Downtown turning point.

Byline: The Register-Guard

Monday night in Eugene, some people said they dislike national retailers, parking garages and deals between the city and developers. For decades in Eugene, many people have been saying they dislike sprawl, surface parking lots and a lifeless city center. The Eugene City Council should not let one night's voices drown out years of calls for downtown revitalization.

Monday's public hearing concerned a plan to build a Whole Foods grocery store on a half-block facing Broadway between High Street and Franklin Boulevard. The other half of the block, along Eighth Avenue, would be occupied by retail buildings and a city-owned parking garage. The developer of the grocery wants its general contractor to build the entire project, which the city staff believes would save money. In February the City Council postponed a decision on the plan until after the hearing.

People speaking against the plan outnumbered those in favor by more than two to one. Objections came in three primary varieties: Texas-based Whole Foods would weaken Eugene's established natural foods retailers. A parking garage isn't needed and would encourage dependence on the automobile. And if the city builds a parking garage, it should select a general contractor through a competitive bidding process.

The council should be unimpressed by the fact that critics outnumbered supporters Monday night. People have been saying since the Nixon administration that they want to breathe life into Eugene's downtown. This hope is expressed in council-approved plans for a city core animated by a mix of stores, offices, restaurants, residences, entertainment venues and public buildings. The Whole Foods project is a big step in that direction, and the council will be thwarting a decades-long community consensus if it is swayed by the objections voiced at the hearing.

None of the objections is persuasive. Even if Whole Foods can be fairly cast in the role of a whole-wheat Wal-Mart, people in Eugene should prefer that it locate downtown rather than in the middle of a suburban parking lot. Local retailers can hold their own against national competitors in the fast-growing natural foods market.

Parking is needed on the eastern edge of downtown - not for Whole Foods, which will provide its own parking, but for other purposes. When the U.S. General Services Administration decided to build the new federal courthouse across Franklin from the Whole Foods site, it was understood that the city of Eugene would provide more parking. The John G. Shedd Institute for the Arts might build a music school downtown if all the dominoes involved in the Whole Foods project fall as hoped, and for that it would need more parking. Even without Whole Foods, the city would be looking for a way to add parking in that area. A sure sign of urban vitality is that it begins to make economic sense to replace surface lots with parking structures.

As for using the developers' general contractor for the city's parking garage, such arrangements are not unusual. In public-private partnerships, the savings achieved by piggybacking on a developer's plans can easily exceed whatever economies might be realized by awarding the general contract to the lowest bidder. There's no serious reason to doubt the city staff's conclusion that it makes sense to approach the development of the entire block - Whole Foods, parking garage, other buildings - as a unified project. That approach, in addition to saving money, should ensure greater architectural and aesthetic integrity.

Eugene has waited a long time for opportunities to revitalize downtown. Here's one. The council must not let it slip.