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COASTAL TOWNS SEEK FORMULA FOR SUCCESS.

Article Excerpt
Byline: Winston Ross The Register-Guard

In 1922, a fire tore through Front Street in Marshfield, destroying much of the city's downtown business district, where tourists and locals alike frequented shops along the edge of Coos Bay.

Rather than rebuild in the same spot, town leaders moved City Hall to Central Avenue and created a new downtown along the coast's main thoroughfare: present-day Highway 101. Industrial buildings sprouted where the city center once was. By the time Marshfield was renamed Coos Bay in 1944, views of the water were shrouded by the gritty aesthetic of the industries that drove the town: timber and fishing.

The bay's biggest tourist attraction had all but disappeared from view.

Eighty years later, Coos Bay still suffers from its grimy industrial image. But a group of private and public interests is hoping to ignite an entirely different kind of fire to change all that - and rebuild "Oregon's Bay Area" into a haven for tourists and retirees. The plans include mixed-use developments, boardwalks, a pavilion and a museum along the North Bend and Coos Bay waterfronts.

It is the latest and most tangible sign of an Oregon Coast in transition, looking for new economic engines to create jobs, pump money into the local communities and help them not only to survive, but thrive.

As the historic industries of timber and fishing dwindled, coastal communities watched people flee to bigger cities and bigger salaries. The folks who were left behind, in many cases, suffered: In 2000, more than 28,000 people, or 14 percent of coastal residents, lived below the federal poverty line, with incomes of less than $8,500 a year. Median household incomes average 15 percent below the rest of the state.

In the 1980s and '90s, coastal communities shifted their focus to tourism and retirees as a way to shore up their sagging economies. While some applaud that movement as a source of jobs and income for local businesses, others worry. They say too much emphasis on these areas creates an economy that can't provide the long-term economic growth needed to sustain a shrinking middle class.

This concern comes from two camps pushing very different agendas: one that argues that the answer to...

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