MAY 2007: DISPATCHES
MADRAS
“The hump,” as locals call it, was many things
during its storied past. It began as a brick building and,
oddly enough, after incarnations as a slaughterhouse, brick
mall, Nazarene Church and a sand heap, it’s returning to
its roots. “It was always dirty, an eyesore,” says
Holli VanWert, executive director of the Madras-Jefferson
County Chamber of Commerce. In 2004 the Madras Redevelopment
Commission purchased the 75,000-square-foot site as part of a
plan to help business owners remodel rundown buildings.
BrickHouse LLC, a company comprised of Madras locals, recently
purchased 45,000 square feet of the property for about
$670,000. Rick Allen, a managing partner of BrickHouse, says
the site is at a premier location between two major roads.
Previously buried power lines added to the hump’s
potential. BrickHouse hopes to develop a three-story brick
building to house offices and a restaurant.
Pelton Round Butte, a series of three hydroelectric dams on the
Deschutes River, is certified by the Low Impact Hydropower
Institute as a green-power generator. It is one of only 26
hydro plants, out of about 78,000 dams in the country, to earn
that status. Pelton Round Butte generates about 465 million
watts, enough to power a city the size of Salem. Portland
General Electric and the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs
own the project. Falls Creek Dam outside of Eugene is the only
other Oregon dam with green-power status.
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