Arlie & Company

SPRINGFIELD — Crescent Village, the mixed-use development in north Eugene, has been such hit for Arlie & Co. that the Eugene-based developer hopes to replicate its success with a similar project on a smaller scale in southeast Springfield.

Arlie announced Tuesday that it has bought 15 acres on the new Bob Straub Parkway in the Jasper Natron neighborhood and plans to build 45,000 square feet of retail and office space, plus 255 dwellings, including apartments, senior housing and detached single-family homes in coming years.

“We have received amazing response from Eugene businesses and residents in Crescent Village, and when the city of Springfield asked us to build an urban village, we jumped at the opportunity,” company president Suzanne Arlie said in a statement.

Arlie’s 15 acres is part of about 800 acres along Bob Straub Parkway that is one of the largest undeveloped areas within an urban growth boundary in Oregon, city officials have said. Arlie was attracted to the area because it has limited retail and commercial services and excellent growth potential, the company’s planning manager, Teresa Bishow, said.

Construction of the long-delayed parkway should be completed by the end of summer and has opened up development in the area, said Mark Metzger, a senior planner with the city of Springfield. The two-mile-long, $5.3 million project connects Highway 126 in south Springfield to Jasper Road.

Crescent Village is a 40-acre mixed-use development off Crescent Way in north Eugene being developed by Arlie. It includes two 51-unit apartment buildings, plus retail shops, office space and town homes. Demand for the apartments has been strong, Arlie’s marketing director, Sadie Dressekie, said. The first 51-unit apartment building is 95 percent full, and 200 people have been placed on a waiting list for the second building, which opens in June, she said.

People like the idea of being able to walk downstairs to a restaurant for dinner or across the street to buy groceries instead of getting in their cars and driving, she said. “It’s a lifestyle choice,” Dressekie said.

The original plan for the Jasper-Natron area, including construction of the parkway, designated areas for potential mixed-use development, including the land that Arlie later bought, Metzger said. But that plan got shelved in 1999 when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers told Lane County officials they needed to obtain wetlands fill permits for the parkway project, he said.

The 15 acres Arlie bought is now zoned light-medium industrial. The underlying designation in the Eugene Springfield Metropolitan Area General Plan, the region’s growth blueprint, calls for low-density residential development. Arlie is asking the city to rezone seven acres to community commercial and 8.25 acres to medium-density residential with a mixed-use overlay.

Metzger said he expects it will take 10 to 12 months to complete a public process that essentially would seek to confirm whether the community still wants to see the Jasper- Natron area undergo the same kind of mixed-use development that was envisioned in 1999.

Arlie wouldn’t disclose what it paid for the 15 acres, which it bought in February from Gordon Webb of Manhattan Beach, Calif. But Webb had earlier agreed to sell roughly the same piece of property to housing developer Hayden Homes for $1.26 million, or $70,000 an acre, according to a lawsuit Hayden Homes filed last fall against Webb. Hayden Homes, based in Redmond, sued Webb for breach of contract, alleging Webb backed out of the deal after the sides agreed on terms in a letter of intent. Webb countered that the letter of intent did not constitute a binding contract. Webb’s Eugene attorney, Michael Kearney, said Tuesday that the suit has been settled.

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Arlie plans mixed-use project in Springfield