Medford

[Kelly Lynzi]

New five-story hotel to be built in south Medford. It was originally meant to accompany a casino that was shot down earlier this year.

[MarkDaMan]

Thanks for the updates. Good to see Medford growing!

[Kelly Lynzi]

No problem! Medford’s been changing quite a bit recently.

[Kelly Lynzi]

Medford looks like it may be nearing a post-fire housing boom in the downtown core with multiple large complexes planned for the next few years... one of which being a 5, possibly 6 story extended-stay hotel at the end of Pear Blossom Park close to the Lithia building. Also, the Inn at the Commons right across the street is being remodeled and transformed into a 123 room apartment complex. The 5-story Almond Street apartments directly adjacent to I-5 look to still be in the works as well. These, along with 3/4+ other properties being transformed into new developments (two of which are confirmed to likely have 50+ units and around 4 stories) may finally give Medford’s downtown the push it’s always needed to bring on a new era of prosperity for the city (not even counting the countless other projects planned outside of the downtown area). It will make for a really pretty drive on the viaduct that’s for sure.

The city is expected to have more information available sometime within the next two months.

[Kelly Lynzi]

New Renderings for the first of many downtown developments lined up. Will be 3-stories and contain 60 units, featuring a mix of studio, 1 bedroom and 2 bedroom apartments.

[tex]

Glad to see some residential growth in the downtown area. It needs it badly to kick start some culture and life to that area.

Silver lining of the fires.

It seems like the Almond street apartments have been in the works for nearly 5 years...

[urbanlife]

Originally Posted by tex

Glad to see some residential growth in the downtown area. It needs it badly to kick start some culture and life to that area.

Silver lining of the fires.

It seems like the Almond street apartments have been in the works for nearly 5 years...

I always wonder which city in Oregon is going to take off and be more of a second city option outside of the Portland Metro.

[tex]

Originally Posted by urbanlife

I always wonder which city in Oregon is going to take off and be more of a second city option outside of the Portland Metro.

I would think it would be Bend, but I think the inaccessibility of Bend is holding it back way too much. There's no freeway leading to the city, the airport is pretty small, roads get iced over during the winter. So I don't think it's practical for Bend to become a big city off that alone.

Salem... Ehhh, I just don't see people actually wanting to move there unless they turn their image around. It's just a boring and (mostly but not all) run down city.

Eugene, I think is the most likely. Big university, already is decently sized at 375k similarly to Salem. But doesn't have the negative boring and run down stigma that Salem has. It's a little bit more of a fun town, and already has at least a start to a down town. As well as one of the best transportations systems I've ever seen for a metro smaller than 800k. It's got all of the pieces in place, I'm not really sure what Eugene needs to do to get the wild growth Bend has experienced over the last 30 years.

Medford probably has the best geographical location to see rapid growth. Warmest climate in Oregon, a few strong industries (Healthcare, retirement, wine, pear production, etc.) Closest city to California and therefore sees a lot of growth coming from California transplants. And the city seems to be bought in on growth. It just kind of has a similar stigma as Salem has, but I don't think it's as deserving of the stigma. Sure it's not the most fun city around, but it's decent and there's very nice parts of Medford that I think some people don't see when just visiting some of the central shopping and eating areas. But Medford's got to commit to bringing life downtown as well as bring more college students into the city to attract a younger crowd, as the old retirement stigma of Medford needs to be shed as well. Downtown needs more apartments, more tax breaks for small businesses, restaurants, and bars. Encourage SOU expansion in Medford, as well as try to pull an expansion campus from OSU, UofO, PSU, etc. like Bend and Salem have. Maybe a Nursing program expansion campus or something. As it would tie in really well with the area and Portland is really the main city for nursing in the state right now.

Downtown's gotta be cleaned up, bear creek needs to become an asset rather than a blight on the city. A strong cleanup effort, with incentives to create developments that utilize the creek are strongly recommended.

I think the water park / aquatics center is a good first step for the city right now. It brings in a bit more day trip tourists from around the southern part of the state. But more needs to be done, I think the casino getting approved would be big for the city. The apartments going up will be great, if Lithia continues their expansion of their HQ that'll be great. They just need to keep the momentum going.

[maccoinnich]

Medford airport plans major expansion to meet growing demand



The Rogue Valley International - Medford Airport is currently much smaller than it should be according to airport officials. The airport is planning a major expansion to accommodate growing demand.

The regional airport in Medford serves a large area and is a doorway to the rest of the world for many living in Southern Oregon and Northern California.

Airport Director Amber Judd said they’re forecasting double the amount of passengers in 20 years. They’re projecting around a million passengers to pass through every year by 2042.

Judd said the airport needs to double in size to handle that many passengers. She said they’re already struggling to meet the demands of airlines with only two jet bridges.

“Our terminal is only 15 years old, but it was designed for a whole lot of smaller regional jets, which don’t exist anymore,” said Judd during a presentation with Jackson County Commissioners on Nov. 26. “And the trend is only bigger and bigger.”

...continues at OPB.

[PhillyPDX]

Originally Posted by maccoinnich

...continues at OPB.

PDX needs to get in on this. Shocked to see PDX is the 8th biggest destination from Medford. 8th!!

Seattle sees literally 7x the passengers that PDX does.

[downtownpdx]

I didn’t see where that was posted in the article, you mean Seattle sees 7x the number of Medford passengers? Not too surprised, Alaska Airlines funnels everyone through SEA lately. But as posted in the PDX thread , Portland will be taking over a lot of connecting flights that typically went through SEA soon as part of Alaska’s growth strategy/merger with Hawaiian. Fingers crossed.

[PhillyPDX]

Originally Posted by downtownpdx

I didn’t see where that was posted in the article, you mean Seattle sees 7x the number of Medford passengers? Not too surprised, Alaska Airlines funnels everyone through SEA lately. But as posted in the PDX thread , Portland will be taking over a lot of connecting flights that typically went through SEA soon as part of Alaska’s growth strategy/merger with Hawaiian. Fingers crossed.

Not in article, just searched the airport info on wiki to read about it. I was pretty shocked to see how far down PDX is. Maybe not #1, but figured it would be just below SEA and SFO. Nope. Only 21k passengers in 2023. That's like 1 small flight a day, or even less than once/day?

[maccoinnich]

I would imagine that a high percentage of people going to Portland as their final destination just drive? Depending on where in the metro area they're going, it might not even be (that much) faster to fly.

[PhillyPDX]

Originally Posted by maccoinnich

I would imagine that a high percentage of people going to Portland as their final destination just drive? Depending on where in the metro area they're going, it might not even be (that much) faster to fly.

It’s like 5 hours?

But for connections, just shows how the strong get stronger. Top 3 are sea/den/sfo, some of the busiest and well-connected airports in the world. More feeders justifies ever more international routes.

Pdx needs feeders like Medford to justify more international routes, but it’s a hard sell for new routes when feeders like Medford fly elsewhere. Chicken and egg.

[Kelly Lynzi]

Development includes a high-rise hotel and conference center across from Lithia HQ. Future phase could include minor league baseball stadium to house the Eugene Emeralds. Urban residential and office space is also being discussed.






(Rendering from City of Medford, Medford Alert)

[maccoinnich]

Thank you for posting this!

[urbanlife]

I see we are using the term "highrise" loosely but its great to see Medford getting some good new developments going on and if they add a minor league baseball team, that will be a big step up for that city.

[Kelly Lynzi]

"High-rise" by Medford standards for sure haha. It's rare when this city builds anything above four stories... the 10 stories this proposal could possibly bring is our version of a skyscraper.

[Kelly Lynzi]

A new four-story hotel across the street from Lithia HQ has begun construction (as of September). Slated for completion in early 2027, this project marks the first new hotel in downtown Medford in 60 years.







(Renderings from Medford Urban Renewal Board)

[Derek]

Originally Posted by Kelly Lynzi

"High-rise" by Medford standards for sure haha. It's rare when this city builds anything above four stories... the 10 stories this proposal could possibly bring is our version of a skyscraper.

Looks potentially taller than anything in downtown Beaverton.