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Urban renewal is alive and well in Medford By MELISSA MARTIN Mail Tribune Building a new street near the railroad tracks, helping businesses restore historic buildings and putting up a parking garage are some of the projects in the Medford Urban Renewal Agency's $19 million budget. The agency has 19 projects planned over the next four years but only a dozen show up in the 2002-03 proposed budget. "These projects are not born overnight - they take years to develop and come to fruition," agency director Don Burt told the agency's budget committee Tuesday night. "Downtown is a representative of a community's social and economic health," said Burt, the agency's director since its creation in 1987. "If you have a run-down downtown, you've got a problem someplace else. But we're getting noticed for having a great downtown here," Burt said, citing a recent article in Money Magazine mentioning Medford's downtown revitalization. MURA's proposed $19 million 2002-03 budget has grown by $8.4 million in two years, partly because of unfinished projects, including Winetrout, a six-story office/condominium/parking garage planned at Main and Fir streets. The agency gets most of its revenue from tax increment financing - taking the increases in property values and giving them to the agency during its 20-year life. MURA expects to receive $4 million in tax increment financing money this year. By comparison, the agency's first budget in 1989 totaled $157,210, with $27,210 coming from increases in property values and $130,000 coming from a City of Medford loan. "It's an indicator of the fact that our community has grown considerably," said board member Skip Patterson. "Business has flourished up until the recent recession and we're still doing better than the rest of the state. The Rogue Valley is very much alive and well." The budget committee will look at its spending plan again at 7 p.m. on May 28, before sending it to the Medford Urban Renewal Board for adoption. Here are some of MURA's planned projects for 2002-03, with estimated agency costs: Design a pedestrian bridge over Bear Creek connecting the Hawthorne Park parking lot to the Rogue Community College campus. This is part of a project to build a parking lot at the Dollar GMC site on Riverside Avenue, $1.25 million. Build a parking garage for the Winetrout project, downtown's first mixed-used building, $4 million in the 2002-03 budget and $4 million the 2003-04 budget. A private developer will spend $11.9 million on the project. Engineering for the Medford downtown library planned at Central Avenue and 9th Street, $881,000. Creating a new street, Evergreen Way, along the railroad tracks from 10th to Jackson streets, $1.83 million. Giving grants to businesses that restore the exterior of their buildings, $250,000 over four years. Projects completed or in the works include Memories Antiques, Chip Wright's Karate and Joseph Winan's Furniture on Main Street, and the Rogue Gallery and Craterian Ginger Rogers Theater on Central Avenue. Loaning money to businesses that renovate historic buildings, $750,000 over a three-year period. The current project is include Lawrence's Jewelers, Main and Bartlett streets. Make Central Avenue north of Main Street look like Central Avenue south of Main Street, with paver sidewalks, lantern-like lights, trees and a new traffic signal at 6th Street, $962,000. Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.