News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
The Sisters Ranger District Headquarters site will be moved in the next couple of years.
The Sisters Ranger District should be in a new headquarters in Sisters in July 2008.
Rod Bonacker and Bill Anthony of the Sisters Ranger District explained the Forest Service’s timeline on its relocation project to the Sisters City Council at a workshop on Thursday, April 13.
Bonacker said the agency hopes to have a 53-acre portion of the current headquarters site located along Pine Street on the market in September of this year, with an anticipated sale in the spring of 2007.
“The property would probably fiscally transfer in ’08,” Bonacker said.
The project has major implications for Sisters. The City of Sisters plans to punch Main Avenue through the property to link up with Highway 20 in what would likely be the westbound arm of a couplet.
That would allow commercial development along that road frontage if the city chooses to zone the property that way.
Bonacker strongly urged the council to lay out at least some basic idea of what the city wants to see developed on the site. He said it would greatly facilitate the value analysis for the property.
Anthony said “we’re anticipating selling it in multiple parcels.”
The future sale has generated heated interest.
“I get about two calls a day for the last year from developers,” said Bonacker.
Interest has ranged from residential subdivisions to an 80-acre horse ranch, Bonacker said. There’s interest in some kind of mixed use. So far, Bonacker said, no “big box” retailers have contacted him.
The council is likely to take up the question of possible zoning and types of development in a Thursday, April 20, workshop.
The relocation project is on a very fast track. The Forest Service bumped it up in its list of priorities when other projects developed hitches.
“This is a little faster timeline than I had anticipated,” Anthony said. “We’re now on a pretty fast timeline.”
The Forest Service has narrowed down its choices for new sites to two: A location along the north side of Highway 20 on the intersection of Barclay Driveand a site on Barclay Drive east of Best Western Ponderosa Lodge.
Anthony said the highway location appeals to him due to visibility, but there are some concerns about how the buildings would be oriented on the property and about creating another highway access point.
The other site is less visible, but offers a lot of options for site layout, which will include the headquarters offices, dormitories and a work station. The Oregon Department of Transportation could co-locate its Sisters maintenance facility on the site.
The offices would cover about 10,000 square feet and will conform to Sisters’ architectural theme.
“It’s going to be tastefully done while not being extravagant,” Anthony said.
Anthony said he is leaving the two sites on the table but the northernmost option on Barclay Drive is gaining support.
“I think that’s where the tide’s taking us right now,” he said.
Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.
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