City Government
Ashland City Council approves taller buildings at SOU
Ashland City Councilors unanimously approved increasing taller buildings at SOU, making way for a plan to build a five-story building for seniors.
July 17, 2025
Ashland City Councilors unanimously approved increasing taller buildings at SOU, making way for a plan to build a five-story building for seniors.
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.
An estimated 120 to 150 attendees trickled into Southern Oregon University’s Recital Hall on Wednesday to learn more about the Rogue Valley Manor’s parent company Pacific Retirement Services and its pitch to operate a senior living housing development proposed for the Ashland campus. Another company will talk about its plans on Friday afternoon.
Officials from the cities of Ashland and Guanajuato renewed their 55-year-old Sister City relationship during a breakfast gathering Thursday in the Rogue River Room of Stevenson Union at Southern Oregon University.
The owners of Rogue Valley Manor in Medford are among two finalists to become an official partner to build and operate a senior living and educational facility on Southern Oregon University’s Ashland campus. Pacific Retirement Services, will make its on-campus presentation from 9 to 9:50 a.m. Wednesday, July 9. McCormack Baron Salazar makes its presentation from 1:30 to 2:20 p.m. Friday, July 11.
Southern Oregon University’s Board of Trustees has tasked SOU President Rick Bailey with recommending $5 million in budget cuts by the next board meeting on July 31 — $1.8 million more than previously anticipated to account for significantly low reserves in its $84 million budget for fiscal year 2025-26.
During a special dinner on Wednesday, June 11, SOU held its 22nd annual Lavender Graduation for LGBTQ+ students. Sweets Underwood, the event organizer for the Lavender Graduation, talked about the importance of creating spaces and bridging the gap for LGBTQ+ — lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer and/or questioning, plus other sexual and gender minorities — students in the community.
Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek surprised Southern Oregon University graduates on a sunny Saturday morning at the school’s 99th commencement ceremony. Kotek, who congratulated each graduate on the stage during the more than two-hour event, described the tumultuous times facing the class of 2025.
It’s a small space — 9.5 by 9.5 inches, 90.25 square inches — but many of the nearly 900 Southern Oregon University graduates in attendance at Saturday’s commencement ceremony took advantage of the moment, perched on the cusp of finishing one of life’s chapters with beginning another, to do some succinct summing up atop their mortarboards.
Southern Oregon University will welcome 880 class of 2025 graduates and their family, friends and well-wishers to Raider Stadium, 378 Wightman St., on Saturday morning for the university’s 99th Commencement ceremony.
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Ask Strider: A worried older brother asks our advice columnist’s advice. And a dog’s guardian wants to know if there is any hope getting their hat-hating dog to calm down. As always, Strider tries to give words that help!
After a successful production of “The Vagina Monologues” and raising more than $2,000 for Planned Parenthood of Southwestern Oregon, Ashland actor and director Lia Dugal intends for “The Climate Monologues” to premiere in Oregon in late 2025 or early 2026 at the Bellview Grange in Ashland.
It’s complicated.
Herbert Rothschild: Whether visualization and intention by themselves can effect broad social change is impossible to determine, but the question merits sustained consideration.
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