Stand in Eugene’s new Riverfront District today, and it can be difficult to spot signs of its long past.
“We had quite an industrial area. In the middle was the mill race that began four miles that way at the river,” said Randy Gudeika, who goes by the moniker The Walking Historian, during a tour of the area. “They used water wheels to capture the power from the mill race, and that was how they powered the industrial area from the 1870s up until 1928 when they switched to regular electricity.”
That switch to electricity came with the building of a steam plant and then the headquarters of the Eugene Water & Electric Board. EWEB’s headquarters and operations yard would stand in this spot for decades until the utility decided to move, leaving Eugene with a unique opportunity: a 27-acre plot in its downtown.
“This property was essentially a hole in the donut that was left behind after EWEB decided to move to a different site in west Eugene,” said Jim Atkins, a principal and partner with Portland-based developer Atkins Dame, which was chosen by the city for the project…