STAYTON

Four Willamette Valley cities receive $800,000 in revitalization grants

Bill Poehler
Statesman Journal
The former city hall on First Street in Woodburn will be remodeled into a mixed commercial and housing development with the help of a $200,000 grant.

The former city hall in Woodburn has largely been vacant the past 40 years; the former Ball Brothers gas station in Turner has been an eyesore for years; the connected top floor of two buildings in downtown Dallas is unusable; and downtown Stayton is a hodgepodge of buildings from different eras.

Many historically significant buildings in prime downtown locations in communities throughout the Willamette Valley that were unloved for years are getting help.  

Four projects in Dallas, Stayton, Turner and Woodburn are receiving a total of $800,000 from Oregon Heritage – $200,000 each in matching grants through Oregon lottery bonds – for economic revitalization building projects in the core of their cities.

The division of the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department awarded $5.2 million in grants to 30 projects in cities that are part of the Oregon Main Street Network.

Stayton

Where many of the grant recipients are using the money to improve one building, the $200,000 grant for Stayton will be spread across the entire 300 block of Third Street in downtown Stayton.

Five owners of seven buildings on the block will participate in remodeling the facade of the buildings on both sides of the street, including the Star Theater.

Revitalize Downtown Stayton, which is the grant recipient, hired an architect to come up with a cohesive design for the facade for the buildings.

“One side is 1900s and the other side is 1930s and '40s buildings,” said Revitalize Downtown Stayton president Steve Poisson.  “Hopefully it will look like a more planned block than actually it was.”

Poisson said each building owner is being required to contribute $12,000 of their own money towards the project before the $40,000 they are due to receive.

Poisson said the grant stipulates the work must be completed by 2022, but as the building owners are experienced and have done rehabs before, the work should be done sooner.

Many efforts to renovate downtown Stayton have stalled over the years.

Some of the buildings have had recent remodeling work or are currently being remodeled.

 “The timetable these building owners have given is by the end of the year,” Poisson said. “They’re really planning on moving on this as soon as they can. Because they’ve got the grant application done, that preliminary work is already done. It should be pretty easy for them to go ahead and get things started.”

There have been numerous efforts over the past decades to reinvigorate the downtown core, but it has always been difficult as it is two blocks off the highway and doesn’t see much traffic.

Poisson said the hope is the remodelingwill spur redevelopment of other blocks along Third Street in downtown.

“A lot of the focus is going to be on accenting and repairing and uncovering the historic details,” Poisson said. “They each have unique features and that’s going to be played up.”

Woodburn

Since the city hall moved to its current location on south 1st Street in 1977, the building at 530 North 1st Street has been sporadically occupied by businesses and passed through different owners.

The building, designed by George M. Post, was constructed in 1914 and is on the National Register of Historic Places.

It’s been largely untouched through the years and still has the original jail cells in the basement.

“It’s just been a beautiful building that’s been unloved,” said Woodburn Economic Development Director Jamie Johnk. “It’s in great shape. The ownership over the years has had the foresight to keep the roof preserved.

“A lot of the original woodwork is in there. I know that this property owner intends to maintain those.”

Current owner Anthony Young purchased the building out of foreclosure in 2017 and has been working with the city on a redevelopment plan.

The plans for the building include residential – 10 to 12 apartments – in the basement level and a commercial property in the former firehouse.

Johnk said the total project will cost approximately $835,000. Funds from the Woodburn Urban Renewal District will be added into the project as well.

“It’s a pretty big project, but it’s going to be a wonderful project, putting some housing in there, creating some commercial space,” Johnk said.

Turner

The city purchased the former Ball Brothers gas station in 2018 with the goal of saving one of the few surviving historic buildings in the city.

The city received smaller loans and grants to get it to the point where the gas station portion of the property was able to be reopened in April under the management of Pratum Co-Op.

The $200,000 grant from Oregon Heritage will make the biggest impact since the city purchased the building.

“And I’ve always said this can be the signature building in town,” Turner Mayor Gary Tiffin said.

Turner city manager David Sawyer, Mirzel Ball, Turner Mayor Gary Tiffin, Valerie Ball, Pratum Co-Op manager Roy Mitchell and Turner Business coordinator D.J. Thommen pose in front of the former Ball Brothers property, at which the gas station is being reopened by Pratum for the first time in four years.

The funds from the state will be used to renovate the former car showroom along First Street – there is lead paint from when the property was a Chevrolet dealership – and renovations to the outside of that portion of the building. The city will redo the streetscape with a new sidewalk and landscaping on the side of the building along Second Street.

The $200,000 grant from the state will be supplemented with $50,000 from the city.

The city plans to use historic objects that remained in the building when it purchased the property to be included in the design of the new space.

The goal for the space is to turn it into space for retail businesses.

“What we’re moving towards is all of the old objects that we’ve saved will be incorporated into the building,” Turner City Manager David Sawyer said.

The city’s goal is to sell the property to a third-party developer once it’s been rehabilitated.

Dallas

Attracting bicycle tourists to Polk County hasn’t been a problem; the area is positioned along the Willamette Valley Scenic Bikeway. Hundreds more bicyclists ride through the county each year.

The problem: there are few places in the county for them to stay – there are three hotels in the county, including one in Dallas.

The $200,000 grant to the Dallas Downtown Association will go towards revitalizing a pair of Victorian-style buildings on Main Street and turn the common second floor into a hostel aimed at bicycle tourists and a boutique hotel.

The Embree building in downtown Dallas will receive a major remodel, and the top floor will be turned into a hostel and botique hotel thanks to a $200,000 grant.

Known as the Embree buildings, the buildings at 904 Main Street and 115 Court Street were built between 1895 and 1898 and are owned by Marlene Cox, who also runs the Latitude One restaurant on the ground floor of the 904 Main Street property.

“That’s the mission of the downtown association — to make sure people are visiting, using Main Street to make sure buildings are viable,” Dallas Downtown Association program manager Gabriel Leon said. “It really is the heart of the community.”

Leon said the $200,000 in grant money will cover about half of the planned building improvements.

Among the planned improvements are roof replacement, updating the plumbing and electrical systems, seismic strengthening and work on the foundation.

“The 904 building is sinking and has been for years,” Leon said. “The grant is first and foremost for historic preservation.”

Leon said his position in Dallas and similar ones at four other main street organizations across Oregon that received $200,000 grants were funded through an AmeriCorps program.

“A bunch of us who have pretty minimal grant writing experience were successful in getting $1 million in grants,” Leon said.

bpoehler@StatesmanJournal.com or Twitter.com/bpoehler