In its heyday, Skippers Seafood & Chowder House chain counted an eatery on West 11th Avenue in Eugene among its hundreds of outlets. Skippers splurged on the West 11th store, installing one of its trademark 20-foot-tall white metal anchors in the turf at the building entrance.
Skippers’ fortunes then ebbed and it closed that and many other outlets. But the anchor remained even as the building was later leased to Hawaiian Time fast-food chain.
The anchor is still there, an incongruous bit of commercial history on the busy West 11th strip.
It may not be there much longer, if an unnamed developer has its way.
The developer, represented by a California consultant, is considering tearing down the Hawaiian Time building and a next-door vacant retail store that until recently was occupied by Miller Paint Co. The developer would replace them with a large unnamed sit-in and drive-thru eatery, filings with the city of Eugene Planning Department show. The layout and size are similar to a typical Chick-fil-A restaurant.
The California consultant is talking with the city about planning requirements.
“It’s still pretty early on in this project,” says Garrett Cain, a project engineer at 4G Development & Consulting of San Diego, the consulting firm on the project. “We hope to submit for building permits in the spring.”
The proposed new fast-food venue would have about 100 seats in a roughly 5,000-square-food building with an elaborate two-lane drive-thru system accommodating 30-plus vehicles, according to tentative plans submitted to the city.
The records don’t disclose the brand of the outlet, but Chick-fil-A seems a fair guess. The only Chick-fil-A in Lane County is in Springfield. The hugely successful chain has about 3,000 outlets in North America. It adds about 150 locations a year.
The two buildings have been owned for decades by veteran Eugene real estate developer and investor Phil Marvin. Marvin tells Eugene Weekly he’s not the one heading up the redevelopment project, and there’s not much to say yet about the deal.
The buildings, at 3510 and 3520 West 11th, are across the street from the Fred Meyer store.
Both buildings are roughly 40-50 years old, according to property records, and have undergone heavy use. The former Miller Paint store previously housed an auto parts store.
A manager at the Hawaiian Time eatery said she had not heard about the redevelopment possibility. Eugene Weekly was unable to reach the Hawaiian Time chain’s owner, James McNie.
McNie started up the chain more than 20 years ago. It now has six outlets: three in Eugene, one in Springfield and two in the Salem area. The stores are distinguished by their exterior paint scheme of colorful hibiscus blossoms.
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.