LCOG lands on downtown's Park Place.

Byline: Edward Russo The Register-Guard

Park Place, a prominent downtown Eugene office building, is on track to change hands next year.

The Lane Council of Governments has agreed to buy the five-story office building near Eighth Avenue and Willamette Street for $6.34 million, LCOG Executive Director George Kloeppel said.

LCOG is buying the building, formerly known as the Aster Building, from APC Inc., which is owned by Sherry Ridgley.

The deal is set to close on Jan. 1.

LCOG eventually will occupy the upper two floors of the building, but that won't happen for a couple of years, Kloeppel said.

LCOG provides planning, communications, information technology, administrative and other services to local governments in Lane County.

With the purchase, LCOG would own two prominent downtown buildings. The organization already owns the Schaefer Building at 10th Avenue and Willamette Street, where it operates Senior and Disabled Services.

But LCOG also has 63 employees in offices the agency rents on the top two floors of the Wells Fargo Bank building on Oak Street.

LCOG executives were inspired to look for a new home for those employees because the agency's bank building lease expires in two years, Kloeppel said.

Rather than spend $3 million on rent for another 10-year lease in the Wells Fargo building, the LCOG board decided to buy its own structure, Kloeppel said.

"The board recognized that we were at a fork in the road in terms of how we invested the public's money," he said. "We concluded that it would be a better use of the public's money by investing in downtown Eugene rather than continue to pay rent."

LCOG also likes Park Place because it's been wired with high-speed fiber optic lines, Kloeppel said.

The 28-member LCOG Board is composed of public officials, including Lane County Commissioner Faye Stewart, Coburg Mayor Judy Volta, Florence Mayor Phil Brubaker and Springfield City Councilor Joe Pishioneri.

Park Place, which faces Willamette Street on the west and the Park Blocks on the east, is 70 percent occupied, said Eric Jungjohann, a broker with the Pacific Real Estate Services property management company in Eugene.

First-floor tenants include Goldmine Jewelers, the city of Eugene's Human Rights office, and the Dough Co. Upper-floor tenants include Campbell Commercial Real Estate, Right Media and Lunar Logic.

LCOG intends to keep the lower-floor tenants, Kloeppel said. However, LCOG wants to start moving planners, administrators, computer experts and other employees to the two top floors sometime in 2009, Kloeppel said, after the offices are renovated.

Lunar Logic, which previously occupied the two top floors, now has 40 employees on the fifth floor. The firm's lease expires in 2009.

Chief Executive Mark Lipson said his firm wants to stay in its present location, but would move if he had to. "We really like our location, so no one is eager to leave," he said.

LCOG relies on federal funds and revenue from local governments to operate.

LCOG also owns a building next to Springfield City Hall that it leases to the Oregon Department of Transportation.

The organization will finance the Park Place purchase by using some of its reserves and borrowing against the two buildings it owns, Kloeppel said.