due yu nowe how mutch a bazebull er nfl staydium cozt tu build???? yu aktually think thiz ciddy wood evur come kloze tu building won? mlb and nfl r nevur cuming here sawker or naught. NEHVER
It'd cost 10-15 times as much money to bring MLB or NFL here, the soccer money is a drop in the bucket in comparison. I do hope the AAA stadium is built with upgradability to MLB in mind. We're a decade or two away from MLB though
Same place it was before. Oregon already passed a bill coming up with a chunk of it, and the prospective owner would come up with the rest. Which loosely translates to "when hell freezes over, we'll get a team".
You may wish to rexamine your numbers. The baseball proposal would have moved the post office out of the Pearl or the Portland Public Schools out of their current HQ and moved them elsewhere where land was less valuable. It would have created retail around either of those areas as well as significant parking revenue. When you take a look at the cost of rebuilding Civic YET AGAIN, you also have to factor in the cost of NOT putting retail and condos at the RG, which would have filled the coffers so much more than what will be put there.
For the record, I don't understand why people are so comfortable with supporting one stadium measure because they like the sport and agains another because they don't like the sport. My position is that the more sports Portland can attract, the better. Now, I happen to like basketball, baseball, football, hockey and soccer, so whichever ones we get is a win for me.
Why are the two (upgrading PGE Park; and putting retail and condos at the RG) mutually exclusive? If anything, I would say the two work well together, since upgrading PGE moves the new AAA baseball stadium to the Rose Quarter and the new baseball stadium makes retail/restaurant more viable in the region than the moribund Memorial Coliseum. Plus, I think the AAA baseball stadium at the MC site is much more palatable to the veterans than a Dave & Busters or [insert cheesy chain concept here]. Merritt Paulson has already agreed in principle to have the name of the new baseball park incorporate some deference to veterans and he has also agreed to construct a new physical memorial outside the stadium. -Pop
Not according to Larry Miller and the Cordish Companies (developer of choice). Miller was on the BFT last week talking about it and he said there is enough land to incorporate a new ballpark and the PortlandLIVE concept they are talking about. They may have to relocate some of the offices that are currently in the building where the Rebound Clinic is, but other than that there is plenty of room. The Blazers also own four acres adjacent to the grain silos right on the river. A 9,000 seat stadium is not going to have that large of a footprint. -Pop
9000 seating stadium is going to be significantly smaller than the 19,000 seating PGE park. Have you guys seen the buzz that Seattle has been having with their new MLS team? If PGE park keeps its average attendance between 7500 - 8500 this upcoming season and we know we will get an expansion team in 2011 I bet we would get at least 9,000 average our first year in the MLS.
This town is soccer crazy. I've always been a football guy myself, but we were way ahead of the soccer curve when I was growing up. If we get MLS, it will be huge here. And if Vancouver also gets a team, then the Timbers/Sounders/Whitecaps rivalry will be reborn, making MLS even bigger in the Pacific NW.
I agree with maxiep. Politicians will find out if we do get the MLS, and we get some mexican or brazilian star player from their home country you know that they have a fan base. Thats at least another 500-1000 people right there.
Here is a brief breakdown on how the funds are going to be set. I don't know if any of you saw this. http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2009/03/soccer_deal_okd_short_some_gre.html
Latest money hiccup. Read up folks. http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2009/03/financial_gap_could_block_socc.html I thought the city of portland was only 15 million in the hole. I guess its worse than this. Crazy.
They're adding up the 15m in proposed URD or ticket/alcahol tax money with the 11.8m Paulson already agreed to seek, which could include adding MLS to the Baseball Bill. There is nothing new in this article.
Well, if being an additional $15 million short and using even more tax money to simply try and start the team isn't "new", then I guess there is nothing new. Meanwhile, some of us are concerned that the process of simply putting together funding to start the team has been full of over-promises and under-financing, and all for a league that has struggled to be relevant. I heard Paulson on The Fan last week basically say they expected to sell out every game (~22k) and were using that as a part of their financial model. Anytime somebody has to put the absolute best-case forward as a part of their presentation, I start to get even more skeptical.
The RG is a horrid area for development. It just will never be a happening place. Blocked by freeway... river.. bridge... just sucks. Works fine to go for a game... but what idiot would buy a condo there? I don't see it... they couldn't even keep a few restaurants afloat.
