It's an improvement.

Byline: The Register-Guard

Earth to downtown Eugene: Nordstrom's department store isn't coming to the corner of Broadway and Willamette Street anytime soon.

Eugene's need for investors who will bring shoppers and workers to the city core is long-standing and obvious to everyone, while progress toward revitalization has been agonizingly slow. It's good news when a developer with a long track record announces plans to fill one of the most prominent of the downtown area's many empty buildings.

St. Vincent de Paul has agreed to buy the Centre Court building, the one on the southwest corner of Willamette and Broadway that long ago housed a JCPenney store. The nonprofit organization intends to consolidate two of its thrift stores in the ground-floor space of the building, and fill the upper stories with rental offices.

The Centre Court building has been vacant for two years. Having lights on inside, with shoppers and officer workers coming and going, will bring life back to a corner that desperately needs it.

Yet, some downtown property owners and managers are making it known that they're unhappy with the prospect of having St. Vincent de Paul as a neighbor. Putting a thrift store at one of downtown's primary commercial intersections, they fear, won't bring the kind of synergy they're looking for. The critics would prefer that the building's owners held out for another buyer, even if it means leaving the Centre Court building vacant.

Something isn't necessarily better than nothing - if St. Vincent de Paul operated strip clubs, the worried neighbors would have a point. But proponents of downtown revitalization can't be too picky. The area is already home to a wide mix of uses, from pricey boutiques to used-book stores, from regionally known restaurants to martial arts studios. Further redevelopment can be expected to follow the same diverse pattern.

Indeed, a diverse collection of uses will be a key ingredient of the downtown area's success. Shopping malls and office parks are pitched to carefully selected bands of the economic spectrum. A lively downtown benefits in contrast, offering unpredictable confluences of high and low commerce and culture. Having a thift shop on one corner shouldn't preclude having a boutique on the next. Lots of people want to shop in both types of stores.

What's more, St. Vincent de Paul manages to set a high tone in service to its clients and customers. The Aurora apartments, a new low-income housing development on 11th Avenue and Oak Street, is only the most recent example; it's one of the most handsome buildings added to downtown in years.

The organization can be expected to make the Centre Court building an attractive and lively part of downtown, succeeding where no one else could or dared to try.