Purchase of new EWEB site wins board approval.

Byline: Joe Harwood The Register-Guard

The Eugene Water & Electric Board on Tuesday night approved the $1.6 million purchase of a 46-acre parcel that someday may become the utility's new home.

But buying the vacant land, at the southeast corner of Belt Line Road and Roosevelt Boulevard in west Eugene, doesn't mean EWEB will be moving anytime soon.

The acquisition simply puts to an end the utility's five-year search for property that eventually could house a relocated operations division, and potentially, administrative offices.

The five-member board again stressed that buying the Danebo-area land doesn't mean EWEB is ready to sell to Triad Hospitals Inc. or to Arlie & Co. Triad wants just over 22 acres of the utility's riverfront campus for a new hospital. Arlie wants to create a mixed-use development on the site.

"Even if we choose not to move as the years go by, we can certainly sell it and get our money back," Commissioner John Simpson said.

Driven by the interest from Triad and Arlie, who have offered the utility $24.8 million and $28 million, respectively, commissioners also on Tuesday approved a schematic design study to determine the actual costs to move its operations division and/or its administrative offices to the Roosevelt tract.

The $792,031 contract award will allow Eugene-based WBGS Architecture & Planning, along with the seven subcontractors the firm has lined up, to calculate precise relocation costs.

The study, expected to be done in September, will play the major role in determining whether EWEB eventually moves from the riverfront.

Commissioners are adamant that moving some or all of the campus not lead to rate increases.

A 2002 study estimated EWEB would need $38.5 million from a buyer in order to move operations and administrative functions without impacting ratepayers. But that figure includes a 35 percent contingency cushion.

The lack of a reliable relocation estimate has hampered the utility's ability to negotiate with potential buyers of the land.

"We need to know what it's going to cost us to move regardless of a sale" of the riverfront campus property, said Ron Farmer, the board's president.

Also up in the air is whether the utility would relocate just its operations division and stay in its 17-year-old administration building, or move everything.

A decision over whether to physically split administrative and operations functions probably will be made this spring.

The WBGS contract timeline figures rough estimates of each path will be available in mid-May. At that time, the board will have to decide to move just the operations or relocate the entire campus.

If commissioners want definitive estimates for both options, that would add approximately $250,000 to the cost of the design study, said Mel Damewood, the utility's water engineering manager, who is acting as manager for the project.

Damewood said the results of the study will allow the utility to be proactive rather than reactive when it makes the decision whether to move.

It also will set a reliable cost estimate so EWEB can effectively budget for the project and still reach its goal of not increasing rates should it decide to move some or all of its operations, Damewood said.

Commissioner Sandra Bishop, who cast the lone vote against funding the study, said now is not the time to spend almost $800,000, and possibly $1 million, on such a study in light of the several electric rate increases since 2001. "We have raised our rates again and again and again," Bishop said. "Ratepayers are fed up."

Farmer said that if the board decides not to move, and hence not sell its land, ratepayers will be asked to fund $10 million to $12 million for upgrades to EWEB's decrepit operations buildings.