Community feedback on proposals welcome through university’s website through Sunday 

By Holly Dillemuth, Ashland.news 

A project proposal by St. Louis-based firm McCormack Baron Salazar aimed at outlining a proposed housing development for senior independent living near the southeast corner of the Southern Oregon University campus could cost upwards of $64 million, pending selection by an evaluation committee and a finalized project plan.

The for-profit company is one of two finalists that recently presented distinct project proposals to the public and SOU faculty and staff, with McCormack sharing with about 100 attendees on Friday afternoon at the SOU Music Recital Hall their pitch to build what could be a 100-unit, five-story complex, with the potential to adapt project size and amenities to residential needs.

Nonprofit Pacific Retirement Services, which operates the Rogue Valley Manor in Medford, presented to the public on Wednesday, as well as to a seven-member evaluation committee following the public presentation. The evaluation committee meets Monday, July 12, to discuss both presentations. At stake is a public-private partnership spanning 100 years or more that will likely be considered for approval by the SOU Board of Trustees this fall, according to SOU officials.

The project began with the demolition of the Cascade Hall Complex this spring, which now sits vacant awaiting a developer.

Rob Patridge, SOU’s General Counsel and university lead on the project, noted that details of project proposals are subject to change, but that the presentations give Ashlanders an idea of who would be the best fit for the university and broader community.

“We’re really looking for the right partner for SOU and the community to develop, build and operate a retirement educational opportunity here on campus that we anticipate will last 100 years or more,” Patridge said.

SOU President Rick Bailey asked those in the crowd who attended the Wednesday, July 11, presentation to raise their hands, which flew up throughout the recital hall.

“You can see, there’s some interest,” Bailey said. 

Bailey has emphasized since arriving at SOU in January 2022 that the university must change its fiscal model and become more nimble, innovative and entrepreneurial. On Friday, Bailey again stressed the need to find ways to generate revenue outside of significantly increasing student tuition.

“We need to be far more innovative and entrepreneurial in the way we think about how we run our organization from a fiscal standpoint,” he said.

McCormack Baron Salazar

For Joe Weatherly, of McCormack Baron Salazar, the presentation wasn’t his first time to the Rogue Valley. With a sister-in-law who used to live in Medford, Weatherly said he’s been to the valley many times, including a spill in the Rogue River on a previous rafting trip in Southern Oregon, drawing light laughter from the crowd.

Weatherly vowed a better experience this time around, outlining the company’s project proposal to develop up to a five-story apartment high-rise building with one and two-bedroom apartments at the former site of the Cascade Hall Complex. The approximately 100-unit development is meant for independent seniors, in addition to creating public spaces that would cultivate community.

“We didn’t want to go too big,” Weatherly said of the unit-count, explaining why the project proposal has fewer apartments than that of Pacific Retirement Services’s 165-185 units. 

“It could be too big to finance if you go much larger.”

Among considerations for amenities are rooftop community spaces and/or gardens, fitness opportunities, more community space for OLLI courses and more.

The proposed housing development would likely be operated by a third-party property manager, according to Weatherly.

“These are homes, this isn’t just an apartment building,” said Angie Eslinger, architect and Senior Living Market Leader for Lawrence Group. “You can’t force community, so it’s our job to bring the things to the community that are exciting and make you want to get out of your apartment.”

The process of creating a housing development involves moving parts and a process to bring them together, according to Eslinger.

“Housing is like puzzle pieces that you stack on top of each other to get the form and the mass,” Esslinger said. 

“On this particular property, we looked at one- to two-bedroom apartments as those building blocks and started to consider different things around the property to start shaping the building,” she added.

Eslinger described the site of the former Cascade Hall Complex as an “anchor” between the lower and upper portions of the SOU campus.

“We didn’t want to block views, I don’t think that is going to be a problem, now having stood on the empty site and looked around,” Eslinger said.

“Housing can start to look repetitive with all of the little window cubes stacked on top of each other … you have to do it to a certain extent, but we like to maximize the window size in the units to the greatest extent possible so you can maximize your views.”

Both Weatherly and Eslinger emphasized a team of individuals throughout the country, who were unable to make the trip in person, would be working on this project, pending the company’s selection by SOU.

“A project of this scale is not one person, it’s not one idea,” Eslinger said, noting there would be collaboration across areas of expertise within the company.

McCormack Baron Salazar focuses on building independent sustainable housing projects, including for seniors, with projects spanning all across the country and in Puerto Rico. The company expanded to the West Coast in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and into Oregon in 2020, with three properties in Polk County, including a fraternity house.

“We are not focused solely on profitability,” Weatherly said. 

“A lot of what we do is partnering with anchoring institutions, like universities, hospital systems,” he added.

Weatherly noted that the company has properties that accept pets, adding, “That was important to us.”

Some of their properties include amenities such as indoor/outdoor pet wash rooms, possibilities for this campus as well, if desired.

“All of our projects are custom to the situation,” Weatherly said. “We don’t have a cookie-cutter approach at all.

“What we don’t want to do is just show up and kind of legislate what the project is going to be without hearing from the community.”

Weatherly also noted details and price points are subject to change, including the $64 million price estimate, as the project evolves with resident priorities and as directed by SOU.

“The price of this will change as the building will change,” he said. “This is just a jumping-off point based on what we submitted.”

Eslinger emphasized the SOU senior living development would access a plethora of cross-market expertise, including architectural services, furnishings and landscaping services, among others.

“All of that really does come into putting a building together,” Eslinger said. “Just to know it all comes from one spot is nice, and, honestly, it does translate to dollars at the end of the day.”

Weatherly emphasized that McCormack Baron Salazar has refined its method of housing development since starting in 1973.

“It’s not just the volume of what we’ve done … it’s how we’ve done it,” he said. “We’re very flexible in every aspect of what we do.”

Speaking to that flexibility, an attendee from the audience asked whether the proposed facility could include a childcare facility. Eslinger said that could “easily be incorporated if that was a need.”

Bailey has reiterated that the project aims to create a new revenue stream from the proposed project, with specifics on how that will look dependent on which entity the university chooses. 

“Someday it will seem like we really knew what we were doing,” Bailey said, jokingly, “because there’s so many other benefits that many people in this room have shared with us about what it really means to step into intergenerational connectivity. I am convinced that this project, by the time it is complete and with the brain power that we have in the room, is going to role model that better than anywhere else in the country.”

Annice “Olena” Black, who turned 81 on Saturday, was among those in the audience who expressed excitement about living on the campus in the future. Black said she has plans to spend much of her time at Hannon Library to write her master’s degree thesis well into her 80s.

The daughter of a school teacher educated at SOU in the 1930s, Black has donated her family’s diaries and papers dating back to the 1860s regarding school history in Southern Oregon. She hopes to spend the next decade poring through it, pursuing a higher ed degree and living amongst likeminded seniors who are also active. 

“I’m getting old and I don’t like living alone and I want to move into congregant living,” Black told Ashland.news following the presentation. 

SOU Trustee Barry Thalden, also in attendance on Friday, praised the presentation and the project overall. Thalden, an architect, founded the firm of Thalden, Boyd, Emery Architects, in Las Vegas in 1971.

“It’s great to have experts here that have done a lot of housing around the country and share their views about possibilities,” said Thalden. 

Thalden noted that the project shows SOU to be “forward-thinking” in its approach to navigating financial difficulties, and that the higher education institution is one that is about “helping to educate the population forever.”  

Feedback on the project proposal is being accepted through the SOU website through Sunday.

For more information about McCormack Baron Salazar, go online to mccormackbaron.com/our-team/joseph-weatherly.

Reach Ashland.news reporter Holly Dillemuth at [email protected].

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Proposed senior housing facility aims to help seniors ‘age more successfully’ at SOU (July 10, 2025)

SOU President: ‘We can’t continue to cut our way to some type of success’ (June 24, 2025)

SOU President Bailey says ‘stark’ financial woes facing Oregon universities in 2025-26 constitute a ‘crisis’  (June 8, 2025)

Oregon’s economic outlook clouded by tariffs and federal spending cuts – OPB (May 15, 2025)

Federal issue, local impact: Stalled student loan application decisions ding SOU enrollment (Sept. 8, 2024)

‘This is a bittersweet day’: Trustees approve ‘SOU Forward’ plan for realignment – Ashland News (April 21, 2023)

SOU realignment plan up for adoption by Board of Trustees on Friday afternoon (April 20, 2023)