Forest Service selling structures at idled sites.

Byline: DEVELOPMENT REPORT By Joe Harwood The Register-Guard

CORRECTION (ran 6/29/2005): The Hemlock houses in Westfir owned by the U.S. Forest Service are not part of the legislation pending before Congress that would authorize the agency to dispose of some surplus facilities in Oregon. An item in the Development Report on Tuesday incorrectly listed the homes as potential properties to be sold.

The U.S. Forest Service is in the midst of selling 18 Western Oregon properties it no longer needs.

The properties - mostly vacant administrative offices, homes and warehouses - are owned by the Willamette, Umpqua and Siuslaw national forests but are not on forest land.

With the drastic cutbacks in logging on Pacific Northwest national forests in the past 15 years, along with corresponding decreases in the number of forest service employees in the field, many of the properties are vacant or underused.

And in an era of shrinking budgets, brought on partly by the loss of timber sale receipts, the Forest Service is finding the buildings expensive to maintain.

"In some communities, they are like eyesores," said Rex Holloway, a Forest Service spokesman in Portland. "Without the money to maintain them, they fall into disrepair."

Under a bill authorizing the sales submitted in the House of Representatives last week by Rep. Peter DeFazio, many of the surplus properties would be sold at public auction. The Springfield Democrat wrote the bill so that any revenue gleaned from the sales will stay with the national forest that is home to the property.

Throughout the region, the agency is considering selling about 50 administrative sites containing about 400 buildings.

"These are unneeded administrative sites," Holloway said. "Those surplus structures on national forest land will be removed or demolished."

Holloway said the agency is being careful not to sell properties that are inside national forest boundaries.

Some of the properties likely to go up for sale, probably next spring, include:

An 18,000-square-foot warehouse with offices and two barns on 2.4 acres north of the Eugene Mission in west Eugene.

The old guard station just off the Blue River Highway that includes an office, four homes, a gas house with underground diesel storage tanks and a large warehouse with a conference room, all on about 4 acres, said Chuck Gladney of the Willamette National Forest headquarters in Eugene. A compound above that sitting on 3 acres includes two houses and a mobile home.

The Flat Creek administrative center in Oakridge includes a 15,000-square-foot office, a 14,000-square-foot warehouse, three smaller warehouses, a barn, two houses and a duplex.

The so-called Hemlock houses in Westfir list five homes. The nearby Rigdon administrative offices and miscellaneous buildings also will go to the auction block.

Other properties likely to be put up for sale include a 15-acre tract near Sweet Home with two old warehouses; a 3.4-acre parcel in Gardiner with an office building, bunkhouse and two houses; a 6.6-acre site in Waldport with office; two sites in Roseburg; and another in Glide.

Gladney said revenue from the sales will be used to maintain and improve those facilities the Forest Service is still using.

The Forest Service already has sold some facilities through a pilot program, but DeFazio's bill would give the agency the authority to dispose of additional surplus properties.

Development Report runs Tuesdays. Joe Harwood: 338-2364 or [e-mail].