MAY 2007 REGIONAL REPORT: EASTERN OREGON
A river town's resolve
The overnight success of The Dalles has taken decades, pushed
by grit, vision, timing and hometown passion. Google?
Yesterday’s news.
By Robin Doussard
Depending on where you stand, the city of The Dalles presents
very different sides. One is from above the city, at the
Mid-Columbia Veterans Memorial at Sorosis Park. From there, the
town’s beauty is evident: Golden hills roll down to the
Columbia River under clear blue skies; breathtaking vistas
unfold for miles; the historic city center nestles close to the
river. “Uniquely situated” is the mayor’s
marketing line and, yes, you can see that from here: rail,
highway, port, water, affordable land, sun; all fortuitously
converging in the valley below, where the Oregon Trail ended
and a town began 150 years ago.
The highway underpass at
Union Street is part of the city’s plans to reconnect
the town to its river.
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The view is not as lofty at river level. Retail sprawl and
rough industrial land greet you as you enter the city on the
highway. (“We kind of show our ass first,” says
local businessman James Martin.) There are vacant downtown
stores and lots, and housing stock that’s seen better
days. At street level, you see a small town still recovering
from big industry collapse, severe job loss and recession; a
town still considered “distressed” because of its
low incomes, high unemployment and poverty.
The story of any town is shades of gray, and The Dalles is no
different, even including its bit of fame and glory with the
heralded arrival of Google. The California-based Internet
search company sparked international attention, heated
speculation and high hopes when its interest in The Dalles
became public in 2005.
While Google gave other businesses a reason to consider The
Dalles and gets credit for helping boost real estate (local
agents peg the median home price around $178,000, and there is
substantial new home construction, with 200 starts in 2006), it
has not paved the streets with gold. Several years of strong
national and state economies have been more important in
helping cities like The Dalles regain their fiscal footing.
In fact, the Google presence, a server facility at the Port of
The Dalles, is hard to detect, which is not surprising given
the secretive company culture and the confidentiality required
of local officials during negotiations. To date, Google says it
has hired about 20 local workers out of a planned workforce of
50-100. No one from Google belongs to the chamber, and its
plant is a small fortress. No friendly open-house parties
there.
“Google gave us a nice buzz, but it hasn’t done
what we thought it would,” says Gary Grossman, a longtime
broadcaster with hints of late-night smoothness still in his
voice. Grossman is a businessman, he’s president of
Columbia Gorge Broadcasters, who moved here about four years
ago and is deeply involved in the community as president of the
chamber of commerce. He is affectionate yet knowing as he
assesses the recent resurgence of the town.
“It increased our property values and our tax base, but
it didn’t make us wealthy,” he adds. “Now
we’re settling down to reality. There’s
opportunity, but it’s not like Bend. It’s not the
tidal wave that was expected. But that gives us time to
plan.”
The dogs have barked (“The town is changing, and
fast,” declared an Oregonian story last summer) and
the caravan has moved on. The city is back to taking care of
business, charting through the gray waters a recovery course
that started several decades ago.
PLANNING IS THE MANTRA HERE. It came out of the depths of the
aluminum industry collapse, and Dan Durow, the city’s
director of community development, has been in the thick of it
for 30 years.
The Granada Theatre is one of the downtown’s many
historical gems.
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After the Martin Marietta aluminum plants closed in 1984,
taking 1,200 jobs, there was a “rebirth,” says
Durow. (Northwest Aluminum later bought the plants and reopened
them in the late 1980s. They closed in 2000, and 1,000 jobs
again were lost.) It started with a community that agreed
“over and over to tax itself despite our poverty and
income rates.” An urban renewal agency and enterprise
zone were created, a master plan for the riverfront was
conceived, and plans to diversify the economy were made.
“It might appear that we were an overnight
success,” Durow says, “but it has been 20 years.
Google was the icing on the cake. We were already in an
economic turnaround.”
“We knew our time was going to come again,” says
native son and longtime Mayor Robb Van Cleave. He and his
fellow business and civic leaders cite many accomplishments in
the past few years, progress that they credit to effective
civic teamwork, community optimism, the willingness of
residents to dig into their own pockets and, without a doubt,
being uniquely situated.
The list is notable. To date, there’s been an $80
million investment in the downtown that includes an underpass
at Union Street to reconnect the town to its river heritage,
which was amputated when Interstate 84 opened in the early
1960s and sliced through the town. There’s also a
fiber-optic network that loops the city; a new middle school,
post office and veterans home; significant port development;
and a $7 million renovation of the Commodore Hotel, built in
1906 as a Masonic lodge and now a mixed-use building.
On the horizon is the $150 million Lone Pine Village, a
mixed-used waterfront community set to break ground in June; a
$26 million expansion of Columbia Gorge Community College to be
completed in 2008; new owners and plans for the historic
Granada Theatre; and, after 17 years, finishing the riverfront
hiking and biking trail.
IMPROVEMENTS TO THE PORT were a priority, and while that
isn’t glamorous, it is nuts-and-bolts infrastructure
investment that pays off. In the past decade, 500 jobs have
been created in the port district alone, from companies such as
window and door parts manufacturer Homeshield and Round Top
Windows, according to port executive director Andrea Klaas.
Winning Google took a full-court press by many in the
community, but the readiness of the port’s industrial
land, and cheap hydropower, was critical. Future port plans
include opening up 400 acres for development by pulling down
the shuttered Northwest Aluminum plant.
The city wants to
restore the Gitchell Building, which was built in 1867and
is the oldest commercial structure in The
Dalles.
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The mayor wants to “turn the town back around to
face the river,” and projects such as the Union Street
underpass, and another planned at Washington Street, are
designed to create a gateway into the city from the Columbia.
Important to this is the plan for a new cruise dock that will
cost $2.3 million and allow the big ships to come up river with
their dollar-laden tourists. City manager Nolan Young says that
$250,000 in local money has been committed, and the search is
on for federal funds for the rest. In the meantime, there are
plans for a temporary dock to be installed this summer.
There are other dreams: redeveloping the old flour mill;
improving the city’s look through a public arts project;
making social responsibility a formal city goal; creating a
golf course on the airport property in Dallesport, Wash.;
various wind, dam and hydro ideas. Leaders are continuing to
focus on diversifying the business base beyond its largest
employers (Mid-Columbia Medical Center and agriculture are two)
to help safeguard against the historic boom-and-bust of the
region.
They also cite a long list of problems that they, like many
small Oregon towns, still struggle against: meth, aging
schools, sun-setting timber payments (which comprise 65% of the
county’s budget), a shortage of health-care workers,
affordable housing and industrial land. The aluminum
industry’s final collapse in 2000 slid into the 2001-2003
recession and pushed Wasco County’s annual unemployment
rate to a high of 9.7% for 2003. In light of this, the stable
population is interesting: In 2000, it was at 12,175; it
currently stands at 12,600. There was neither a huge exodus
during the downturn nor or a huge influx post-Google.
Though Wasco County’s jobless rate has been consistently
higher than the state average, the gap has narrowed in the past
four years. State figures show that county unemployment has
steadily dropped since 2003 to an annual average of 5.6% for
2006, only a few ticks higher than the state average of 5.4%.
And employment in all the key industries, except manufacturing,
has climbed in the past three years.
But 2004 state figures, the latest available, show average
incomes in Wasco County are around $25,000 per year, about
$8,000 lower than the state average, and approximately 14% of
the county living in poverty.
“Even though we’ve made all these gains,”
notes Durow, “we’re still a severely distressed
county.”
A TOUR OF DOWNTOWN with Gary Grossman and Nolan Young puts the
future in the windshield. With Young in the back seat and
Grossman at the wheel, they use the nose of the car to outline
the vision.
The city is focused on revitalizing its downtown, a priority
shared by communities from Astoria to Baker City that
understand the importance of their historic cores to a thriving
local economy. The Dalles’ downtown is decidedly
working-class, with its bowling alley, discount mattress store
and hard-by-the-railroad location, but more real than some of
its overpriced, over-boutiqued brethren. It’s still a
struggling mix of restored buildings such as the 1890
Italianate beauty that houses Sigman’s Flowers, and
dilapidated eyesores.
Retail sprawl and
industrial land is the view when entering The
Dalles.
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Young ticks off some of the projects in the city’s
strategic plan: the second highway underpass; the completion of
the riverfront trail; restoration of the Gitchell Building,
which was built in 1867 as a drug store and is considered the
oldest commercial building in The Dalles. The city also wants
to upgrade the look of First, Third and Fourth streets in an $8
million project to fix sidewalks and drainage, and install
streetlights and trees.
All the projects are in various stages of finding funding. The
Dalles is considered to have one of the most effective lobbying
groups in the state with its Community Outreach Team, lauded
last year by the Oregon Economic Development Association.
It’s a collaborative mix of civic, business and
government leaders whose strategy is “we never ask D.C.
for the first dollar,” says Van Cleave. The city manager
estimates that in the past seven years, the team has snagged $6
million in federal funding.
The windshield tour pulls up at the old Sunshine Biscuit Co.
flour mill at the east end of town, which the Urban Renewal
Agency has optioned to local developer James Martin. Martin
wants to create a $24.4 million complex containing a plaza,
condos, offices, retail space and a boutique winery. The city
is seeking $1.8 million in federal funding to redo the
intersection at Highway 30 and Brewery Grade, where the flour
mill sits.
Martin is fifth-generation (raising the sixth) and moved back
to his family’s cherry farm 10 years ago from Portland.
He now leases out his cherry operation and has diversified into
wine making to survive. He sees a different spirit in town
lately, one where “people will take risks now.
We’re not downtrodden anymore.” He says more young
entrepreneurs are moving in, and the community is getting
cleaned up.
Martin is disappointed by the intersection delay, but says
he’s moving ahead with developing of a portion of the
project that doesn’t rely on it, a $2.1 million
plaza.
“It’s a long, slow process,” he says,
“but I’m going to be here for the rest of my
life.”
IT’S THIS KIND OF PEOPLE CAPITAL that drives any
community’s development and The Dalles has its share.
Gary Grossman sums it up: “It’s a blend of founding
fathers, kids who have come back and those who have found it
for the quality of life.”
Redevelopment plans for
the old Sunshine Biscuit flour mill include a boutique
winery, artisan plaza, condos, offices and retail
space.
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Another prodigal son is Keef Morgan. A Dalles native, the
31-year-old Morgan returned three years ago after leaving town
post high school to travel the world building ships. He now
sells real estate alongside his dad, and says business has been
hopping.
Morgan sees a lot of people in his age group coming to The
Dalles because “it’s a really good place to
live.” He’s bought a home and takes full advantage
of the recreation just outside his door.
He also chairs the downtown business group. While he’s
impatient with some of the businesses — “They need
to stay open on the weekends; they need to clean up their store
fronts” — he is clearly one of James Martin’s
young entrepreneurs who have come back to change the town.
Just arrived and also carrying an entrepreneurial suitcase is
Lee Weinstein. At 47, after 15 years as a Nike executive,
Weinstein this spring bagged it and moved to the 80 acres he
and his wife bought just outside of town.
“We drew a two-hour circle around Portland to see where
we might live,” says Weinstein, a native Oregonian. They
discovered the beauty of The Dalles, and the game was over.
He has a satellite dish and plans to run a public relations
consulting business from his house. Weinstein also volunteers
with the chamber, chairing its marketing committee and helped
birth the “uniquely situated” line, but says
they’re still working on what truly captures the essence
of The Dalles. (He also suggests “300 days of sunshine
and open for business.”)
“It’s a town that’s really on the
offense,” he says, admiring his new home.
“There’s been a lot of hard work that’s gone
into the town.”
Weinstein then drops another slogan off the cuff, but maybe
not so far off the mark for a town that has weathered 150 years
of boom and bust.
“The Dalles,” says Weinstein, “is the little
town that could.”
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