How things are done at U.C. Nike
Here's a wild one in Willy Week: Phil Knight's building a new sports building on the University of Oregon campus, but nobody in the administration of the university admits to knowing any of the details of the project. When Uncle Phil wants to build something, they just "lease" him the land, no questions asked, and when he's had his way with the property, he just surrenders it back with his new toy on it. During the construction, everything's "private," and therefore secret.
It's a little like the Penn State football program in that regard.
| Posted at 9:41 AM | Permalink |
|
Comments (11)
Hes going to build an awesome new sports facility for others to use free and wants it to be a surprise. Cry me a river.
Posted by Hop | February 3, 2012 10:16 AM
So the university (still part of state government, at least for now) leases real property for the purpose of making permanent changes and improvements upon it while avoiding oversight and public contracting laws. Anybody thought of challenging this sham?
Posted by Conrad | February 3, 2012 10:23 AM
Yeah, Hop. And then the college gets to pay to maintain it in perpetuity and only athletes can use it although Phil's projects are taking more and more of the University's property.
But then we don't know all of the details yet, do we?
Posted by NW Portlander | February 3, 2012 10:45 AM
God help us!
If I keep reading this blog I might go crazy!
The corruption/incompetence/arrogance of those who think they own us and everything around us!
What do we do? Whatever can we do?
It makes one wish for the economic collapse just to see something different for a change.
Posted by Al M | February 3, 2012 10:49 AM
This property is not on campus
Posted by nick | February 3, 2012 11:30 AM
Yup, after the Penn State comments ole Uncle Phil is 100% on my S**t list. It's time to cut the cord with Mr. Moneybagsblabbermouth.
Posted by Bart | February 3, 2012 11:36 AM
The University still owns the land, so it seems like the developer should have to follow public bidding laws. And the project is obviously an improvement to public property. I suppose there is Union labor on the project, otherwise they'd be howling. If the project labor isn't making prevailing wage or Union wage, that would be quite the scandal.
Posted by dg | February 3, 2012 12:14 PM
This is exactly how the athletes-only study hall -- the Jacqua Center -- was built, and one of the explicit goals there was to avoid both university supervision and having to deal with unions or pay the prevailing wage.
Posted by Roger | February 3, 2012 1:10 PM
It's all private $ so, I think, PWR doesn't apply. But I think Hoffman and UO would be concerned about their images here - Hoffman is a Union shop and I think the UO would be sensitive to labor issues considering it's relationship w. Nike and Phil Knight. You'd think they wouldn't want a construction "sweatshop" right on their property.
Posted by dg | February 3, 2012 1:31 PM
As my dad use to say about "cow puckys", Oregon/Knight is trying to avoid more than the union "cow puckys", but some of the government "cow puckys". The load of government regs, paperwork, graft and puckys is endless. Owners and contractors can save 20% to 25% in avoiding the crap of both.
Posted by lw | February 3, 2012 2:04 PM
Just looked at Hoffman's RFP for the project (in a public planroom) and it's a PWR project.
Sorry for the multiple posts...
Posted by dg | February 3, 2012 2:15 PM