Vacant to Vibrant Project Completes Final Storefront Installation in Downtown Roseburg
Vacant to Vibrant has completed its final storefront installation, filling the Jackson Street windows of the former Payless and Rite Aid building with hundreds of portraits created by Roseburg and Oakland community members.
ROSEBURG, Ore. - Hundreds of community-made portraits now fill the windows of one of downtown Roseburg’s most recognizable vacant buildings, completing a public art project that began with a shared idea nearly one year ago.
Organizers of Vacant to Vibrant installed the artwork along the Southeast Jackson Street side of the former Payless Drug Store and Rite Aid building this week. The portraits were created by people of nearly every age during a series of community workshops held in Roseburg and Oakland.
The installation marks the final storefront completed through the project, which was developed by local artists after Thrive Umpqua’s Longest Table event invited participants to share ideas they wanted to see become reality in the community.
Julie Bailey and fellow organizer Rachelle O’Brien separately submitted nearly identical suggestions calling for art to be displayed in vacant storefronts. The two did not know each other and were not sitting together at the event.
“Thrive emailed us and said, ‘Congratulations, you just won a grant to do this project,’” Bailey said. “That’s how it started, almost a year ago.”
What followed was a series of approximately eight workshops in Roseburg and Oakland. Participants used paper, yarn, found objects and other upcycled materials to create individual portraits that, when displayed together, form a larger portrait of the community.
Organizers said the workshops brought together everyone from very young children to adults. Approximately 130 Oakland High School students also participated.
“People were just so happy to be together, making stuff and being creative,” O’Brien said. “It was a really great experience for all of us.”
The project’s first completed installation filled the windows of the former Tolly’s building in downtown Oakland. Organizers said the brightly colored artwork and nighttime lighting gave people something new to see while walking through an area where vacant storefronts are often dark after business hours.
“It just brings warmth to the community, and it’s something to stroll by and look at,” O’Brien said.
The Roseburg installation now brings that same idea to the large windows facing Southeast Jackson Street. The building was originally a Payless Drug Store before later becoming a Rite Aid. It has remained vacant since Rite Aid moved to another downtown location in 2005.
The Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Tribe of Indians purchased the building and the neighboring former Safeway property in 2024. The Tribe allowed Vacant to Vibrant to use the windows while rehabilitation work continues and the property awaits its next chapter.
The portraits are expected to remain in place for as long as work on the building allows. Bailey said they will eventually need to be removed when the windows are replaced, but the Tribe has agreed to leave the display up as long as possible.
Members of the public are invited to see the completed installation during Thrive Umpqua’s Longest Table event on Sept. 13. Organizers plan to illuminate the portraits that evening and invite residents to pitch ideas for the next community project.
Until redevelopment work moves forward, the artwork gives the long-empty Jackson Street windows a temporary new purpose and offers a visible reminder of the hundreds of people who helped create it.
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