New company joins Broadway project.

Byline: Edward Russo The Register-Guard

Another Portland firm has been selected for a key role in the possible redevelopment of two blocks in downtown Eugene.

Community Planning and Urban Design - a Portland-based division of architecture, engineering and consulting giant HDR - will work with city officials and a citizens' advisory committee to gather public opinion on how to redevelop West Broadway between Willamette and Charnelton streets.

The firm was picked by seven city officials and four residents, including the co-chairmen of the West Broadway advisory committee and representatives of the chamber of commerce and Citizens for Public Accountability.

Community Planning and Urban Design was impressive because of its expertise in "involving the public in the design, review and evaluation of projects, including complex projects like the downtown Broadway project could be," said Greg McLauchlan, co-chairman of the West Broadway advisory committee.

Stephen Coyle, the firm's principal, is known for "elaborate and comprehensive" public workshops where residents share opinions on community development, he said.

The City Council in May picked two Portland developers, Beam Development and KWG Development Partners, to work together on a possible redevelopment of the underused blocks in downtown's center. At that time, the council also decided to form a city advisory committee that would be helped by a professional facilitator/planner, ultimately settling on Community Planning and Urban Design.

The 11-member West Broadway advisory committee will help identify preferred types of housing or businesses that should be included in the redevelopment, as well as public open spaces and amenities; parking options; and a transition and retention plan for businesses affected by redevelopment.

The council wants the committee's work to help shape the developers' plans before they are presented to city leaders later this year. The committee must make recommendations to the City Council by September.

The selection committee ranked Community Planning and Urban Design higher than Jerry Diethelm, a Eugene urban design consultant; Spencer & Kupper of Portland; and Pirie Turlington Architects of New Haven, Conn., in its selection process.

Details of the firm's contract, including pay, have yet to be finalized, city planner Nan Laurence said. Community Planning and Urban Design's parent company, HDR, is an employee-owned architectural, engineering and consulting firm with headquarters in Nebraska and offices throughout the country.

In applying for the job, the firm's consultants noted Eugene's tendency to argue over downtown development, McLauchlan said.

In the past few months, for example, many members of Citizens for Public Accountability preferred Beam Development's $18 million concept to renovate the Centre Court and Washburne buildings on West Broadway for offices and shops. Many chamber of commerce members, however, liked KWG's $191 million, two-block idea for housing, stores, a movie theater and a hotel, the latter in a renovated Centre Court building.

McLauchlan said he and the other members of the selection committee liked that the consultants have a track record of helping "communities struggling with contentious development proposals reach consensus on a widely preferred outcome."

In an interview, Coyle, the firm's principal, said he likes to gather public opinion through community-planning events called "charrettes" that can last three or four days.

The meetings in Eugene will give residents a chance to share their opinions on what they want on the two blocks, he said. However, they will not lead to broad, conceptual planning, Coyle said.

"The point is to come up with a feasible plan that the community can support and feels like it has some shared authorship in," he said.

City planners have tentatively scheduled three days between July 18 and Aug. 15 for such public sessions.

But Coyle said he wants one intense community planning event spread over four days near the end of August. It's difficult to keep people engaged and focused during meetings spread over several weeks, he said.

Coyle said he will make his pitch for the single four-day event to the West Broadway advisory committee, which will meet at 5 p.m. Wednesday in the Bascom Room of the Eugene Public Library. "That's what we will propose because we have seen it work so well in other places," he said.

McLauchlan said it's possible the committee may try a compromise approach: a public session during the next few weeks and a multiple-day event like the one suggested by Coyle in August. "We may end up with kind of a dual approach," he said.