`A great day' for Eugene at courthouse ceremony.

Byline: Scott Maben The Register-Guard

Amid all the pomp and back-patting and salutes to the late, great Wayne Morse, a Union Pacific freight train barged past Wednesday's blustery groundbreaking for the new federal courthouse in downtown Eugene.

Between wails of the locomotive, the master of ceremonies joked about needing an ordinance to silence the whistles in town.

"We've got the whole City Council and the mayor here," said Jon Kvistad, regional administrator for the U.S. General Services Administration, the agency that will erect the $70 million building where the old Agripac cannery once stood. "This could be the best lobbying time I have available to me."

Other than that, it was a mostly scripted affair punctuated by upbeat appraisals of all it has taken to get the sometimes contentious project rolling and the significance of the new courthouse, to be named in memory of U.S. Sen. Morse of Eugene.

"This is a great day," Mayor Jim Torrey bellowed before a crowd of about 200 elected officials, federal court workers, city employees and others assembled on an old concrete slab near the intersection of Mill Street and Eighth Avenue.

"The difference is going to be unbelievable," Torrey said. "It's going to transform this area of Eugene in a way that none of us would ever have believed possible."

Architect Thom Mayne of Santa Monica, Calif., was unable to attend the ceremony, but others complimented his modern design, which already is garnering critical acclaim.

"While we have a contemporary language in this building, nevertheless there are many aspects of it that I believe reach back to the true DNA of public buildings," said U.S. District Judge Michael Hogan, a champion of the project for more than a decade.

Courthouse designs in the 1960s, '70s and '80s strayed from being unique, Hogan said.

"Frankly, we lost our way. Our courthouses began to look like corporate headquarters and insurance buildings and banks. You couldn't tell there was a courtroom in the building unless you read the sign," he said.

The Eugene courthouse is part of a multidecade effort to replace more than 100 small, obsolete and less secure federal courthouses, said Joseph Moravec, commissioner of the GSA's Public Buildings Service in Washington, D.C.

"Harking back to a tradition as old as the republic itself, your federal government has re-established itself as one of the nation's preferred patrons of architecture and art," Moravec said. "We're once again creating 100-year, iconic buildings - buildings like this one will be - that provide safe and superior work space for the federal worker and are a source of communal pride for generations."

He also spoke of the importance of designing a highly secure building, reflecting on the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City almost nine years ago and the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

"The challenge for us is to ensure that the buildings we build and manage are safe and secure so the people's business can be conducted in peace, but without creating a fortress mentality. And that's a neat trick," Moravec said. "Our buildings are the people's buildings, and they need to be accessible as well as secure."

For many, the ceremony was cause to celebrate their hard-won victory in persuading the GSA to add a wheelchair ramp at the front entrance in the courthouse plans.

"That's what I loved about today. We did have a process and it did work," said Alicia Hays, a Lane County employee and longtime disabilities rights advocate. "Seeing the federal government change, that is something I will be telling my grandkids."

Several officials acknowledged the lobbying campaign waged by Hays and many others.

"To the members of the disabilities community, thank you for making sure it was a building for everyone," Torrey said.

The 270,000-square-foot Wayne Lyman Morse United States Courthouse will be built by J.E. Dunn Construction of Portland.

It will house six federal courtrooms and offices for U.S. attorneys and marshals, probation officers, pretrial services and members of Congress.

In a nod to Eugene's green streak, the seven golden shovels purchased for Wednesday's groundbreaking will be "recycled" and used by construction workers on the two-year job, Kvistad said.

COURTHOUSE HISTORY

November 2000: Eugene buys 8.7-acre cannery site for $4.1 million. Deal hinges on federal selection of site for courthouse. City envisions revitalized area connecting downtown with the district and the river.

December 2000: A federal environmental study slightly favors cannery site over Springfield's riverfront. Decision remains a toss-up.

March 2001: Eugene site chosen. GSA hires Morphosis Architects of Santa Monica and DLR Group of Portland to design the building. GSA, city sign memorandum of agreement for purchase of cannery site.

May 2002: GSA unveils final design for new courthouse, with 200-foot-long stairway entrance. Design cost $4.5 million.

July 2002: U.S. House Appropriations Committee OK's $77.37 million for the project; City Council votes 5-3 to approve conceptual plan for the courthouse district.

November 2002: City buys AutoCraft Body & Paint property for $1.65 million, acquiring final piece of property for courthouse.

April 2003: Advocates for people with disabilities publicly criticize courthouse design, saying it falls short of community access standards.

July 2003: Advocates launch a lobbying effort to alter courthouse entrance.

August 2003: GSA announces 45-day review period to consider adding a ramp.

September 2003: Citing concerns about the city's ability to build streets, provide parking and promote development, GSA puts hold on purchase of city-owned land for the courthouse.

October 2003: GSA decides to add a wheelchair ramp to the building design. Business leaders make public long-held intentions to redevelop land around the courthouse site.

November 2003: GSA resumes planning to purchase former cannery site.

March 2004: City council votes 6-2 to expand riverfront urban renewal district to include courthouse area for future improvements. GSA agrees to purchase site for $3.85 million. Federal funding for $6 million in street improvements in courthouse area moves through U.S. House as part of a $275 billion transportation bill.

April 7, 2004: Groundbreaking, with construction expected to take two years.

- The Register-Guard

CAPTION(S):

Groundbreakers (from left) Joseph Moravec of the U.S. General Services Administration, Eugene Mayor Jim Torrey, U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio, Jon Kvistad of the GSA, Judge Michael Hogan, Chief Judge Albert Radcliffe and Fred Shipman flip the ceremonial first spade of earth on Wednesday. An artist's rendering of the new federal courthouse, by Santa Monica architect Thom Mayne.