Downtown Riverfront Park opens, linking 'Willamette to Willamette'
Decades after people started talking about reconnecting downtown Eugene to the Willamette River, that link is complete.
"It brings me joy to see our downtown reconnected to the beautiful Willamette River," Mayor Lucy Vinis said Friday morning at the grand opening of the Downtown Riverfront Park. "There is so much to be said and shared about this project, so for now I'll share one more woohoo!"
The three-acre park, which stretches about a third of a mile along the Willamette River between the DeFazio Bridge to southeast of the former Eugene Water & Electric Board steam plant and East Eighth Avenue, is a key piece of the city's plans to reconnect downtown to the river and build a riverfront neighborhood.
City workers, contractors and consultants spent years designing the park then transforming the former EWEB operations yard into green space, bike and pedestrian paths and river overlooks.
Craig Carnagey, the city's parks and open spaces director, recalled riding his bike along the riverbank path as a 19-year-old University of Oregon student and thinking the property needed some work.
"The transition from riding along a green, leafy riverbank to chain link fencing, asphalt and industrial buildings was a bit stark," he said.
Now, the path runs through the park, along green rain gardens and parallel to a boardwalk with bronze artwork set into the walkway.
People in Eugene have been wanting that and the connection to downtown for a while now, even though it seemed far-fetched, the link from "Willamette to Willamette" is done, City Manager Sarah Medary said.
"I can't think of another place in Eugene that the people have wanted to be at more than this right here," she said. "When people thought it was impossible, we did it. You did it."
Emily Proudfoot, a landscape architect for the city and the project manager for the park, expressed "incredible gratitude to everyone who's had a part in making this happen and happen right."
She added the city's work on the park isn't done yet. In addition to the bronze work that's already installed, there's more coming — an interpretive water fountain still needs to be installed at the overlook closest to the DeFazio Bridge.
There's also space connected to the park that's set to be a 1-acre plaza. The city has gotten state dollars to fill a funding gap for the plaza, which city staff previously had talked about scaling back because of cost limitations.
The city also is still working to develop the former Steam Plant building, which Medary said is the next "impossible" project.
For the weekend, though, Eugene is celebrating the park being open to the public with food and performances throughout a weekend-long grand opening.
The city and Harmonic Laboratory are presenting special Artistic Encounters programming for the rest of the weekend under the new art pavilion, a structure topped with metal ribbons mimicking the topography of the riverbed and named SubSupra:
Noon to 2 p.m. Saturday
Noon to 1 p.m. Sunday
Food will be available for purchase from various local vendors, including Most Wanted Espresso, O’my Mini Donuts, Sweetbay Shave Ice and Sling-in Weiner.
Contact city government watchdog Megan Banta at mbanta@registerguard.com. Follow her on Twitter @MeganBanta_1.
This article originally appeared on Register-Guard: Eugene's Downtown Riverfront Park has reunited downtown and the river
