Message from Development Icons
Mike Hollern (CEO of Brooks Resources Corp.) and Bill Smith (Owner of William Smith Properties/Old Mill District), icons of economic development throughout the high desert, were asked at a recent City Club of Central Oregon lunch, “Where do we go from here?”
The two visionaries have been forming the landscape of Central Oregon since the early ‘60s. Not ones to mince words, they will tell you exactly how they think it should be and will do everything they can to make it happen. And they both will tell you that they don’t always agree (particularly on some land use and water issues, politics and government relations) but they always seem to find ways to work together for the betterment of the community.
That collaboration is recently noted in their agreement to donate their resources to landscape Bend’s 20 roundabouts that include public art. The City has cut back on landscaping expenses over the past several years due to budget reductions and has relied on a volunteer program to do the work. After landscaping work is completed, the two companies will create recommended maintenance requirements for the roundabouts that volunteers will be able to follow in the future. Kudos to them for this generosity and preservation of the city’s treasured roundabouts.
With 90 years of business experience between them, Bill and Mike gave the city club group (a sold-out affair by the way) a history of how Bend and surrounding areas got to this point. Bill reminisced about his first entrance in the city’s development when hired by Mike as an intern for Brooks Scanlon/Brooks Resources and subsequently went to work on the development of Black Butte Ranch. Mike offers that the best thing he did for Central Oregon was to hire Bill years ago.
Bill suggests that Bend is an accident, a perfect storm of raw ingredients with no master plan. “But we had sun and a great river to enjoy. We’ve also had a longtime corporate culture of giving back, a culture that Mike brought with him when he arrived to head up Brooks/Scanlon.”
Bill takes issue with several development issues including taking nearly five years to get the Old Mill re-zoned from industrial to mixed use and why Bend’s land use plan is still waiting, 40 years later, for a review by LCDC. Bill also says that raising the building height in downtown Bend was a mistake, lining canals is a mistake, but, he offered, we’ve survived it. He believes that Redmond and Prineville are business friendly, but Bend is not nor is the State of Oregon. He takes issue with the way we’re building our infrastructure one project at a time, on the surface water improvement project, the roundabout at Reed Market and draining the flooding under the Third Street Bridge.
Mike made a special point of highlighting many of the leaders who have had the most positive impact on the community: Bill Healey (Mt. Bachelor founder who came up with idea to collect room tax and use the funds to advertise the region), Sister Catherine Hellman (visionary for St. Charles who attracted qualified people like Jim Lussier), Bob Chandler (Bulletin founder, advocate for the area), Don Kerr (visionary founder of High Desert Museum), Bill Smith (Old Mill vision), Gary Fish (Deschutes Brewery) and the many nonprofit leaders and community volunteers who led the way for such projects as the Boys & Girls Club, Tower Theatre, Art in Pubic Places and Culinary Institute.
The two leaders pointed out how the shape of Bend would be an entirely different place if land use laws hadn’t protected our forest lands and encouraged the Parkway to be strategically placed though Bend.
History aside, everyone wanted to know as we sat on the edge of our seats: what exactly do these two brilliant business people think will happen in the future? And why did Bend grow and prosper when so many other mill towns in Oregon have died and struggled?
Given the uncertainties of predicting the future, the Bill and Mike collaboration generally agreed on the
following points:
• Prospects for the region are so great that the population could reach a quarter million by 2050 (this from a population of just 13,000 in Bend in 1970).
• While there’s not a clear perspective on exactly when the recession will end, Central Oregon will fair well and continue to grow and prosper.
• The change in how people work and where (oftentimes from home) will change lifestyles and neighborhoods.
• We have too much going for us not to take advantage of our high quality of life attributes. All of the little businesses we have here could have gone somewhere else, but they came here because of our tremendous amenities.
• A four year university through OSU-Cascades should be extremely high on the priorities for the region. High education can help create stable jobs, education for high-end employment, exposure to art and culture and encourage the influx of the creative industries that brings bright, young people to area.
• Retain land use laws: While Mike leans to preserving them, Bill thinks they need fixing, but believes it’s highly unlikely that will happen, but thinks we can just learn to live with it.
• Elect qualified, competent, flexible people to office.
• Encourage affluent tourists to the area who bring business to local businesses and potential long-term companies to the area.
• Maintain our parks, they’re both a tourist attraction and an added value for residents.
• Reduce the burden on government regulations and business taxes. Basically we should change the tax system.
• Dredge Mirror Pond.
• We now have about 69,000 jobs in the region, we need to double that in the next decade. Bill predicts a long flat period while we rebuild our job base, we’re just learning to adapt. He says the new norm is flat.
• Retaining and expanding current businesses is just as important as recruiting new ones.
• Government should adopt an attitude of ‘how can we help you.’
On balance the area is the center of superb healthcare, great restaurants, art and cultural attributes and abundance of recreational opportunities. These traits have been built upon by a community willing to do the hard work and pay attention to quality development and quality of life issues. Although you might want to call them reflections, overall the Bill and Mike predictions for the future remain good. pha
