Slocum Orthopedics, Lane County’s premier musculoskeletal surgical group, is moving ahead with building a standalone ambulatory surgery center on Chad Drive in northeast Eugene.
As previously reported in this column, the physician-owned Slocum, headquartered on Coburg Road in Eugene, last October bought a six-acre parcel in the field west of the former Register-Guard newspaper headquarters on Chad.
Plans filed with the city show Slocum will construct a 42,000-square-foot single-story building, with up to 10 operating rooms and 30 patient “bays,” or bed areas for patients pre- and post-surgery. Patients do not stay overnight at ambulatory surgery centers.
Slocum said in its filing it expects to apply for construction permits in July. Those typically are good for 12 months.
The medical group did not respond to phone and email messages from Eugene Weekly.
Slocum opened its prominent Coburg Road location in 2007. The practice has two dozen physicians, 10 physician assistants and other staff, its website says. Besides being a state-licensed ambulatory surgery center, the facility provides urgent-care services, physical therapy, sports medicine and imaging.
But Slocum doesn’t own the Coburg Road building. It leases the four-story 61,000-square-foot structure from the local McKay family, records show.
A wrecking ball and a dump truck, please
Shari’s Café and Pies fizzled as a restaurant concept, but some of its vacated locations apparently are hot.
The Texas-based owner of the empty Shari’s building at Pioneer Parkway East and Q Street in Springfield is considering tearing down the weather-beaten six-sided restaurant and putting up an unspecified new building, recent filings with the city show.
That comes on the heels of news in this column earlier this month that a Washington state credit union bought the vacated Shari’s spot in Springfield’s Gateway area and filed tentative plans to raze the place and build a credit union branch.
Austin-based Glen Una Management Co. gives few details in its preliminary redevelopment plans for the Pioneer Parkway property, other than it might install a drive-thru. The vacant 35-year-old building has been owned for years by Austin-based Pioneer Plaza Springfield LLC.
Glen Una and Pioneer Plaza Springfield LLC are part of an investment group owned by the Levy family of Texas and California, records show. Pioneer Plaza Springfield also owns the retail strip next to the Shari’s that is home to a Safeway grocery store.
A Glen Una executive did not return an email and voice message from the Weekly.
Mired in financial trouble, Beaverton-based Shari’s last October shut all its Oregon restaurants, including the Pioneer Parkway spot. Many landlords, including Pioneer Plaza Springfield, sued Shari’s for breach of lease.
Unpaid rent, broken lease
In December, a Lane County Circuit Court judge awarded Pioneer Plaza Springfield judgments against Shari’s to cover $86,000 in unpaid 2024 rent for the Pioneer Parkway building, and $821,000 for defaulting on the lease that ran through 2030, court filings show.
Shari’s “has failed to fully pay its monthly obligations under the lease since January 2024,” said Pioneer Plaza’s October lawsuit. Shari’s didn’t respond in court to the complaint.
Founded in 1997, privately held Glen Una is “the real estate investment and property management vehicle” of the Levy family, according to the company’s website. It owns 60 properties in 17 states, including a retail strip in Bend, it says.
Bricks $ Mortar is a column anchored by Christian Wihtol, who worked as an editor and writer at The Register-Guard in Eugene 1990-2018, much of the time focused on real estate, economic development and business. Reach him at Christian@EugeneWeekly.com.