Sean C. Morgan
Of The New Era
The city planning office is considering a request by city officials to partition property to allow a property swap with a neighbor and to widen 24th Avenue in anticipation of future development on the old Willamette Industries Sweet Home mill site and the former Morse Bros. (Knife River) quarry property.
The decision on the partition will be made at the staff level by the city’s contracted planner, the Cascades West Council of Governments.
Sweet Home Public Works is located at the property, 1400 24th Ave., north of Highway 20.
As part of the plan, the owners of Reliable Welding would dedicate 40 feet of street frontage along the west side of 24th Avenue to city right-of-way. The city would dedicate a similar 40-foot strip along 24th Avenue to the mill property.
In exchange, the city would provide a 60-foot strip of land from the partitioned property, along the south edge of the Public Works property, to the owners of Reliable Welding. That property is currently used for parking by Public Works staff.
According to the city’s application, 24th Avenue will become one of the primary entrances to the mill property, owned by Linn County, and quarry property, owned by the city.
It’s a long-term goal to widen 24th Avenue to four lanes with a turn lane, said City Manager Ray Towry.
The city has been looking at longer-term plans to access the old mill and quarry properties. A concept plan shows what the new street network could look like – with a new street connecting 18th Avenue across the mill property to the quarry property and then Clark Mill and 24th connecting to the new road to Highway 20 to the south.
The Sweet Home Economic Development Group has been considering the quarry property as a permanent home for the Oregon Jamboree. After working with the county to transfer the land to SHEDG, the nonprofit requested that the city take ownership of the property.
The 24th Avenue connection is critical to moving the Jamboree to the quarry property, Towry said. At this point, when and how to pay for widening 24th Avenue is still in the discussion phase. The timing is largely dependent on the Department of Environmental Quality and cleanup of the mill property.
Linn County is in the process of auctioning the mill property, which still has a small amount of land that could require cleanup.
The county took possession of the mill and quarry properties from Western States Land Reliance Trust at the end of 2010 for nonpayment of property taxes. The land had been the subject of a master plan development for residential and commercial use and is zoned planned recreation commercial.
The city recently administratively approved a partition of the mill property for Linn County. Linn County partitioned two parcels, one 7.7 acres and the other 4 acres, south of the railroad tracks near 24th Avenue from the main property, 146.7 acres, north of the tracks.
The county partitioned the property in anticipation of the potential sale of the parcels, said Linn County Board of Commissioners Chairman Roger Nyquist. “Those will not be included in the auction.”
He said there are no specific plans for the properties as of last week.
“We’re focused on the big picture, the 154-acre piece,” Nyquist said, getting it sold and into private hands.
He anticipates it will go to auction in the fall, Nyquist said. The board has asked county staff to expedite the process, but Nyquist said it’s been a little slow. Weyerhaeuser, which purchased Willamette Industries, has been in conversations with the county about cleaning up the property.