Newspaper Publisher Planning Business Park

EUGENE, OR-Guard Publishing Co. is planning a business park on 20 acres it owns just west of The Register-Guard’s offices on the south side of Chad Drive.

The city’s planning staff is reviewing plans for the development, to be named Summer Oaks Business Park. As the market demands, Guard Publishing is looking to build 10 buildings totaling 390,000 sf on the property.

The land is about half of a parcel the company bought in 1989. It built the newspaper’s office and printing plant on the balance of the acreage.

According to the newspaper, Guard Publishing is talking with one possible tenant that would take most of a three-story, 36,000-sf building, and another that would take about half of a two-story, 24,000-sf building.

The company plans to construct buildings only if it finds tenants to take at least half the space, but expects consistent demand due to the park’s proximity to Belt Line Road and Interstate 5.

Competition includes Chambers Communications, which owns vacant business-park acreage on the north side of Chad Drive, and the Gateway business park area less than a mile to the east in Springfield.