Ya-Po-Ah Terrace (nickname The High Place), is the tallest building in

Eugene, Oregon Eugene ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Lane County, Oregon, United States. It is located at the southern end of the Willamette Valley, near the confluence of the McKenzie River (Oregon), McKenzie and Willamette River, Willamette rivers, ...

at and the tallest building in Oregon outside of Portland. It is a controversial high-rise

apartment building An apartment (American English, Canadian English), flat (British English, Indian English, South African English), tenement ( Scots English), or unit (Australian English) is a self-contained housing unit (a type of residential real estate) ...

for senior citizens erected in 1968 at the foot of Skinner Butte.

History

"Ya Po Ah" means ''very high place'' in the language of the Kalapuya Indians who inhabited the

Willamette Valley The Willamette Valley ( ) is a valley in Oregon, in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. The Willamette River flows the entire length of the valley and is surrounded by mountains on three sides: the Cascade Range to the east, the ...

prior to the arrival of the Euro-American settlers. Ya Po Ah was the name used by the tribe for what is now called

Skinner Butte Skinner Butte (often mistakenly called Skinner's Butte) is a prominent hill on the north edge of downtown Eugene, Oregon, United States, near the Willamette River. A local landmark, it honors city founder Eugene Skinner and is the site ...

, in honor of Eugene Franklin Skinner, the founder of Eugene City. He built his first log cabin on the western slopes of the butte to avoid the frequent floods of the Willamette River to the north, per the advice of the Kalapuya. The building is an 18-story, 222-unit apartment building located on the southern slopes of Skinner Butte, overlooking downtown Eugene. Ya Po Ah also houses a performance hall, library, salon, and convenience stores. Constructed in 1968, public outcry over the building's size led to laws being passed soon after, limiting the height and stories of buildings in Eugene. This was a measure taken to preserve, among other things, the views of nearby mountains. It remains the tallest building in Eugene. A major renovation project is under way in the summer of 2019. Up until the end of the 1990s these building restrictions limited density and upward growth as the city's population grew, forcing

urban sprawl Urban sprawl (also known as suburban sprawl or urban encroachment) is defined as "the spreading of urban developments (such as houses and shopping centers) on undeveloped land near a city". Urban sprawl has been described as the unrestricted ...

outward, which was then limited by the current

Urban growth boundary An urban growth boundary (UGB) is a regional boundary, set in an attempt to control urban sprawl by, in its simplest form, mandating that the area inside the boundary be used for urban development and the area outside be preserved in its natural s ...

. Only within the last decade has Eugene begun to amend some of these measures to promote denser growth within the city's core.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Official websiteYaPoAh Terrace
Google SketchUp Buildings and structures in Eugene, Oregon Residential buildings completed in 1968 Apartment buildings in Oregon 1968 establishments in Oregon Residential skyscrapers in Oregon