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

Eugene, Oregon Eugene ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Oregon. It is located at the southern end of the Willamette Valley, near the confluence of the McKenzie and Willamette rivers, about east of the Oregon Coast. As of the 2020 United States Census, Eu ...

at . It is a controversial high-rise

apartment building An apartment (American English), or flat (British English, Indian English, South African English), is a self-contained housing unit (a type of residential real estate) that occupies part of a building, generally on a single story. There are ...

for senior citizens erected in 1968 at the foot of Skinner Butte.Style & Vernacular: A Guide to the Architecture of Lane County, Oregon. Western Imprints, The Press of the Oregon Historical Society: 1983.

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 long 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, ...

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, near the Willamette River. A local landmark, it honors city founder Eugene Skinner and is the site of the municipal ...

, in honor of

Eugene Franklin Skinner Eugene Franklin Skinner (September 13, 1809 – December 15, 1864) was an early American settler in Oregon and the founder of the city of Eugene, Oregon, which is named after him. Skinner was born in Essex, New York. His father was Major John Jo ...

, 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 outward, which was then limited by the current

Urban growth boundary An urban growth boundary, or 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 ...

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

References

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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