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- Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Archives Revels Classifieds Real Estate Menu Guide Wedding Weather Subscribe Contact Us June 28, 2005 Lithia Motors may build big in Medford Sid DeBoer considering 20-story downtown headquarters with retail, housing component By Damian Mann For the Tidings Fast-growing Lithia Motors might build a corporate headquarters 20 stories high — up to 500,000 square feet — in downtown Medford, coupled with new housing and retail space nearby. “It will be a major downtown development if we stay,” said Sid DeBoer, an Ashland resident who is Lithia’s chairman and chief executive. Lithia is weighing whether to build its headquarters on 113 acres it owns on Highway 62 near the airport or in downtown Medford to house an ever-growing corporate work force that could soon number up to 600 employees. If Lithia builds downtown, DeBoer said he would also want to create a retail and housing complex in an area roughly bounded by Sixth Street, Riverside Avenue, North Bartlett Street and Jackson Street. “It would require (Medford) urban renewal buying properties we don’t own,” he said. DeBoer said city officials have encouraged him not to abandon downtown Medford as the company plans to move its six dealerships to the Highway 62 property in six years, when current leases on the Medford lots expire. Lithia also leases about a dozen buildings spread out in the downtown area for its corporate offices. They would be consolidated in the new corporate headquarters. He said it would cost his company more to build in the downtown area, but he is willing to make the investment to help the community and provide a better working environment for Lithia and its employees. The new corporate headquarters might be located at the current Lithia Dodge Dealership at the corner of East Fifth Street and Riverside Avenue. “Where our stores are currently, part of them at least, we would convert into the headquarters, and do a development downtown,” he said. Lithia currently leases its dealership properties. DeBoer said his company could exchange land it owns at the airport with the company that leases the dealership properties, Capital Automotive REIT. Because land costs more in the downtown area, DeBoer said he would need a building with a smaller footprint that would be about 20 stories tall, which would require special approval from the city. “I’ve got to go up rather than spread out,” he said. “I don’t want to walk a mile to get to a department.” He said that if the community doesn’t want to work with him on this project, he will just end up building at the Highway 62 property. “I’m not going to be villainized,” said DeBoer, citing public opposition to his proposal to build an 11,000-square-foot house in Ashland. DeBoer got approval for the plans but made changes to ease neighbors’ concerns. DeBoer said his company is encouraged by recent revitalization efforts in downtown Medford, particularly a proposal to build a joint facility run by Rogue Community College and Southern Oregon University. “We are not hinging our decision solely on that, but it would influence it,” said DeBoer. DeBoer said Lithia could potentially hold classes at the new RCC/SOU campus and also develop a good training relationship with the facility for many of its newer workers. RCC and SOU want to build a 93,000-square-foot facility at a cost of $24.6 million, located potentially at the corner of Riverside Avenue and East Eighth Street. DeBoer said Lithia also is offering to buy Oregon business energy tax credits that RCC and SOU would generate from installing energy-efficient equipment in the new building. Since schools are tax exempt and couldn’t claim the credits, Lithia could buy them from the schools, paying 28 percent of the cost of the equipment to the schools in cash Lithia would get a tax credit worth 35 percent of the equipment’s cost over a five-year period. Bill Greenstein, who manages real estate holdings for Lithia, said there are many impediments to realizing this development, including city approval and purchasing properties. “There are a lot of pieces to the puzzle,” he said. Sen. Alan Bates, D-Ashland, said a proposed corporate headquarters in Medford will encourage the Legislature in its efforts to get funding for the RCC/SOU building. “It’s obviously significant,” he said, pointing out that Lithia, a publicly traded company with dealerships across the West, could theoretically move anywhere it wanted in the country. Bates, who admitted to being “somewhat aghast” at the size of the proposed headquarters, said, “If it’s done architecturally right, it would be a beautiful thing.” He said DeBoer’s development could help rejuvenate downtown Medford into a first-class destination. “It could be a gem for the downtown,” he said. 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