grow in 2002, it grew in its immediate vicinity. It looked up the street, spoke with the city and added booths along Oak Street, forming a horseshoe around what's commonly known as the butterfly parking lot (a former location for the Saturday Market that now provides parking for Saturday growers, patrons of the markets and many county employees who work across the street.) The butterfly lot has long been the subject for possible Farmers' Market expansion, and to continue the analogy, if the market's the belly, the butterfly lot would certainly be the belly stretching its belt. So I decided to dig in that direction. But how does one investigate demolishing a county parking lot for a permanent agricultural center and Farmers' Market in its place? Who to call? What to wear? Lane County Commissioner Pete Sorenson picked up the phone after two short rings. "This is a topic near and dear to my heart," says Sorenson, a former employee of the Secretary of Agriculture during the Carter administration. "I'd say the most significant thing on the table was the Downtown Initiative for the Visual Arts (DIVA) proposal. DIVA worked with the UO School of Architecture to have a series of designs drawn for a visual arts facility on the butterfly lot. I've previously worked with UO Landscape and Architecture on expanding the Farmers' Market, having that area (butterfly lot) leveled. The DIVA proposal is a more recent and researched proposal as far as where DIVA could have a strong downtown presence, and in some of the proposals, the Farmers' Market space is left as an open space on the south side of the lot, providing five times the space of the current market. In trying to pull these together, I'd like the county to work with both DIVA and the Farmers' Market." You don't say? "My proposal," continued Sorenson, "was that we build DIVA on the corner, and my modification was to get a tunnel under 7th so that people from the Hilton could have indoor access both in the heat of the summer and rain of the winter, and that the building itself would be an adjunct to the conference facility." "There are obstacles," Sorenson continued. "One is the current facility. The butterfly lot is used by the Lane County Emergency Operations Center, our 911 operation, our 24-hour Sheriffs' Office and people working across the street 24-hours a day, and we need them relatively close because of the hours they're moving in and out of the building. (But) there's a big lot bounded by 7th, 6th, Pearl and Oak, and there is a parking garage under that lot … owned by the county. There's a tunnel under 7th that we use to get into the Lane County Courthouse. (Architect) Otto Poticha tells me you could add on at least one story on top of that building. The workers would have covered parking, it'd be safe, and it'd be even closer than it is now." Can I get a witness? There's another lot that could replace the butterfly lot if DIVA and the Farmers' Market took over the space.
Sorenson saga
Sorenson discussed more obstacles. "Another would be the commissioners that hold the land of Lane County in trust for the taxpayers; they have to be invested in this idea, and they're not all invested in this. They have to believe this is a good thing for the community, because the next step would be financing, issuing bonds, borrowing money to build or allowing others to build by leasing the land. I tend to think that the government might get a more favorable rate on their loan (instead of the Farmers' Market borrowing). I think it would be a good idea to talk to them (the commissioners)." Then, as if mulling the idea over to himself, Sorenson gave pros to match his own cons. "I wouldn't underestimate the component of the arts in this. It's not just because of the Bach Festival; look at the investments we have in the arts: You need a world-class event; you've got the Bach Festival; you need a regionally big event, where people come from other communities; you've got OFAM; the Cuthbert; the Hult Center; the Celebration; UO athletics sell out the Eugene Hilton; the Willamette Valley has some of the finest wines in the world. We are ready, absolutely. If we can pull together both our direct farmers in the form of the Farmers' Market, and the visual arts people, DIVA; pull those two together at that particular site and make it work for our taxpayers; if we could get slightly more than what we're getting now from a dilapidated structure, which we're going to have to displace at some point anyway, why don't we do something significant with the spot, and economically profit by making this investment rather than by leaving things as they are? This (butterfly lot) is already an eyesore that should be taken down." Then Sorenson says, "I believe we do have an answer." "I think," he finished "that DIVA and Farmers' Market should come together and work on a proposal that would be mutually agreed upon. If that would happen I know that would be much easier for me." So Sorenson sewed a saga, pointing to Poticha.
Parking Poticha I wanted to know if the idea of moving the butterfly lot was feasible, and it turned out that Poticha was tied in far more than first realized. His secretary also answered the phone in two short rings. "The courthouse is actually designed for four more floors," says Poticha. "Matter of fact, I'd like to see the floors on it some day. When we built it, the county didn't have the money or need to go higher. The foundation for that structure is a three-foot thick concrete slab that runs the whole block. It can hold up the world; four more floors, minimum. It was designed for seismic loading. If you want to talk about a building that's not designed for seismic loading, it's the butterfly parking lot. You consolidate all the county parking in one place; you put in an elevator to go down to the tunnel layer that's already connected to the courthouse." I told Poticha the reasoning for my question: Moving DIVA and the Farmers' Market to the butterfly site. "It was my (UO) class that did the designs," he pointed out. All the students incorporated the market. Frankly, from all of them, I'm guessing that at least 10 designs were certainly viable. One of the requirements for DIVA was an outdoor sculpture area. Wouldn't it be nice to incorporate the sculpture area with the Farmers' Market?"
Yeah, I reply, that'd be nice. But could the Farmers' Market also get their agricultural center included, along with parking and accessibility? "One of the problems the students had for DIVA," says Poticha, "was that the site was too large." "So it would work?" I asked. "You bet. Absolutely." Says Poticha. "If DIVA got involved, if there were a way to combine activities, that would be the ultimate choice. If you think about it, art and food; they're both to stimulate the senses in some way." So lemme tell ya' I was pretty psyched at this point. I needed DIVA's reaction. It seemed all they needed was old-fashioned teamwork with the Farmers' Market. They couldn't have positioned things much better for initial talks on their future bower, I thought. However, some people just dig their own art.
Digging DIVA "Our long-term vision," says DIVA Executive Director Mary Unruh, is to have a visual arts center located in downtown Eugene, with artists studios, galleries and a permanent collection of regional art, together with the Lane County Historical Museum, because they have many similar needs." "When Otto came to us," says Unruh, "it was with the idea that he and his students would design a visual arts center on the butterfly lot. That seems to be the place that comes up regularly where this might happen. There's a lot to do in the meantime. That's our 10-year idea." Ten years? I thought. Who wants to wait 10 years? Whadya want instead, a new police station? Jesus.
By our laws the land that should be held for the homeless has passed to a great extent into the hands of gigantic corporations. — H.E. HAYES, farmer and state lecturer in 1885, wrote to newspapers and farm journals on the West Coast.
"That's so Eugene," continued Unruh on the concept of furthering Poticha's students' designs for art and agriculture, "It has to include the Farmers' Market. As far as why it takes 10 years, well, look how long it took to get the library." "Glen Svendsen (city facilities division manager) said they're putting a committee together to discuss use of the park blocks," says Unruh, "and that the committee would look at both long and short term uses of that piece of land, so that any short term decisions would not impact longer-term visions for that piece of property."
"Longer-term visions?" I asked. "Like potentially a visual arts center," she smiled. "He asked me to participate in the committee."
Puzzle pieces In the immortal words of Mandy Patinkin playing Indigo Montoya in The Princess Bride "Let me explain. No, there is no time. Let me sum up." The Farmers' Market seeks expansion and a permanent home. DIVA wants a home too, albeit sometime before the passing of the next decade. Ten viable architectural plans for a site have already been drawn by students of one of our city's premiere architects, incorporating both the farmers and DIVA. The parking displaced by said plans can certainly be recouped in a more convenient location, across from the courthouse. The entire idea has the support of Commissioner Sorenson. Now I'm not going to say that's a slam dunk, but how about a jump shot with just the slightest touch of rim? I went back to Market Director Noa O'Hare. To my surprise, he seemed nonplussed. "I've not seen Otto's plans. As revered as Otto is, I think market design, understanding the accessibility needs, is something different. Even that development might not be the optimal situation for us. Can you get two million people downtown like those who already come to the fairgrounds each year? Can you get the parking for those people?" Well, some people just gotta find their own way, I thought. You can lead a Farmers' Market director to a permanent structure, but you can't make him sell his jellies and arugula there.
Got change for change? In closing I'd like to mention money. Whatever the farmers do, change is gonna take at least some cold, hard cash. Maybe a moderate amount, maybe a whole bunch. At the moment, the market board has mentioned a feasibility study (the last study the market considered would have cost $40,000), to investigate, according to O'Hare, "how we're working now, what would work better, what our options are, how much it would cost, and how much manpower and development we would need to venture forth." But O'Hare's also the first to admit that "No one's really jumping out of the woodwork, saying there's money for this." "Do you have a timeline for the feasibility study?" I asked him. "Four years ago," he laughed. "I'd like to see the study done in two years, just to get information out there and answer questions." So it seems there is no hurry. But if anyone wanted to get the ball rolling, perhaps the city or the county or both could be involved. Like Sorenson says, how about the public investing in a beautiful, profitable, organic, vitamin-filled future? How about a Farmers' Market reminiscent of Seattle's Pike Place Market, perhaps on the site of the current butterfly lot? Could it be accomplished with a portion of the taxpayers' $29 million, with which the city intends to wrap a new police station in a bow for our recently embarrassed police force? Maybe it could, maybe it couldn't. Councilwoman Betty Taylor says, regarding the public use of those funds, "It's the taxpayers money in my opinion. If the police station fails, I think the council will vote to build it anyway." Say what?
Our great financiers have taxed their brains for the last 25 years to increase the wealth of those already made rich, while they have placed the burdens upon the producers of the country. — H.E. HAYES
"I think it's wrong," continued Taylor. A really big thing like that, that will obviously prevent us from doing other things; the public should say this is what we want most to do with the money." |
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