Late this summer, Gov. Tina Kotek announced a new task force aimed at addressing the challenges of Portland’s downtown. City mayor Ted Wheeler told OPB last month that if Portland’s downtown fails, it could have consequences for the rest of the state. But what are downtowns facing in other parts of Oregon? Natascha Adams is the co-chair of the Independence Downtown Association. Jen Bell is the former co-president of Downtown Eugene Merchants. They both join us to share what’s working and what isn’t in their communities.
The following transcript was created by a computer and edited by a volunteer:
Dave Miller: From the Gert Boyle Studio at OPB, this is Think Out Loud. I’m Dave Miller. This summer, Oregon Governor Tina Kotek announced a task force aimed at addressing Portland’s many downtown challenges. Mayor Ted Wheeler told us last month that if Portland’s downtown fails, it could have consequences for the rest of the state. But what about downtowns in other cities in Oregon? Natascha Adams is co-chair of the Independence Downtown Association, the director of the Heritage Museum there. Jen Bell is the owner of the marketing firm bell+funk, which is in downtown Eugene, former co-chair of the Downtown Eugene Merchants. They both join us now. It’s great to have both of you on the show.
Jen Bell: : Happy to be here.
Miller: Natascha first, can you describe Independence’s downtown right now?
Natascha Adams: Yeah. Independence’s population is just a little over 10,000, and we’re right outside of Salem and our downtown… The best way I think I can describe it is thriving. We have a lot of different stores and restaurants downtown. We have folks coming and visiting our downtowns for the wineries, for the Oregon Scenic Bikeway that comes through. And I mean, it sounds silly, but I think everyone’s just pretty happy downtown and doing what they do.
Miller: What was it like historically?
Adams: Well, historically, Independence is the historic hop capital of the world. In the 1880s, we were growing more hops than anyone else in the world. And that meant that during hop harvest season, we would have 20,000 people come to town for the harvest. So Independence, I think, has always known how to welcome people, and how to accommodate lots of people arriving for short amounts of time. And then, as the hop industry decreased in the 1940s and 1950s, I think it’s fair to say that Independence really saw an economic downturn. And it wasn’t really until the mid-1990s when a big economic revitalization plan was started that things really started looking up again for downtown. A lot of new buildings were built and new infrastructure was created, and that really has been the catalyst to bringing us to where we are today.
Miller: Jen Bell, how would you describe downtown Eugene right now, obviously a much bigger city.
Bell: Yeah, I would say downtown Eugene is really the cultural hub of our community. There are, I think I counted at one point, 14 or 15 venues that have performing arts, from the Hult Center, which is our big performing arts center, to The Shedd Institute for the Arts, to Oregon Contemporary Theater, the McDonald Theater. There is a density of culture that is really amazing given the size of the community we have. And in between that, there’s all kinds of art. We have murals. We have bronze sculptures of everything from Ken Kesey, to Otters playing, to Rosa Parks. So it’s really the cultural hub of our community.
Miller: You didn’t use the same language that Natascha just used. You’ve just emphasized all the cultural riches there, but you haven’t said everyone is happy with it and that it’s thriving. Was that a conscious omission?
Bell: There might be a little bit of that. First of all, the way we define downtown varies by who you are and how you think of downtown. So for some, it includes the riverfront, 5th Street Market, and the core of downtown. And I think the 5th Street Market has been built out significantly in the last couple of years. And with downtown, our goal is really to attract people that are coming to 5th Street, that are coming to the riverfront, to come downtown. So, unlike some bigger communities where the struggle is really about the level of negative activity downtown, I think our struggle is more about creating a lot of positive activity downtown.
Miller: In other words, as opposed to when you say larger communities ‒ I guess I can’t help but think about Portland, which is one of the few larger communities in the state than Eugene. And here a lot of the issues have to do with visible homelessness, with encampments or with crime. It seems like what you’re saying is the biggest challenge for you is getting people to come downtown in the first place.
Bell: Yes, exactly. You know, with the pandemic, not everybody returned to offices downtown. We do very well in the evenings and the weekends. I mean, it is packed downtown. During the day, when retailers are obviously open and want to sell things and restaurants want to serve lunch, it’s harder. We need more foot traffic.
Miller: I want to hear more about that, but I’m curious, Natascha, in Independence, how were you affected by the pandemic? And was it the same in terms of the hit to what had been, if it had been, a kind of multi-use district which was both about business and retail and residences?
Adams: I think like any community, COVID was impactful. Independence, I think, took it the way we often do with this very ‘can do’ attitude. And no matter what downtown you’re in, I think merchants, especially folks who have their own business and are selling their wares, that’s always hard. And then when you throw in the pandemic and your storefront has to close, a lot of folks were really hurting in that respect, when it came to income. But this community really rallied around that. And the city government as well figured out ways to either give some funding, or figure out ways of ‘how do you do a drive-through sale of some sort?’
And our food bank, too, was really instrumental in working with the community and figuring out how to continue service during COVID. And our food bank actually never shut down during the pandemic because they were able to figure out new systems and pivot in a way that allowed them to continue to serve the community.
Miller: It seems like when you were talking earlier about the ways in which Independence’s downtown is thriving right now, it did seem that tourism is a big part of it. How tourist-dependent are you?
Adams: I mean, I would say we’re very tourist dependent, but we also do a pretty good job listening to the community. I think the folks that are in charge and that are the leaders of our community do a good job of listening to what folks think we need instead of telling us what we need. So for instance, we very recently just got a trolley that is free in our community, and it goes between downtown Independence to downtown Monmouth. And there’s three trolleys that run a day, are constantly running, and the tourists love it. They come and they ride the trolley, but it also has provided a significant amount of free public transportation. And that has brought our community members to downtown that normally weren’t coming because they now have a really easy way to get to where they want to go.
Miller: Jen Bell, can you imagine some analog to that in Eugene? I don’t mean a trolley necessarily, but something to actually encourage people to come?
Bell: I can. One thing that our city is doing is really addressing the infrastructure between the riverfront and the university and the core of downtown. We’re a very bike-friendly community, so that has come in the form of two-way bike paths that have their own lights. One of the main streets, 8th Street downtown, has been a one-way going west, essentially out of downtown, forever. And that is becoming a two-way street just to increase the kind of flow through downtown. We also have the EmX bus that runs every 15 minutes or 20 minutes from campus to downtown. So that’s helpful, especially at Matt Knight Arena, where there’s no parking or very little parking. So I think the city is doing a good job thinking about those connections and how to conveniently bring people downtown.
Miller: You mentioned the campus there. How would you say that being a college town impacts the downtown?
Bell: Well, I can tell when it’s parents’ weekend, for example, I can…
Miller: Because that’s when students are more likely to go downtown to have their parents buy them dinner?
Bell: Yes, we love parents weekends.
Miller: But does that mean that when parents aren’t there, students are less likely to ‒ I mean, it’s not that far away ‒ but you’re saying you actually feel less students on other weekends.
Bell: Yes, definitely. Although probably late-night they’re down there. I am not necessarily there. One of our major restaurants downtown turns into a full-on dance club at midnight or something. It goes from fine dining to full-on dance club. And I am not there for that, but I assume many students are. But during the day, I actually did some research among students for Lane Transit District a few years ago, and they don’t feel a lot of reason to leave campus. They love their campus bubble. Everything they have and everyone they know is right there. So it’s a challenge to bring people, bring students specifically, down.
Miller: You know, and I think it’s probably fair to say that that may not be unusual on a lot of college campuses. I’m not sure that’s specific to Eugene. A lot of college students, as you say; they find everything they need on campus and even if they’re right in the middle of a city, they may not go too far within that city. But it seems like… the reason I’m lingering on this is, you want more people to come downtown, to make it more vibrant and there are tens of thousands of people who are in your midst who I guess are not used to doing that. It seems like low hanging fruit, if you could figure out a way to pick it.
Bell: Correct. I would agree. And, we have tried. We’ve tried discounts and specials, but you know, that’s not what really drives traffic. There has to be something that feels like it’s for them. And we do have a tea shop, and that will be packed with students. So, you know, if you build it, they will come. So I think we need to figure out what is going to bring them down.
Miller: Jen, when you started your marketing firm, you made the choice to set up your office right in the middle of Eugene’s downtown. Why?
Bell: Well, not only did we decide to be downtown, but it’s actually in our philosophy statement as a business to work downtown. That is how committed to downtown I am. You know, when you’re in a creative business and you’re communicating with the community around you, you need to be part of that. And I appreciate the sort of grit that comes with downtown. It’s accessible, anybody can be there. It’s culturally rich. That is a much better environment for a creative arm than being in an office park. Plus, I wanted to invest my own money and activity downtown.
Miller: Have you ever had clients who seemed nervous about visiting you in your downtown office in recent years?
Bell: No, I have not. They, people will talk about, ‘Oh, I have to leave early because I don’t know if I can find parking’, or whatever. And I lived on Russian Hill in San Francisco. I know what tough parking looks like. It is not downtown Eugene. But as with many small communities, people are very committed to surface parking. They don’t want to parallel park, they don’t want to pay a meter, and they don’t want to be in a multi-level parkade. And at some point we need to get over that, because it is actually very, very easy and cheap to park in downtown Eugene.
Miller: Natascha Adams, is there a high season for downtown Independence? And on the flip side, is there a low season when you’d like to actually get more visitors, more foot traffic, more shoppers?
Adams: Yeah, absolutely. For us there’s the rainy season and the dry season and I’m sure, as you can imagine, the dry season for us is when things truly are hopping in downtown Independence, from downtown movies, to concerts, and people just bustling around downtown. And then I would say about now, when the rain starts, things drastically slow down until probably about May. So for us as a downtown association, that’s when we try to start planning events that are different to bring people downtown, while also taking into account the holidays.
You know, once people start thinking about Thanksgiving and Christmas, we encourage downtown shopping. But once the holidays are over, we try to figure out ways to get folks downtown to visit the restaurants more to bring the income in that way.
Miller: Natascha, we’re going to be spending an hour with Oregon Governor Tina Kotek on tomorrow’s show. If you were talking directly with her about ways to improve Independence’s downtown, what would you ask her?
Adams: Well, that’s a really big question. I think it would continue to be sharing what we’re doing and how we’re doing it, and figuring out how to share that with others. And then figuring out how to get what they’re doing to us. So, in better words, how do all of our downtowns, whether large or small, network and figure out the things that are working, that aren’t working. And organizations like [Oregon] Main Street, I think are doing a big part of that. But I think if COVID has taught us anything, it’s that we have to be connected and that we are connected. And so my question to her, I think would be, although Portland is large and their issues may seem very different from ours, there are many things that overlap and how can we all work together in our separate communities to thrive?
Miller: And Jen Bell, what would you ask the governor or ask of her?
Bell: Well, I’m not sure this is in the purview of the governor, but something that I think could make a huge difference downtown is actually having a paid position for someone who is sort of leading the charge on partnerships with the university [and] with the riverfront. We have thousands of apartments being built ‒ well, maybe 1,000 apartments being built ‒ on the riverfront right now. And also, I think, a 100-person building in the core of downtown. And getting the connection between those buildings and those residents to downtown. Thinking about that infrastructure and how to further open it up. One of the challenges for us is that between 5th Street and the core of downtown, you have 6th Street and 7th Street, which are literally state highways, and it creates this barrier, essentially. So thinking about how to break those things down, recruiting businesses to our empty storefronts. Right now, it’s no one’s job. Nobody is that point person. And I would love to see that.
Miller: Jen Bell and Natascha Adams. Thanks very much.
Bell/Adams: You’re so welcome.
Miller: Jen Bell is the owner of the marketing firm bell+funk in downtown Eugene [and] former co-chair of Downtown Eugene Merchants. Natascha Adams is the director of the Heritage Museum in Independence and the co-chair of the Independence Downtown Association.
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