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Lane County commissioners are weighing how to revitalize the Lane Events Center. The recommended site concept doesn’t include dedicated space for the county history museum, which is currently on the grounds.
Lane County commissioners are considering displacing the Lane County History Museum with an expanded convention center and potential hotel, as part of a process to overhaul the fairgrounds.
The question of what the county should do with the site, officially known as the Lane Events Center, has lingered for decades, with different generations proposing new uses for the 52-acre plot in Eugene’s Jefferson Westside neighborhood. Commissioners are now in the third phase of a process that kicked off after voters rejected plans for a new Eugene Emeralds stadium on the fairgrounds property.
This week commissioners will weigh new options for the property’s future. Open houses in April and May presented multiple site concepts, with an option to keep the history museum building and an option to replace it with a combination hotel and convention center.
However, the report now heading to commissioners coalesces around one concept, which doesn’t include a dedicated space for the history museum on the property. Instead it shows an expansion of the convention center off 13th Avenue, where the museum is now.
The report leaves the county-supported museum and its collections — about 90 percent of which are owned by the county — in an uncertain space. Karen Olsen, the president of the Lane County History Museum’s board of directors, said the museum hasn’t received any guidance on what would happen to it or the collections.
“We just need to know, are we able to stay, or are we going to have to move?” Olsen said. “And if so, when, how, where?”
Master planning underway
Devon Ashbridge, public information officer for Lane County, wrote in an email to Lookout Eugene-Springfield that the site concept is not a final plan, and doesn’t represent decisions about buildings or tenants on the property.
“The site concept is relatively undetailed and doesn’t list a number of specific locations, including where administrative offices and other services would be if changes were made,” Ashbridge added. “Those details would need to be worked out in the next phase of the process, pending board direction to move forward.”
The current concept for the Lane Events Center was spearheaded by a work group of selected stakeholders, including Ashbridge, representatives from Jefferson Westside Neighbors, 4-H youth agricultural program, Lane County Home Shows and Travel Lane County.
No representative from the Lane County History Museum, which has been at the Lane Events Center since the 1950s, was included in that group.
Olsen said that when she read the report, she took note that it mentioned people who were concerned about the museum and preserving Lane County history. But then she started to count how many times the word “museum” was mentioned, as opposed to “hotel.”
“Hotel won by a landslide,” Olsen said. “We’re understandably concerned.”
A county museum
Many of the museum’s items first came from the personal collection of University of Oregon football coach and Eugene neighborhood namesake Cal Young. Young, who had long collected artifacts related to the Oregon Trail on his farm, was the museum’s first caretaker.
Olsen said the previous executive director, Bob Hart, was interested in moving the museum to a different site in downtown Eugene. He explored the historic old post office building and the Oregon Electric Station building (now home to The Old Spaghetti Factory) as options, but Olsen said the county ultimately declined.
Though the master planning process does not have specific information on what would happen to the museum and its collection, one Lane County commissioner has talked in public meetings about the potential for new venues for the collection.
“We’re only scratching the surface of what we can do with its current collection of the displays that are in hiding, getting moldy,” county Commissioner Pat Farr said during a May 6 discussion.
Olsen disagreed with that assessment of displays getting moldy, but acknowledged a leaky roof over the archives that the board recently voted to reroof entirely. Support from the county to improve the facility itself and make it a “jewel” of the area, as Olsen put it, would not be unwelcome.
“When we read about the plans and the thinking for the improvement of the whole entire fairgrounds area, they’re talking about family-friendly, multiuse,” she said. “It just seems to me like valuing our history and trying to incorporate the museum in a really wonderful way would be a positive for that area and the county.”
What to know about the report
The Lane County commissioners will be presented with the final Lane Events Center Master Plan Community Engagement Report at their Tuesday, Aug. 26, meeting.
The report is scheduled as the second agenda item in the afternoon session starting at 1:30 p.m. The presentation is estimated to last about an hour.
Members of the public can watch the meeting live online at the county’s webcast platform, or register to participate virtually during public comment in the morning part of the meeting. People can also attend in person in Harris Hall at the Lane County Public Service Building, 125 E. Eighth Ave. in Eugene.
