5th Street Market makeover to begin.

Byline: Joe Mosley The Register-Guard

The evolution of Eugene's Fifth Street Public Market is speeding up, with the shopping venue's 93-year-old east building - a former chicken-processing plant - about to be transformed from artsy cubbyholes to glitzy retail space.

The market's Galleria area, encompassing the east building's ground floor and the portion of its second floor south of the food court, will be reconfigured to accommodate at least three retail storefronts, Fifth Street owner Brian Obie said Tuesday.

The makeover - which Obie said will cost "north of $2 million and likely north of $3 million" - also will include a common atrium area and a new facade facing Sixth Avenue and High Street.

Demolition is expected to last through January, with construction beginning in February and wrapping up by next September.

In the meantime, the Fifth Street Public Market will celebrate its 30th anniversary next summer.

"In early January, we will undertake a renaissance of that entire east building," Obie said. "I expect this is the most significant capital investment we've made here."

Between five and eight of the vendors who currently occupy booths and tiny shops in the Galleria will move into a storefront on the second-level courtyard between Swahili Imports and the Oregon Cotton Mill, and a couple others are considering other locations in the market, Obie said. Several other Galleria vendors have declined to relocate on-site, he said.

"What we are looking for in that category (of tenants) is truly artists," Obie said. "We think there is always a home for those here ... and we would like to sprinkle those, as we can, throughout the tenancy of the market."

Among those who will collaborate in the new Artisan Gallery Store on the second-level courtyard are photographers, painters and makers of gold and silver jewelry, leather bags and adult and children's clothing.

The east building's renovation will be accomplished in phases over the next several months, with other portions of the market remaining open and unaffected by the construction, Obie said.

"The market will continue thriving, as usual," he said.

The project continues a restructuring of the Fifth Street Public Market that began with the remodeling this year of space on the market's north side that is now occupied by Vaquero, a high-end, Latin-influenced restaurant.

A new, north-facing facade that includes stainless steel awnings and a revamped Fifth Avenue entrance also were part of the Vaquero project.

Obie said that the market's lease of an old Oregon State Motor Pool lot, north of the railroad tracks on High Street, is another element of the shopping center's restructuring phase.

The 50-space lot, available for free use by customers, more than doubles the market's parking space.

"We are really working to take the entire market to a new step," Obie said.

Joe Mosley can be reached by phone at 338-2384 or at jmosley@ guardnet.com.