Sarah Phelps Community Plaza comes together in downtown Oregon

OREGON – City officials along with Lions and Rotarians officially launched the city’s new public use area – the Sarah Phelps Community Plaza – during a special ceremony Saturday, Sept. 30.

“In 2017, this property became available when the new bank was built and they stopped using it for drive-up. And I remember saying ‘I want that.’” Mayor Ken Williams said during the afternoon ceremony. “This would anchor the shopping district to the city and there’s a lot of different things we could do with it.”

At that time, Williams said the city began trying to figure out how to fund the project.

“The name on this is community plaza and there’s a reason for that,” he said. “To acquire the property we had a public private/public partnership with Central Bank and Harvard State Bank to provide funds along with the city to buy it. So it was a community effort to get the property.”

The small building on the northeast corner of North Fifth and Washington streets, previously was used for the Rock River Bank as a drive through location. It was purchased by Harvard State Bank when Rock River Bank ceased to exist.

Harvard State Bank then constructed a new bank with an adjacent drive through, one block west at North Sixth and Washington, and the property became available.

The city installed a family restroom in July 2018, but other updates on the building’s interior were put on hold because of a lack of available funds, Williams said. That changed with the public/private partnership and the help of Oregon Together.

“We put in the restroom because any shopping district in any viable downtown needs a public restroom,” Williams said. “Then we decided to design something here, so we asked Oregon Together to help.”

Willams said the plaza was built to provide a community space for those who want to use it. In addition to service groups such as the Lions and Rotary clubs, the public will also be able to use the space.

“This is a community property, so if someone wants to do a block party and they don’t want to do it on their block in their neighborhood they can come to the city and they can have this. We won’t charge rent, but we will have a security deposit in case they don’t clean up after themselves. Otherwise, we want it to be used for free,” Williams said. “Come to City Hall and we’ll sign you up to use it.”

Oregon Together’s John Lindhorst said the project took only two years to complete. “This is going to be a great community space. And now this ties in the whole block. This would not have been possible without the city working with all of us.”

John and Sarah Phelps are credited with founding Oregon. John is acknowledged with a small park behind the CMAAA (Oregon Coliseum), where the couple’s summer brick kitchen was relocated to five years ago. The John Phelps Park is north of the Sarah Phelps Community Plaza, across a city parking lot in the 100 block of North Fifth Street.

“And once again, we brought John and Sarah Phelps back together again, across the parking lot,” Lindhorst said. “I’m guessing she spent more time in the summer kitchen than he did, because he was traveling a lot if you look through the history books.”

Willams thanked everyone who helped complete the project including the many volunteers who helped.

City Manager Darin DeHaan said the project truly was a community effort.

“The Lions Club and Rotary all helped put this together, and all the public works guys, too. Having those departments really helped having this come together,” he said.

The existing windows have been modified to slide open, allowing walk-up service when the building is in use. And the outdoor plaza space includes tables and additional outlets for outside events.

“We’re not done yet, we just thought this was the right time to open this up,” DeHaan said, adding that additional elements are planned for the space.

The estimated construction cost of the project is $81,000, DeHaan said. Of that amount, $25,000 came from donations and $7,500 in grants. Earlier this year, the City Council approved spending $60,000 of ARPA funds for the project and has spent $48,283 so far.

“Next year, we will look at two pergolas and a fence to hide the dumpsters which would be paid for with the remaining ARPA funds. No other city funds have been used at this time,” DeHaan said.