Issues for Grants Pass

My Golden Eagle Grants Pass didn’t disappoint during my tour. I was impressed with how they’ve overcome adversity, taken a new path, redone their downtown, embraced new artists, enticed entrepreneurs to town and worked together to accomplish better things for their citizens. Grants Pass exemplifies many of the qualities that I highlight in my talks about what differentiates the boomtowns from the also-rans.

But, all is not perfect in Grants Pass. The rapid influx of people from CA and Oregon’s development restrictions have exploded the price of housing in Grants Pass. Realtor Nancy Venutti told me, “The median house price was $318,000 last month. This would buy you a 1,800 to 2,000 sf three-bedroom home.” For the retirees flocking to the town from CA (over 20% of the town is over 65 years of age) it looks like a bargain, but its way too high for the average worker. Even higher than average annual wages of over $30,000 in the manufacturing and health care areas (27.5% of the workforce) are being priced out of this escalating housing market, which Nancy told me, “is going up by about $500/week.”

Charlie Mitchell, head of ED for the City is fully aware of the problem. He asked me, “How are we going to be able to attract workers in the future, if they can’t afford to live here?” He also made another great observation about the impact of the surging retirees, “Our school enrollment is growing much slower than the general population. School enrollment is the canary in the coal mine for a town like ours.”

Grants Pass’ downtown impressed me. It is better than what I typically see. But, it has even more potential. There are too many vacancies and the empty upstairs lofts need to be converted into residential housing. Getting more people in the downtown area at all hours is a sure sign of the type of booming downtown I love to see.

From the people I talked to in Grants Pass, I’d guess that they’re all over these issues. I plan to return in the future to see how the town develops. I’m certain that I will be impressed with what I see.