Groups join, seek Civic lease

A new business group, Civic Community Group LLC, formed by Market of Choice CEO Rick Wright, the Eugene Y and Save Civic Stadium, is the lone applicant to lease Civic Stadium for up to three years from the Eugene School District.

The school district’s deadline for one-year lease proposals was Friday.

The proposal is to lease the stadium for $200,000 for one year, and the 10.2-acre property’s north lots for $50,000 a year, the district’s facilities director Jon Lauch said. The group’s goal is to eventually build a new Y at the site, preserve the historic stadium structure and build soccer and lacrosse fields there, he said.

Lauch characterized the proposal as a “letter of interest” that is “very close and consistent with the district’s requirements.” Lauch said he would not release a copy of the proposal to The Register-Guard because Superintendent Sheldon Berman and school board members had not seen it yet, but Lauch did provide by telephone the gist of what is in the proposal.

It states that the Civic Community Group’s “short-term interest is to preserve the stadium from further deterioration” and to “refine a development plan and look for potential users and share the vision with the school district and the community.”

The group’s long-term aim is “to develop a community recreation complex featuring a new Eugene Y, indoor tennis courts, a multiuse athletic complex featuring soccer and lacrosse fields, and preserve the historic stadium structure,” Lauch said.

The letter doesn’t ask for a long-term lease or for purchase of the property, Lauch said.

The district previously has said it doesn’t want to consider a long-term lease or sales just now, and instead prefers a simple short-term lease.

Wright could not be reached for comment Friday.

The school board spent several weeks last spring reviewing three offers to buy or lease the property. The proposal that was recommended by outgoing Superintendent George Russell, who retired June 30, was the one from developers Steve Master and Peter Powell, which would have been the most lucrative for the financially strapped school district. But that proposal, which would have put a Fred Meyer store on the property, resulted in much backlash from the neighborhood surrounding the vacant ballpark.

The other two offers in the spring were from the Eugene Y, which wanted to raze the stadium and build a new Y on the property, and from Save Civic Stadium, the group that fought for years to keep the Eugene Emeralds there, and now simply wants to preserve the stadium, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, as a future soccer venue or other use.

In a controversial decision, the school board in June voted 4-3 to reject all the offers and start over.

Not long before that vote, in late May, Wright entered the picture with his offer to join with the Eugene Y and Save Civic Stadium and rent the property for $250,000 annually.

Last month, the school board granted Berman the authority to find a temporary tenant for the property at 20th Avenue, between Willamette Street and Amazon Parkway.

If approved by Berman, the lease proposal by the Civic Community Group would be for one year, with two additional renewal options, giving it a maximum length of three years, Lauch said. But there is still no option to buy the property, he said.

Berman was not available for comment Friday, the district said.

After the board gave Berman the authority to lease the property, but not sell it, frustration was expressed by all parties now part of the new Civic Community Group.

“While a short-term lease may be a starting point, we need a much longer solution to allow us to raise the capital necessary to build the improvements,” Wright told The Register-Guard in July.

Ron Crasilneck, president of Save Civic Stadium, and Dave Perez, the Y’s executive director, also said last month that no option to buy the property is problematic.

But Lauch said Friday that renting the property for three years should give the Civic Community Group “adequate time to see if all of this is possible.”