91视频

Central Oregon is bursting at the seams. Deschutes County grew at a 3.6 percent clip in 2016, according to a U.S. Census Bureau estimate. In the past five years, the county has grown by 13.5 percent, gaining more than 20,000 residents.

鈥淛ust the amount of people moving here is crazy,鈥� said Allison Rambel, a manager at Deschutes Property Management.

Now Oregon State University-Cascades officials are asking the state Legislature for $69.5 million in bond funding to kick-start in Bend a major expansion to serve 3,000 to 5,000 students. House Bill 2782 would authorize issuance of construction bonds; it’s now before the Joint Committee on Ways and Means, and no meetings are scheduled.

Eventually, the Bend campus could provide housing for 1,700 students, in addition to 300 units already in place, totaling approximately 595,000 square feet. Plans also call for 362,000 square feet of academic buildings, 147,000 square feet of campus life buildings, 95,000 square feet of recreation buildings and approximately 7 acres of parking.

Bend’s housing market already is by some measures even tighter than Portland’s. Deschutes Property Management oversees 892 apartment units. During April, the vacancy rate at the company’s properties was 0.8 percent.

鈥淚n the Bend market, we just do not have enough supply to meet the demand,鈥� Rambel said. 鈥淲e need more.鈥�

Bend has bounced back strongly from the Great Recession, when real estate values plummeted. Homes sold for a median price of $375,000 during the first quarter of 2017, up 13 percent compared to a year earlier, according to Regional Multiple Listing Service data. The average price per square foot of sold property has risen to $213, up from $199 a year earlier.

Homebuilders such as Pahlisch Homes are busily building single-family residences, and more multifamily projects have cropped up within the city. But strong demand for second homes as well as low-wage jobs tied to tourism and service industries have created greater pressure on housing affordability in Bend, according to a city report.

OSU-Cascades plans to build enough housing to allow about 40 percent of students to live on campus. That would leave from 1,200 to 2,000 students seeking off-campus housing in Bend.

Several residential buildings are planned, said Christine Coffin, spokeswoman for OSU-Cascades.

鈥淏oth the campus and the community are interested in housing as many students as possible on campus,鈥� she said.

Housing matters for recruiting and retaining not just new students, but also instructional staffers at OSU’s expanding Cascades campus.

鈥淚t’s a tough housing market, both for students and for new faculty and staff we’re hiring,鈥� she said.

OSU-Cascades’ planned expansion hinges on state funding, which could be tough to come by as Gov. Kate Brown and state legislators grapple with a $1.6 billion funding gap. Brown’s budget would supply only $20 million of OSU-Cascades’ $69.5 million request. That would enable the university to begin infrastructure improvements, but little else.

鈥淭hat infrastructure would simply sit until at least the next biennium,鈥� Coffin said.

Failure to expand the campus would limit OSU-Cascades’ capacity to serve students, she added.

鈥淲ithout those buildings, we’ll have to cap enrollment,鈥� she said.

Currently, OSU-Cascades’ campus serves 1,215 students and can accommodate up to 1,890.

The first phase of campus expansion would focus on two structures. One would be a 55,000-square-foot academic building with room for laboratory science, kinesiology and engineering programs, along with classrooms and faculty offices.

The other building would be a 鈥渟tudent success center,鈥� according to university officials. The three-story building would have academic advising, student life and gathering and study spaces. OSU-Cascades students recently agreed to increases of their own fees to help pay for construction of the center.

The expansion is planned for property adjacent to the existing campus, on a 46-acre former pumice mine and a retired county landfill that is filled with timber and construction waste.

The university is considering development of biomass and solar facilities in hopes of becoming the nation’s first 鈥渘et-zero鈥� campus able to generate as much energy as it uses.

OSU-Cascades officials also plan an 鈥渋nnovation district鈥� to incubate businesses.

鈥淔aculty and industry could come together with public-private partnerships,鈥� Coffin said.

Officials are hoping for more businesses to spin off from the university. Onboard Dynamics, a company that works on technologies that compress gas within natural-gas-powered vehicle engines, grew out of research at OSU-Cascades, Coffin said.

University-led innovations could help stabilize the swings in Central Oregon’s economy, she said.

鈥淭his area was hit hard by the Great Recession,鈥� she said. 鈥淧art of that was lack of industry diversity. Universities are known to be a stabilizing force.鈥�

Bend has growing health care and tech industries. A company that began in Bend, Agere Pharmaceuticals, was acquired by Pantheon in 2015 and was part of Thermo Fisher Scientific’s $5.2 billion purchase that was announced Monday.

Growth in Bend has pushed the city to expand its urban growth boundary. The Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development gave its approval in December for a 2,380-acre expansion of Bend’s UGB.

Growth assumptions for the university were considered as part of the UGB process, according to city documents. The OSU-Cascades campus is well within the UGB.
鈥淥ne of the benefits of the campus location is that it supports Oregon’s and the city of Bend’s land-use goals and provides infill development and avoids sprawl,鈥� Coffin said.

The city applied for, and received, a grant to develop a management plan to examine growth in the central westside, which includes OSU-Cascades. The Southwest Century Drive area is expected to have capacity for 410 housing units by 2028, with about 275 homes planned for vacant land.

City officials also are implementing a transportation demand management plan to address traffic around the university’s growth.