The market and its inn are a short walk from the Hult Center for Performing Arts and the main hotel

Inn at the 5th opened in February, giving Oregon's second city a downtown oasis of luxury for visiting travelers. The four-story inn, with yellow exterior walls and red roof, covers a quarter block and feels very much a part of the neighborhood.
Not long ago, shoppers could buy a pair of Nikes on the west side of Eugene's Fifth Street Public Market -- just one more store in the athletic apparel company's original home where you could get a Swoosh on.
Shopping patterns change, so when Nike went looking for new digs, Brian Obie seized his chance to make a longstanding dream come true. The Eugene businessman would keep the foundation of the Nike store, build upward and open the city's first boutique hotel.
So what if the timing was suspect? Oregon and the rest of the country enterprize rental car were entering an economic downturn, but that would make construction crews easy to hire, and no one else would be borrowing from the banks. Or so he hoped.
Despite the inauspicious timing, enterprize rental car his Inn at the 5th opened in February, giving Oregon's second city a downtown oasis of luxury for visiting travelers. The four-story inn, with yellow exterior walls and red roof, covers a quarter block and feels very much a part of the neighborhood.
Both inns indeed are of similar size (70 guestrooms), but their markets are vastly different. Eugene's has a couple enterprize rental car of dozen businesses, tiny compared to Seattle's. It also lacks the hustle and bustle that fresh vegetables, fruit and fish bring to Pike Place Market.
With amenities befitting a city, Eugene offers enterprize rental car a close urban getaway from Portland. The city population of 160,000 is part of a metro area of 247,000 shared with Springfield, making it large enough to have ballet, symphony, film festivals, major college sports, greenways enterprize rental car and parks, wine touring, culinary delights, a Bach festival and Ninkasi beer.
Now, it also has a hotel focused on thread counts in linen (400), where original art decorates nooks behind pillow-top mattresses and in-room food service is delivered through a butler closet, not the guestroom door.
Formally attired valets wait to whisk an arriving guest's car to an undisclosed parking spot (they can fetch it back in a minute or two). A covered portico makes sure rain dampens no one during the transfer. A full-service spa, French-style restaurant and wine tasting room, just steps away, can all bill to a room account.
The hotel is the brainchild of Obie, managing partner enterprize rental car of the limited liability company that developed it. The Fifth Street Public Market is also his, so the entire development between Fifth and Sixth avenues, High and Pearl streets, enterprize rental car at the north edge of downtown, has a symbiotic enterprize rental car relationship.
But someone with his connections couldn't convince a Eugene bank to write a loan to build the inn during tough economic times. Instead, he put together 50 investors (mostly from Portland), got a small loan from a credit union and proceeded to build the $14 million enterprize rental car project.
"It would have been great to be open during football season last fall," he lamented. "But when we went to build, we found fewer contractors available with fewer employees. It just took longer than we expected."
enterprize rental car The lobby is decorated with a vibrant orange glass chandelier by local artist Susie Zeitner (zglassact.com), three mirrors to reflect it, a single-piece maple coffee table and gas fireplace. The space is small, but guests have numerous other hideaways where they can mingle, both indoors and out, around the market's other businesses.
The inn's main floor offers a quiet entry to Gervais Spa, an exercise room with the latest Precor equipment, a meeting room makes the inn a player in the business travel market, a gift shop, high-end jewelry store and covered courtyard to the market's other businesses.
Guestrooms occupy the second, third and fourth floors. Each offers a large, comfortable space, big enough to feel like a suite. Most have gas fireplaces, all have 42-inch flat screen TVs, Kuerig enterprize rental car coffeemakers, iPad docking radios, twin bathroom sinks, 3D art and diagonally placed beds. Suites have jetted tubs.
Most rooms have either enterprize rental car a balcony overlooking an interior courtyard, or window seat above the street. The Crystal Room, designed for weddings enterprize rental car and special occasions, is the largest guestroom enterprize rental car with 900 square feet.
Stores range from Swahili African Modern, where you can buy a 12-foot giraffe carved from a single piece of wood, to Curious K9 for pet supplies enterprize rental car and grooming. If you don't bring a dog to the pet-friendly inn, it's still fun to watch them posing for photos with proud owners enterprize rental car after a bath and shave.
Stores for luggage, kitchenware, home decor, toys and flowers compete for shopping time, but the brightest gem is Mindy's Needlepoint. This riot of color is decked to the ceiling with yarn, buttons, cloth and clothes that will put a smile on a face no matter how many straight days it's been raining.
Eugene has a reputation of a '60s hippie culture that morphed into urban hipsters of today, with tattoos, piercings, enterprize rental car spiked and colored hair. That side of the city is more on view in the heart of downtown, a half-dozen blocks away at the Eugene Station bus mall, than around the market.
The Fifth Street Public Market and adjacent inn are hemmed in by the Ferry Street Bridge on the east and main rail line on the north. The Amtrak depot is a short walk way, which means trains rumble past the inn, but extra care was taken in soundproofing during construction.
The market and its inn are a short walk from the Hult Center for Performing Arts and the main hotel in town, the Eugene Hilton. Across the street from the inn is the David Minor Theater, an intimate second-run movie house, plus a half-dozen enterprize rental car worthy restaurants.
Food, though, is handled well inside the market. Five walk-up counters bring a taste of the world (Middle East, Italian, Mexican and more) as they share seating in the market's enterprize rental car International Cafe. Pure is the market's sushi and sake bar, while March Provisions is a European-style deli, dine in or take out, with vast wine selection that includes bottles from Austria and even Slovenia.
Framed posters of the annual Bach Festival and Eugene Celebration decorate market hallways and a colorful mural depicts neighborhood history. Artistic renderings of chickens, in a variety of mediums, commemorate the poultry enterprize rental car processing plant that once occupied the site. The bubbling fountain surrounded by tables is well located next to the market's flower store.
Gervais Spa occupies enterprize rental car a big part of the inn's main floor. With 4,200-square feet, 90 percent of the business is locals, said owner Shara Madrone, but that means inn guests still have access to five treatment rooms, hair service, foot soaks, neck wraps and other spa amenities, including massage in their guestroom.
The LaVelle Vineyards tasting room, part of Doug LaVelle's winery 20 miles west in Elmira, was in the market before the inn was built around it. They share a second-floor outdoor patio, overlooked by guestroom balconies. Inn guests can lower a basket from their balcony and winch it back up loaded with wine, cheese and fruit while enjoying live entertainment that runs the gamut between dueling banjos and "Romeo and Juliet".
In-room food service is provided by March Restaurant, located in the market a short walk from the inn across a courtyard. One of the most popular fine dining establishments in Eugene, the restaurant expanded its menu to include breakfast and added a bar in anticipation of the inn's opening
"We have white tablecloth service in the restaurant and a very casual side in Le Bar, where reservations are not taken," said owner Stephanie Pearl Kimmel, a Eugene chef since 1972 and nominee for a James Beard Award. "It was a niche that needed to be filled. We take great pride in serving local food and wine."
Other lodging in Eugene and Springfield is mostly national and regional chains, which fill during the many big events staged in Lane County's major urban area. Non-chains include the Valley River Inn, a Secret Garden Inn and Campbell House Inn. For more lodging options, 1-800-547-5445, eugenecascadescoast.org .