Eugene Weekly : 03.23.06

Whole Foods Aftermath

A new Farmers' Market building could bring city together.

BY ALAN PITTMAN

The battle over the Whole Foods garage has left local progressives divided and angry and looking for a public project downtown that they can all come together on. A new Farmers' Market building could offer such a project.

"It's a great idea," said City Councilor Bonny Bettman. "It's a big attractor to downtown, it's a big attractor for tourists."

The City Council voted 5-2 last week for giving Whole Foods and its developer $12 million in subsidies for an attached city parking garage. Whole Foods and the local Giustina timber and development family had said the Texas natural food chain store wouldn't build downtown without the subsidy.

Two days before the vote, at one of the largest public hearings in the city's history, citizens testified almost 3-1 against the subsidy. Citizens said the garage was an unnecessary waste of public money to subsidize a corporation that would hurt local natural food grocers.

But the mayor and council majority, who held the hearing only because they were legally required to and then limited testimony to only two minutes per person, appeared to have already made up their minds. With little discussion, they moved quickly through a series of votes authorizing the subsidy and ending their meeting in only half the time allotted.

"Some people are angry, very angry" with the vote, said Councilor Betty Taylor who opposed the subsidy with councilor Bettman. "It was wrong, it was hasty, it was an insult to the people who showed up for the hearing to not even take time to consider what was said."

One key part of what was said was noting that according to city data the five garages the city already has downtown are only 53 percent occupied at peak times. A look into those garages after the vote more than confirmed the statistic. During business hours on a weekday, the city's Broadway Place North garage had a completely empty floor with 132 vacant spaces. In the entire garage, only one in six of the 363 spaces were occupied. At the city's massive Overpark garage, two blocks from the planned Whole Foods garage, the top floor had 160 spaces with only 16 occupied. At the city's Pearl Street Garage, a block from the site, a first floor had six cars parked in 42 spaces. Despite hundreds of vacant spaces in downtown garages, the city will spend about $50,000 per space on the new garage for Whole Foods.

"I'm very disappointed," said Gavin McComas, proprietor of Sundance Natural Foods. McComas and many others warned that the city was subsidizing a Whole Foods that would take millions of dollars in sales away from local natural foods retailers to meet the sales projections for its big-box store.

"The people who have been active in Eugene politically are really mad," said Paul Nicholson, a former city councilor and owner of Paul's Bikes. He said that anger over the waste of taxpayer money to subsidize a chain against local stores will leave lasting damage. "One almost certain consequence is they can kiss their ballot initiatives goodbye." Nicholson said he'd also like to see a citizen initiative banning new parking garages without a public vote. If there ever was a garage vote, "it would go down in flames," he said.

Opponents argued that instead of spending $12 million (including land and interest) on a controversial garage subsidy for private corporations, the city should have spent the money on a downtown project with widespread support. For example, the city could build a much needed park downtown, a circulating trolley, loan money so ORI can build its cutting-edge environmentally friendly office building or build a permanent building for the Farmers' Market.

The Farmers' Market idea has generated the most discussion and appears to be the most likely to help bring people together on a downtown vision. The market idea addresses many of the concerns Whole Foods opponents expressed about keeping food local. The permanent market would support local farmers who would directly support the local economy and provide jobs by keeping money in the community and serving as an incubator for local small businesses. Getting food from local farmers is far more sustainable than trucking it thousands of miles to chain stores, especially with dwindling oil supplies, Whole Foods opponents argued.

Market supporters also site many other advantages. With a building the market could attract more farmers and customers for more days of the week and stretch its season into winter. The market could serve to bring many more people downtown, enlivening the area with shoppers and serving as a tourist attraction. The market could offer a supply of healthy local fresh and organic vegetables. The market would connect country and city dwellers, building community and closing the rural-urban split that divides many Oregonians.

A Farmers' Market building wouldn't be something new for Eugene; the city had one from 1915 to 1959 in various forms, according to a 1969 history, Market Days by Stan Bettis.

Until 1915 county farmers had sold their wares to city dwellers out of peddler wagons. But that year a coalition of granges overcame initial resistance from the Eugene mayor and council to establish a permanent wooden market structure on Park Street, the same location farmers' erect tents for the current Saturday Farmers' Market today. It was a huge success, drawing large crowds downtown from its first day. In 1921 the farmers overcame county objections and built two larger sheds on the adjacent north Park Block, where the county government now has its butterfly-shaped parking garage. Drawing huge crowds, the market became nationally known as one of the most successful farmers' markets on the west coast, Bettis wrote. "Visitors from all over the U.S. came to see it; to study it as a pattern for markets elsewhere."

But in 1929 the county refused to allow the market to build a larger, more substantial structure at the site and the market looked for another location. The Register-Guard described "a bitter war of rival property interests" as business groups fought over the location of the market. Businesses had long recognized that the market was a "traffic puller which enhances property values" and a major ingredient for the success of downtown, the paper and Bettis reported.

Finally, one business group won out by offering to give the market free land at Broadway and Charnelton. There the farmers built a beautiful, Spanish-style market with multiple entries, plate glass windows, an ornate facade, decorative tile and an airy inside with vaulted ceilings. The market had a cafe and 90 stalls and was open six days a week. The market attracted big crowds and when the stock market crashed a month after opening, the market helped the region struggle through the Great Depression by offering income and cheap food to the down and out. By 1942 the market won an award as the best farmers' market among small cities in the nation.

But the car-culture, suburban sprawl, factory farms and low-cost supermarket chains of the 1950s bled away the market's lifeblood and the market closed in 1959. An R-G editorial gave the market a "fond farewell," Bettis wrote. The paper's editorial read: "Sure, one can shop more quickly, more easily, and likely more economically in a supermarket. Yet, to these ears, recorded background music played over a supermarket PA system will never rival the cheerful babble that filled the market to its vaulted roof on Saturdays. Nor will anyone ever again match the mingled scents of fresh homemade bread, ripe berries, onion sets, cut flowers, vintage cheeses, fish, seed grains and hand-tooled leather goods."

The national Thrifty drug store chain bought the building and renovated it by covering the old architecture with a modern blank box. The building is still there, used by Shaw-Med, a medical supply store. The Connor/Woolley/Opus (CWO) partnership that owns it recently proposed tearing it down as part of its plans to build parking garages wrapped in small shops and condos along Broadway.

Although a permanent market building once failed in Eugene, a lot has changed since then. The strong backlash against the urban sterility, chemical factory farming and urban sprawl of the 1950s has lead to a growing movement here and around the nation towards organic agriculture, going back to the land with small farming and rejuvenating downtowns with livable and fun farmers' markets.

Now there are scores of large farmers' markets in permanent buildings around the nation. Some are among the cities' top attractions for tourists and local citizens alike. Pike Place Market in Seattle draws 10 million visitors a year. The farmers' market building at Granville Island in Vancouver, Canada is the anchor tenant for an attraction that draws 12 million visitors a year. Boston's Faneuil Hall Marketplace attracts 18 million a year. With such a huge draw, farmers' markets can be an economic powerhouse. Seattle's market helped its downtown weather recessions in the 1960s and 1970s, employs thousands and incubated and spun off many successful businesses including Starbucks, now one of the world's biggest corporations.

In many ways the market for a market building here in Eugene appears to be stronger than many other cities with thriving markets. Eugene has long been a center for the back-to-the-land movement, organic farming and natural food products and grocers. The current Lane County Farmers' market has 56 stalls and could add many more if it had the space, said Director Noa O'Hare. "We've had people on waiting lists for years."

But although many support the idea of a permanent Farmers' Market building, the devil may be in the details.

One issue could be what to put in the market. Should it be just farmers or also crafters, bakers, cafes, local shops, or even industrial juicing and food drying facilities? The Pike and Granville markets include a wide variety of vendors, but balancing the right mix can be difficult and controversial. Eugene will have to find the market blend that suits it's local character best.

Just as in 1929, the thorniest question may be where to put the market. In 2000, the Lane County Farmers' Market met with county officials to discuss the possibility of moving from downtown to the county fairgrounds. Downtown supporters said the move would hurt efforts to enliven the city core and could hurt the farmers by separating their stalls from the crowds they have shared with the Saturday Market craft fair since 1970.

Farmers' Market officials backed off the idea when they couldn't find $50,000 for a feasibility study, but remain interested in the option.

O'Hare said the market is also interested in exploring the possibility of a permanent building in the city core. "Downtown is definitely where people seem to want it to happen."

Mayor Kitty Piercy, a strong supporter of the Whole Foods garage, said she'd like to explore the idea of including a farmers' market in the ground floor of a new City Hall.

Including the market as part of City Hall could help provide funding as city staff have made building new offices for themselves a top priority. But the location would also tie the popular market with the increasingly unpopular idea of increasing taxes to fund a new City Hall building after the city just gave a $12 million subsidy to Whole Foods.

Another option would be to move the market back to its old building at Broadway and Charnelton after giving the building a historic remodel. But CWO haven't expressed any interest in remodeling the historic building or much interest in public input into their downtown project. The site would also have the disadvantage of being farther away from the Farmers' Market's symbiotic position across from Saturday Market.

The current Saturday Market site could be the best option, but also poses hurdles. Just like in 1929, the county could reject giving up its land, currently occupied by the two-level butterfly garage for county employees. But the site offers the strong advantage of being adjacent to the Saturday Market and could also provide enough room for expanding the park blocks downtown, providing some of the downtown parkland many Whole Foods garage opponents clamored for.

The city's Broadway Place garage on a recent weekday afternoon.

Local landscape architect Jerry Diethelm has offered a potential solution (see Viewpoint, page 4). The county also has a two-level garage on busy Sixth Avenue that could accommodate several more levels, according to Otto Poticha, the local architect who designed it. The solidly built garage has an underground tunnel connecting it to the county building and could offer a more earthquake-safe structure than the spindly butterfly.

The big question, of course, would be money. Although Piercy and other city officials rushed to throw money at the Whole Foods project, they're tentative at best on real support for the popular idea of a permanent Farmers' Market, a proposal which has been around for years with no city action. Right now the city is considering giving CWO a $20 million subsidy for a garage to go with their West Broadway project.

Unlike Whole Foods and CWO, the Farmers' Market can't afford to build without public support. "We're not a player because we don't have a big wallet," O'Hare said.

Piercy doesn't appear to offer much leadership on the issue. She said the market idea is "worthy of consideration" but is non-committal about city funding and unsure of the council and county's "appetite" for the project. But after the Whole Foods uproar, Piercy said the city needs to improve how it involves citizens in decisions. "I got that message loud and clear."

That could leave it up to the public to generate a strong enough outcry to push the city into the project. In that sense, the Eugene market could end up being similar to the hugely successful Pike Market in Seattle. There citizens groups fought the city establishment for years to preserve and save their farmers' market building before finally succeeding with a voter initiative. In the process, they changed the political dynamic of the city away from developers and towards the public interest and created an enduring city treasure that was well worth the fight.