Fresh off building a large apartment complex near the University of Oregon, veteran Eugene businesswoman Silva Chambers is thinking about doing it all again, next door.
Chambers is looking into building a six-story, roughly 150-unit apartment complex on Garden Avenue on a 2.5-acre tract the family owns, according to her company’s preliminary filings with the city. It would go beside the 127-unit Crosswood Apartments that Chambers finished in 2023. Like the Crosswood, the new complex would charge market rents and would not be aimed at undergraduate students.
There’s no timeline yet, says Phil Farrington, director of planning and real estate development for Chambers’ CDC Management Corp.
“We are a long ways out, given long lead times for design, permitting, securing financing in advance of any construction — even with favorable market conditions,” Farrington tells Eugene Weekly. “We are still early in project feasibility and trying to get it to pencil.”
Eugene’s in a housing crunch and needs more units. But this project would come at a cost to the city’s quirky counter-culture character: It would displace the bamboo-sheltered 45-year-old Onsen spa business, which rents hot tubs and saunas by the hour to soakers and sweaters.
Onsen owner Don Knight figures he still has a year or two to decide whether to close the business or move it. “We’re just going to keep plugging along and see where things take us,” he says.
For years, Knight owned the entire 2.5-acre site where the apartment project is now planned, including the Onsen buildings. But he sold it all to Chambers in 2019 and has been a tenant ever since.
In its filings, CDC Management said it wants the new project to be a six-story/69-foot building, exceeding the height limit of five stories/65 feet the city has set for that area.
The site is between Franklin Boulevard and Matthew Knight Arena to the south, and the Union-Pacific Railroad line and the Willamette River to the north.
If Chambers proceeds, don’t expect budget rents. The Crosswood has two-bedroom, one bath units of 838 square feet starting at $2,095 a month. Studios start at $1,399 for 454 square feet. The Crosswood website shows 14 of the 127 units are available.
The place is popular, says Farrington. “Our residents include [UO] faculty, staff, researchers, graduate students, professionals and even retirees,” he says. Crosswood’s occupancy has stabilized at an average of about 95 percent or higher, he says.
Construction of market-rate apartments for non-students has been patchy in Eugene, and developers in the city center want taxpayer subsidies, including the Multi-Unit Property Tax Exemption 10-year property tax waiver. Garden Avenue is outside the MUPTE district, so the Chambers project can’t get that. But the site is in the Riverfront Urban Renewal District, a city-designated zone where the city can spend tax dollars on public improvements. CDC hasn’t “asked for specific assistance from the city,” Farrington says.
Meanwhile, Knight ponders the future of a Eugene institution.
He says he has a great relationship with the Chambers family. He sold the property to Chambers in 2019 because he was nearing 70 and major real estate development is not his forte. The deed shows the sale price was $5 million. The site has at least seven buildings, including residential and office buildings and the spa complex, plus several empty fields.
The Onsen business does well, Knight says. “It’s as busy as ever,” he says. It’s managed by his daughter, Hannah.
“I’m amazed that the concept has lasted so long,” Knight says. The customer base is “just regular old Eugeneans of every stripe.”
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.