Madras to get art museum

Published 5:00 am Thursday, April 14, 2005

One of Oregon’s wealthiest entrepreneurs has purchased a 60,000-foot parcel of downtown Madras as the site for a museum of his personal art collection, a high-end restaurant and a gift store.

Robert Pamplin Jr. bought the 1.5-acre site at the corner of B and Fifth streets from The Opportunity Foundation of Central Oregon for $550,000. Pamplin signed the contract on Monday, seven months after he first offered to buy the property, said Pamplin spokesman Chet Orloff.

”He owns some property in the Madras area and felt that putting a museum there would be the best place from the point of access,” said Orloff, a professor at Portland State University and historical consultant for Pamplin. ”We want to help the community grow and we figured this would be a good facility to draw people to the community.”

Local officials hailed the sale as a turning point for downtown Madras.

”This project will enhance the downtown tremendously,” said Chamber of Commerce Director Parrish Van Wert. ”It will add not only to the draw of the downtown but it will encourage people to get out and walk,” which could benefit other local businesses.

Pamplin is the president and CEO of the R.B. Pamplin Corp., which has annual revenues of $700 million. According to his Web site, the corporation includes The Portland Tribune, KPAM Radio in Portland, Eastern Oregon farms and vineyards and the Mount Vernon Mills textile company in South Carolina. Locally, Pamplin owns the 60,000-acre R2R Ranch north of Madras as well as much of the ghost town of Shaniko.

Pamplin plans to display pieces from his collection of Native American and Western art and artifacts at the Madras museum, Orloff said. Pamplin’s art holdings, including a Virginia Civil War museum, are worth nearly $500 million, Orloff said.

His collection includes a rare Cheyenne/Arapaho ledger book that illustrates tribal life on the Great Plains, a collection of Western guns and even a stoneware horse sculpture from Han Dynasty China.

Putting the collection in Madras, at the intersection of U.S. highways 97 and 26, makes it accessible to people across Oregon, Orloff said.

For Madras residents, the project will bring something new to town, Van Wert said. ”Museums add to the quality of life and just the cultural aspect of the community,” Van Wert said.

Madras Mayor Rick Allen said the city has budgeted $250,000 in urban renewal funds that could be used to develop sidewalks and landscaping near the property.

”To have him locate in the heart of your downtown, that’s huge,” Allen said. ”It’s something you never would have thought possible.”The Pamplin museum’s broad focus should complement the Warm Springs Museum’s emphasis on the history of the Wasco, Paiute and Warm Springs tribes, said Warm Springs Museum Director Carol Leone.

”I think it would be a really great thing,” Leone said. ”We’re looking forward to doing some joint programming.”

In addition to the museum, Pamplin has slated a Your NorthWest store for the site. The eight-location chain sells products from Pamplin’s Columbia Empire Farms, including wine, preserves, smoked salmon and gourmet cakes.

The project is still in the planning stages, but Pamplin will seek local input as the museum moves forward, Orloff said.

”We’re not going to take a step without bringing in the Madras community,” he said.

The Opportunity Foundation plans to use money from the sale to build a vocational training center in the Madras area for developmentally delayed adults, said Ron Bryant, a foundation board member. The foundation currently rents a building for a thrift store and work center.

The $550,000 sale price allows the foundation to recoup the money it spent to clean up pollution on the site, which it bought in 2001, said Director Darrel Wilson. The parcel was contaminated from leaky hydraulic lifts and underground storage tanks, and required a year of work – including removal of asbestos and more than 950 tons of polluted dirt, Wilson said.

For more information on Pamplin, see www.pamplin.org.

Keith Chu can be reached at 541-383-0348 or at kchu@bendbulletin.com.