City's puzzle needs a few creative ideas.

Byline: Bob Welch The Register-Guard

McKenzie-Willamette Medical Center. Eugene Water & Electric Board. Lane County fairgrounds. Eugene City Hall.

Has the physical makeup of Eugene ever before been so up in the air?

Given all the talk about what should go where, I've pulled out my municipal Rubik's Cube and decided to offer a solution. Here, in a perfect - and quite imaginary - world, is the answer to the Eugene puzzle:

McKenzie-Willamette goes downtown, infusing the urban core with what it needs more of - people - and sparing Delta Ridge what it doesn't need more of - traffic and the kind of structure that was never intended for a dead-end street in a residential area.

The city of Eugene buys RiverRidge Golf Course and turns it into something that the fast-growing north side has way too little of: park space.

Lane County fairgrounds, with the exception of the Lane County Historical Museum, goes to the Golden Gardens location in west Eugene.

Ya-Po-Ah Terrace, where residents often complain about the noise from trains, is moved to the Lake Charnelton site, across from the Eugene Public Library. It's the perfect combo for people with time on their hands and whistles in their heads: far from the tracks and close to the stacks.

The Lane County Historical Museum - nothing like the sound of train whistles to bring back the past - nestles in at the Ya-Po-Ah Terrace site, within shouting distance of Eugene Skinner's ghost.

EWEB moves to the old fairgrounds parcel. It's a central location and, unlike a hospital, won't infringe on the neighborhood feel.

Eugene City Hall moves onto the old EWEB site.

The U.S. Courthouse, in what's dubbed Operation Elevated Justice, is airlifted to The Register-Guard location, using 46 Blackhawk helicopters. Thousands mistake it for a UFO. But the silver structure seems more compatible with a federal freeway than a city's downtown.

The Register-Guard moves its offices to the U.S. Courthouse site so employees have better access to Pre's Trail for noon-time runs by the river.

Prince Lucien Campbell Hall, that aesthetically bereft stack of Legos on the University of Oregon campus, goes to the University of Oklahoma as a thank-you for the Ducks not having to take a loss in the Holiday Bowl because of NCAA rules infractions by the Sooners.

The PLC site becomes a much-needed underground parking garage and an aesthetically alluring - and way roomier - faculty office building. However, this happens only after the athletic department is rebuffed in an attempt to create a state-of-the-art facility for its "new competitive cheerleading team," by fist-shaking professors hoisted on the shoulders of UO wrestlers.

The UO, soon to have a baseball team, and Eugene Emeralds join forces to buy Civic Stadium - and the adjacent Depression era bus shacks - from the Eugene School District. The stadium is rebuilt to offer the same great feel with the same great view of Hendricks Hill. The bus shacks are replaced by Duck Ems Cove, where fans can shag foul balls while in kayaks.

Like a spawning salmon, Valley River Center returns to Eugene's real roots of shopping - downtown - to revolutionize the urban economy.

A new public golf course goes in where Valley River was; indoor shoppers couldn't care less about rivers, but adjacent to a golf course, golfers respect them greatly.

The new UO basketball arena goes in at the old Williams Bakery property on Franklin, the bakery fulfilling a clause in the contract by putting in underground tubes from its new facility in Glenwood to pipe in the smell of fresh bread to the UO campus.

Mac Court becomes home to the new women's cage-fighting team, added when the university is deluged with flack that cheerleading is not a true competitive sport.

Simple, huh?

Bob Welch can be reached at 338-2354 or at [e-mail].