n Oct. 23, the Deschutes County Board of Commissioners voted to sell the demolition landfill on Bend's Century Drive to Oregon State University-Cascades, for a cost of $1. The OSU Board of Trustees approved the purchase Oct. 20. The purchase allows OSU-Cascades to officially incorporate the 72-acre landfill, closed since 1993, into its Long Range Development Planning effort.
Remediation of the landfill will cost an estimated $43.3 million—though as OSU-Cascades Vice President Becky Johnson points out, that cost includes removal of material that will be used to fill in the 46-acre pumice mine adjacent to the current 10-acre campus—land already owned by OSU-Cascades. The campus master plan includes the construction of more student housing and academic buildings on the current pumice mine site.
"I think it's really a great story that you're taking land that is compromised and transforming it into this thriving university, especially given that it's been behind a fence for like 30 years doing nothing." — Becky Johnson
tweet this
Johnson told the Source Weekly that using the material from the landfill will mean a lowered cost for filling in the pumice mine, saving an estimated 29,000-plus truck trips that would have otherwise had remove waste from the site.
"We're hoping that most of the materials can be reused on site," Johnson said. "Most of it is mill waste.
"I think it's really a great story that you're taking land that is compromised and transforming it into this thriving university, especially given that it's been behind a fence for like 30 years doing nothing."
The addition of the landfill land would put the campus at 128 acres, allowing the university to install surface parking at a cost of $2.9 million, instead of a proposed $29.2 million cost to build structured parking, had the campus remained at just 56 acres. The master plan also includes a plan for an "innovation district" on the landfill parcel, which would integrate "commercial/retail and industry partnerships and middle market housing," according to a Nov. 3 release.
A public meeting on the campus master plan will take place at the OSU-Cascades Graduate & Research Center, room 209, at 5:30 pm Nov. 15.
