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Lighting up downtown photo by Bob Pennell Downtown Medford has come alive in recent years, thanks in part to efforts by the Medford Urban Renewal Agency. After 10 years, many see clear benefits to urban renwal in Medford By Jim Davis S tanding with his family at the edge of Vogel Park, Keith Lallo couldn't remember the last time they had visited downtown Medford. Lallo, his wife, Jackie, and their five children were among the crowd that gathered at the Christmas tree-lighting ceremony last week in the red-brick park in the heart of downtown. "There's a lot more to do down here than there used to be," Lallo said. The park, the year-and-a-half-old Craterian Ginger Rogers Theater and the new three-story parking garage are all projects fueled by the Medford Urban Renewal Agency. This fall, Urban Renewal reached the halfway point in its 20-year mission to renovate downtown. Lindsay Berryman, the city's mayor-elect and a member of the agency's board since its inception, said the ceremony -- and the children, families and seniors it attracted -- is the point of Urban Renewal. "The reasons for doing these projects are becoming more evident," Berryman said. "I think we're developing a sense of community in the downtown core." In the next 10 years, she envisions Urban Renewal possibly helping to forge a conference center connected to the DoubleTree Hotel, a downtown campus for Rogue Community College along Riverside Avenue and possibly a connecting main county library. "You need all the constituents to come together to make that happen," Berryman said. Even with growth and renovation, some observers talk about problems they believe the downtown will always face: parking and traffic. When Urban Renewal began, Medford was commonly called Dreadford. It lacked the charm of Ashland, home of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and what was then Southern Oregon State College, and Jacksonville, with its gold-rush charm and the Britt Festivals. The Medford City Council designated an urban renewal district in fall 1988 -- four years after the opening of the Rogue Valley Mall. "Malls will usually force communities into evaluating downtowns -- especially if you're a smaller community," said Don Burt, a city planner picked to be the agency's director. Just under a square mile in area at 576 acres, the district was created in an hourglass shape, with a large portion in the central city and a second, smaller portion at the south freeway interchange. A narrow strip of land along Interstate 5 links the two ends. Urban Renewal gets money for its projects only if the property values within its borders increase. That keeps the agency attuned to the needs of the private sector. "We were quite aware that pretty sidewalks don't deliver anything," Burt said. The first project was assimilating property near the south I-5 interchange. The land, mainly open fields owned by the local, state and federal government, had defied development for 40 years. Urban Renewal agreed to acquire the land and sold it to TRF Pacific, a Washington company, for developing. In exchange, TRF Pacific and tenants it attracted paid for roads and utilities. Since then, several commercial businesses opened in the South Gateway, including Harry & David, McGrath's Fish House and Fred Meyer Shopping Center. The property values rose from about $1 million to $30 million. "With that money, we were able to do things downtown," Burt said. The greatest change occurred in the past three years. The agency knocked down the Jackson Street Dam on Bear Creek and helped build the Craterian, improved Vogel Plaza and constructed the parking garage. The district's property value, $125 million and falling in 1988, is now about $217 million. Berryman said another indication of Urban Renewal's success is that while the agency has invested $12 million in renovation, the private sector has spent about $36 million. "That's a 300 percent return on our investments," Berryman said. Some of those investments include private funding for the Craterian, the renovation of the Medford Depot and rebuilding the Mail Tribune building. The total also includes the renovation of the building at East Main and Bartlett streets, which once housed the Medford Flower Shop. Owners Anita Wadler and Mel and Marilyn Bushnell of Washington are pouring more than $200,000 into the building's historic restoration -- in response to Urban Renewal's efforts. "We want to see that area grow and prosper," Bushnell said. "We put out a tremendous amount of money into that building." This success is more startling given that the agency has completed only four of 19 projects laid out 10 years ago in the 20-year plan. No major projects are planned for the near future. In the next year, the district wants to place miniature, decorative lights in all the trees on Main Street, replace decades-old signal posts at Main Street and Central Avenue and start a loan program to help businesses and homeowners in the district restore properties, Burt said. The remaining larger projects include realigning major streets downtown. The agency also plans three new parking garages -- though it hasn't picked locations. Although property values are rising, the downtown area isn't completely healthy. As the largest projects of Urban Renewal came to fruition, some prominent businesses left downtown -- either looking for greener pastures or closing completely. Connecting Point Computer Center, a 15-year-old business owned by Rick Mandell, moved from Main to Stevens Street in August 1997 -- just after Vogel Park and the Crate opened. Mandell said his store needed more space and that the downtown faced too many long-term problems for his business. "It's just a traffic jam down there," Mandell said. "I don't know what they can do to improve that." McKenzie Outfitters Inc., a downtown anchor for 10 years, left for a strip mall along Biddle Road in 1997. Owner Godfrey Adams of Eugene has said that his business sees greater foot traffic in its new location -- in part because of the extended hours of neighboring businesses such Barnes & Noble, Starbucks and Applebee's. This summer, Wells Fargo closed its downtown branch at Main and Front streets -- at one time the largest bank in Medford. Even Berryman, who will leave the Urban Renewal board to become mayor, owned a Cookie Connection store downtown and one at the Rogue Valley Mall. She closed the downtown store in the early 1990s and kept the shop at the mall open. She sold the business this year. She said the reason for closing her downtown store was a business decision not related to the downtown. "If you focus on Bad-News Bear," Berryman said, "you never get to focus on the positive." Positives like the Christmas tree ceremony. Michael Mews, a Talent resident who has lived in the area for 24 years, brought his wife and his 5-year-old son to the ceremony on Tuesday. He said that he comes to shop in downtown more often with the new construction and with events like the Christmas ceremony and the Grower's Market during the summer. "I think they've done a great job," Mews said. "I think they've really resurrected the area." What's next? The bricks of Vogel Plaza. The marquee of the Craterian Ginger Rogers Theater. The shops in the South Gateway Center. In its first 10 years, the Medford Urban Renewal Agency forged the construction of all three of these major projects that have changed the landscape of Medford. So what's the agency doing for an encore? In the next year, Urban Renewal hopes to place miniature lights in the trees on Main Street, make six alleyways more pedestrian-friendly with cobblestone bricks, and replace the leaning, decades-old signal posts at Main Street and Central Avenue. If that sounds a little anticlimactic, well, it is. Urban Renewal Director Don Burt said the agency is in a planning mode after a couple of years of heavy construction. But larger projects could occur in the near future. The agency's goal is to provide the groundwork to make other projects succeed. Some of the visions include setting cobblestones on portions of downtown, helping create a conference center or a downtown campus for Rogue Community College along with a connecting library complex. The overall goal is to make the downtown a pedestrian-friendly plaza. While those are possible projects, here are the 19 initial goals of Urban Renewal: 1. South Interchange -- Assimilate the property -- which was owned by local, state and federal government -- and make it into a shopping area. The agency entered into an agreement with a Washington developer to develop the land, which brought stores such as Harry & David, the Fred Meyer Shopping Center and McGrath's Fish House. 2. Vogel Plaza -- Changed the park from the old asphalt park to the current red-brick park with fountains and trees. 3. Riverside Avenue improvements -- Improve the looks of the district along Riverside Avenue. The agency wants to place most of the utilities underground, improve the sidewalks and create a buffer of landscaping -- shrubs, ground cover and trees -- between the sidewalk and the street. 4. Grower's Market -- Find a permanent home for the Grower's Market, a group of businesses that sell wares weekly in central Medford. 5. Bear Creek -- Improve the flow of Bear Creek and make it into an asset. The creek was brackish and murky -- especially just upstream of the Jackson Street Dam. The agency removed the dam earlier this year. The other possible goals are encouraging businesses to open up to the creek and create footbridges across it. 6. Main/Sixth Street realignment -- Make Main Street in the downtown a two-way road instead of its one-way westbound direction. The traffic would be diverted to Sixth Street with a diagonal connecting route through either the Chip Wright Karate Studio or across Bear Creek just south of the DoubleTree Hotel. 7. Sparta Building site improvements -- Improve the general area around the Sparta Building, which currently houses Las Margaritas. The details of this goal are to be determined by the Main/Sixth street realignment, which runs directly around this building. 8. Front/Central realignment -- Redirect six blocks of southbound traffic from Central Avenue to Front Street. Central now goes from a three-lane road to a two-lane road during that stretch. Under the plan, Urban Renewal would cut diagonal "transition" lanes through city blocks between Second and Third streets and Ninth and 10th streets. Front would be made into a three-lane road. The transition areas would be gateways to downtown, with small parks. 9. Beatty Manzanita Park -- Create a park in the residential neighborhood of Beatty and Manzanita. Burt said the agency is backing away from the park idea and considering other ways to increase the property values of that area -- such as rebuilding homes in the neighborhood. 10. Craterian Theater -- Re-establish the theater in the heart of the neighborhood. Urban Renewal worked with a nonprofit group to restore the building, which stood empty. Other projects that would be districtwide and not on the map include: 11. Off-street parking -- Identify the need for surface lots or parking garages. Urban Renewal built a three-story parking garage at Riverside Avenue and Sixth Street and has plans to build three more. 12. Underground utilities -- Place electric and telephone wires underground to reduce clutter and improve the visibility of skylines. The agency plans to concentrating its effort in the central city. 13. Curb, gutter and sidewalks -- Replace aging infrastructure. Curbs and gutters in downtown Medford are old and generally don't drain properly. Many sidewalks are cracked and need to be replaced. 14. Crosswalks -- Create brick crosswalks in the downtown core. The crosswalks will be similar to the alley next to the new parking garage at Bartlett Street. 15. "Pedestrianize" alleys -- Make alleys between Eighth and Sixth streets centerpieces for pedestrians. The alley behind the parking garage was made into a cobblestone pathway and business spaces were placed on the ground floor of the alley, looking out into the alley. The spaces remain vacant. 16. Traffic signal modification -- Replace outdated signal posts while making the signals configure for the streets affected by the realignment. 17. Parking lot improvements -- Resurface old parking lots. repaint and maintain the lots. 18. Miscellaneous public works -- Update sewer lines and water lines -- some of which are about 100 years old. 19. Property rehabilitation loans -- Offer loans for restoring homes or other buildings in the district. The program could be aimed at historic renovation or improvement of a low-income neighborhood such as near Beatty and Manzanita, Burt said. Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1998, Medford, Oregon USA