More than 100 Medford residents packed a downtown lecture hall earlier this month for a Q&A about Measure 15-238. The proposal would allow the city to increase its transient occupancy tax from 11% to 13%. That’s a tax that visitors pay when staying in hotels or short-term rentals.
City Council member Nick Card hopes it could help revitalize downtown.
“Medford needs some kind of a shot in the arm to help it build identity, to help it excite people, to bring people downtown again,” Card said. “Creekside Quarter has the opportunity for us to do that.”
Creekside Quarter; that’s the name for the conference center and hotel. The idea was seeded earlier this year by a long-shot effort to save a historic minor league baseball team.
The Eugene Emeralds are looking for a new home after voters there rejected funding for a $90 million stadium last year. Allan Benavides, the Emerald’s former general manager, said one of the failures for the Eugene project was that the stadium would have been built at the fairgrounds, away from the commercial heart of Eugene.
“The [stadiums] that have really taken off are the ones that have multi-business development: office space, hotels, conference centers built around a venue that really make a dynamic impact to the local economy,” Benavides said.
That’s what Medford’s proposal has developed into. City officials say a developer is interested in building a conference center and hotel in the middle of downtown. The city has long wanted to build a venue to host conventions and other events.
Eli Matthews, president of the Chamber of Medford and Jackson County, said the need has been evident for years.
“We've known for decades the amount of deficiencies that we have in our community for meeting and event space,” Matthews said. “Especially because we are the eighth largest city in the state, and we are the regional hub here in Southern Oregon.”
Up until recently, a conference center just hasn’t been viable. A 2017 study showed that Medford couldn’t sustain a convention center, but a more recent one found that declining bookings in Portland have helped boost the event market in other parts of the state.
“We've known for decades the amount of deficiencies that we have in our community for meeting and event space."
Medford hopes to capitalize on that trend with its proposed $500 million conference center and hotel — the largest development in Jackson County history. The revenue from the proposed hotel tax increase would help subsidize construction.
The city most recently increased the hotel tax from 9% to 11% in 2020 to help fund Rogue X, a $76 million sports and aquatics complex.
If approved, the proposed increase would make Medford’s among the highest in the state, rivaling cities in the Portland area. Though, Card noted that Grants Pass’ lodging tax is 12% already, and he said city officials are working with local hoteliers to minimize any negative impact.
This increase would raise the maximum amount the city can collect for the tax. The City Council adopted a resolution during its Oct. 1 meeting that clarifies how it would use the tax increase. First, the tax would only increase to 12%, unless city staff determines the full 13% is needed to support building the conference center. Second, the city intends to repeal the two percentage point tax increase when the conference center is built and any related debts are paid off.
While the Creekside Quarter development was sparked by the Eugene Emeralds, the resolution specified that none of this tax increase would go toward a new stadium. Instead, Medford would need to find another way to pay for a baseball stadium. Some ideas Card and others floated were concessions or ticket fees, grants and naming rights.
The council’s first priority is revitalizing downtown. Benavides said the team understands that needs to happen first.
“And if that happens, then possibly the stadium happens,” he said. “But without those things moving forward, there is no stadium.”
Some residents are worried about the stadium being built in Hawthorne Park. The proposed stadium would take over the northern half of the park, where many amenities are, like a playground, farmers market and splash pad. The southern side of Hawthorne Park has also been the site of homeless encampments.
City Council Member Kevin Stine said the goal would be to clean up the park and move the amenities from the north to the south.
“If you turn Hawthorne into more of an asset than what it is today, it makes it much easier to build out the other side of the creek,” he said.
The proposed conference center site is currently home to the Merrick, a hotel that was converted into apartments in 2020 to house Almeda fire survivors.
Card said that current residents won’t be displaced.
“There have been conversations at ACCESS that predate this project about trying to re-house the people who are there in the Merrick,” Card said. “That is something that is actively being worked on, and it's something that will have to happen before this project moves forward.”
If voters reject the tax increase, it’s unlikely the conference center, hotel or stadium will move forward.
“If it doesn't happen, Major League Baseball could just pull the team out of Eugene and move it to Washington, Canada, Idaho, I don't know,” said Benavides.
Right now, the Emeralds are sharing a baseball stadium with the Oregon Ducks, which doesn’t meet the league’s requirements. If there’s a chance the team could move to Medford, Benavides said the league is willing to wait another five to 10 years for construction.
But he’s worried that the Emeralds may not be able to make it until then. The team used to start their season right after the Ducks. But now both teams’ schedules overlap, creating strain due to a lack of separate facilities, like locker rooms.
Benavides said he’s hopeful that Medford voters will see the vision that the city is putting forward with this ballot measure.
“We think that this is an amazing market,” he said. “With the right development that's tied to it, that can make a real impact — not only for the community, for the economy, but also make a thriving baseball business.”
Ballots must be returned or postmarked by 8 p.m. on Election Day, Nov. 4.
