This is what I would like to see, if we couldn't keep the Beavers around because the city didn't own a good sized amount of land that would fit the stadium, why not purchase a lot like this one to hold on to so that we would have a space for a new stadium.

^ Plus, since its going to be a decade or more before anyone could actually get a new team, thats about how long it will take to plan and move the school district from their site and acquire it.

Just makes sense to me to keep the RQ area a sports and athletic dominated one. It just doesn't have enough things (programming to you urban planners) to keep it busy. Financially, its actually a success.

Yeah, I wouldnt want to live next to a freeway + onramp. Growing food there would likely be polluted by the massive amount of toxic fumes and grit coming off the trucks, trains, and roads. You'd basically be cramming people into an industrial area right next to a grain ship loading dock, separated from the neighborhood by I5. We have a lot of other areas that need to also develop residential... I'd like the city to try to funnel development to fill out the Pearl District, NW and downtown first.

Exactly, this would be a great chance for the city to plan for the future and be able to take their time with it to make sure it is done right, and if we are lucky the moving will happen in time for the city to score another minor league team and properly build a ballpark that can easily be expanded into a pro stadium.

Plus I also agree that this is a poorly planned area to stimulate any kind of housing options, therefore it makes sense to keep this area a sports/entertainment zone. I have no problems incorporating a entertainment district in that area that caters to the amount of sports and other events, but not every area in the city needs to be dedicated to housing.

How do you guys feel about Sam Adams pushing for a Costco to go into this area?

^ any way you look at it, it will be a direct and enormous subsidy to Costco corp. All retailer giants, like the faux-wholesale Costco, have strategic plans for markets. If they wanted to spend the money they could have built in inner Portland years ago, but that's not their business model because it's far too expensive and they know their customers are willing to drive a long distance.

If a Costco is subsidized into the inner areas a lot of local distributors and supply businesses would probably lose their niche markets and go out of business.

Costco would suck money out of our already stretched economy into the hands of Jim Sinegal, Jeff Brotman, the Seattle area, and its investors worldwide.

Costco, like Walmart and Lowe's and Ikea, make cheap consumer goods that are not sustainable in product quality nor distribution methodology.

Lastly, PPS does not want to move. I support PPS.

Actually, PPS says they're not wedded to the Blanchard Bldg. They don't care if they stay or go, as long as it's cost neutral to them. Seeing as they're closing some schools, they likely have several vacant alternate locations to move the functions out of the Blanchard.

How about a Costco with a stadium on top? :)

I hadn't heard that Sam wants a Costco in the Rose Quarter. Yikes.

I agree with the sentiments above about keeping it a sports and entertainment complex. Really, I think that's the only option that makes sense. I'm strongly in favor of creating neighborhoods close in - expanding inward rather than outward - and there's a lot of potential for that in inner SE, but take a look on a map and you'll see that this site is more or less stranded. It has connections to everything but immediate access to nothing. Putting a baseball stadium here makes a lot of sense.

Zilfondel, I certainly see your point. I wasn't thinking about the freeway being right there. However, if we're looking a bit farther into the future with our urban planning, there is a very real chance that peak oil will mean a re-purposing of our freeways. And yes, I know a lot of people find that hard to believe.

I don't think that a "sports and entertainment" program will do much for that area. In fact, I'm not even sure what that means -- something similar to what the Blazers were pushing right across the street? I like the idea of a giant public athletic complex (like the MERC proposal for MC), but who is going to pay for it? The Costco idea strikes me as horrific, if only for the traffic it will bring to what is already a clusterf*ck. And I worry that a Costco will lend weight to ODOT's crazy plans (multiple flyovers and demolition of several residential buildings) for expanding I-5 through that area.

Residential development is apparently in the running for the MC-and-vicinity plans as part of rebuilding the street frontage along Broadway between the bridge and Williams. The idea is that a big part of the reason for the failure of that area is that it is dead most of the time and there is no constituency of people for whom it is their neighborhood. And the urban design is, obviously, awful. I don't see how adding more of what is already there will be an improvement, but I guess i could be convinced. The baseball stadium seems most compelling to me.

Another component of a possible mixed-use project on the PPS site would be a "transit center" of some sort with easy connections between MAX and streetcar.

Kind of sounds like South Waterfront. ;)

Actually, Costco did attempt to build a store in NW about 10 or 15 years ago. It would have been at Nicolai and Yeon, on what is still to this day an enormous vacant lot. The neighborhood shot it down because of fears over increased traffic.

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=4...14795&t=h&z=17

I think its a horrible idea. Big box stores fit the suburbs well, I don't see why we should subsidize them - or any retail - with tax dollars. Besides, there are a lot of Costco stores already in Oregon. If Costco wants to locate a store closer in, I'm sure they can buy land and develop it.

From an urban design standpoint, they are really not very pedestrian friendly.

Considering that the current PPS HQ isn't exactly adding a whole lot to the neighborhood... I can't see any reason that a sports stadium, located near a MAX station and near the central city, would really hurt. It would attract large amounts of people to the area, but not necessarily during rush hour (which a Costco would), and people would be much more likely to ride transit to get there. Also, it would help give a boost to any restaurants and retail co's in the area, as it would draw people in during the baseball season.

Also, consider this:

(quotes from wikipedia)

So the seasons basically would compliment each other. Baseball plays a LOT Of games, so you'll have bodies in the area more consistently through the year.

Paul Allen could help pay for it. Maybe we should also convince Phil Knight to buy a baseball team. They could be called the "Phil Knighters" or something, I dunno. :D

Let Phil Knight pay for it and call the team the Portland Knights. Or the Portland Swoosh. Or not. In fact, preferably not :)

Uncle Phil already bought a baseball team - they're called the Ducks.

(rim shot)

They just finished a store in Vancouver, off 192nd Ave.

And that thing went up like lightning, too! Those big box stores are like the borg, resistance is futile.

:haha: oh wait, that is kind of true....um, good for the Phil Knight Ducks.


In all reality, regardless how much I love baseball, I don't see Portland ever having anything more than a AAA team, simply because the cost that goes into running a MLB team would more than likely make Portland a subsidized and that is something MLB doesn't need, they need teams that make more money than it costs so that they can help cover the cost of teams that are losing money. Best example, the Pittsburgh Pirates are basically a welfare team for MLB, Portland would probably be in the same boat as the Pirates after the first few years.

But the baseball fan in me won't care and would love to be cheering for a Portland MLB team, so I have always been torn with that issue.

!!!!!!!

Wow. Really? Pittsburgh is such a sports town. I used to go to Pirates games when I lived there. I had a friend with season tickets right next to first base. God, it was great! If MLB can't turn a profit in sports town like PITTSBURGH!!! ...that's a shocker to me. Wow.

MLB Revenue Sharing

Here is an interesting little article for you that was written last summer talking about the Pirates and the MLB Revenue Sharing, which is where much of the Pirates, and a few other teams profits come from. The money is meant to be used to help poorer teams be better, but there is no clause saying owners can't pocket it and call it profit. Basically, MLB doesn't need more teams like this and I have a feeling Portland would be one of those team which would have a low player salary and basically hoping to make it with rookie talent. Or in other words, I heard Cubs fans at Wrigley when playing the Pirates yelling out to them something about just being the minor league team for the Yankees cause if you can prove yourself and get a high paycheck, you aren't going to be staying in Pittsburgh.

If I am not mistaken, I would say the Mariners kind of suffer from this too. I don't know the whole story but they were not able to keep an ace like Cliff Lee into sticking around.

Next idea for Coliseum: a soundstage
POSTED: Tuesday, June 7, 2011 at 02:15 PM PT
BY: Nick Bjork
Daily Journal of Commerce
Tags: Memorial Coliseum, Portland Development Commission

When architect Gary Bastien received a call proposing the transformation of Veterans Memorial Coliseum into a gigantic soundstage, he thought the idea was farfetched. As principal of Tustin, Calif.-based Bastien and Associates, which designs film and television studios, Bastien says he knows that most such projects would not be feasible.

But then he heard about the unique nature of the coliseum: a large, oval, free span, concrete seating bowl supported by four 7-foot-diameter concrete columns.

A local team – with Bastien’s help – has a plan to convert the city-owned arena, used mostly for sporting events, into a media production center with three theaters and the largest self-contained, fully integrated urban soundstage in the world. The team says its proposed project would not only create jobs but also let the city avoid spending property tax dollars it planned to use to repair and upgrade the facility.

“I wasn’t familiar with this building at first, so I just wasn’t sure,” Bastien said. “But then I found out about the height of the building, the structural support and the fact that there are no columns within the structure.

“I’ve seen a lot of these types of projects and they don’t usually make sense. But the more I find out about this one the more it seems like an ideal structure.”

The plan – led by Portland residents Tim Lawrence, founder of Digital Works Productions, and Rob Cornilles, founder of consulting firm Game Face – is to transform the coliseum’s interior into three soundstages totaling 51,000 square feet. The redevelopment would also include three theaters: a live-performance theater with 875 seats and two screening theaters with 250 seats each. Additionally, there would be four stories of office space, as well as some storage space.

The redevelopment would cost approximately $81 million. Federal tax credits would provide from $25 million to $50 million, and private, out-of-state investors would supply the rest.

Since an effort successfully prevented Veterans Memorial Coliseum from being torn down to make room for a new baseball stadium, the city has looked for a way to increase the economic viability of the arena, which is used for minor league hockey and concerts.

Those discussions culminated last month, when city officials pitched the idea of using $20 million in Oregon Convention Center Urban Renewal Area money to upgrade the facility and make repairs. Portland City Council will make a decision at its June 22 meeting.

“We’re asking the city to keep any money (it has) set aside for the coliseum upgrades and use it for something like affordable housing,” Cornilles said. “We have an idea here that not only creates jobs and fits into the city’s industry clusters, but can be completely supported without public dollars.”

The city’s economic development plan is focused on six industry clusters. With popular shows like “Portlandia” and “Leverage” being filmed in town, the team believes that film and media should be a seventh industry targeted by the city, and this project should be part of that.

“We’re talking economic development here,” Cornilles said. “This building can go from a money pit to a revenue generator.”

But the plan has not been received well by the city.

“The mayor is very supportive of film, television and other media production in Portland, and he is certainly interested in projects that would further development of those industries as an economic driver in our city,” said Cary Clarke, the mayor’s arts and culture policy coordinator. “The proposal for a media complex and production facility in Portland is an exciting one, but the Veterans Memorial Coliseum is headed in a different direction and not available as a location for this kind of development.”

Clarke added that Mayor Sam Adams and the Portland Development Commission would be interested in discussing other possible locations for the proposed facility.

Cornilles and Lawrence said they’ve both had productive meetings with the mayor’s office and city councilors, as well as initial meetings with the PDC. They believe their idea should at least be considered.

“They can’t make a truly educated decision without all the information,” Cornilles said. “We want a chance to present our idea to the city and the public so we can show them that this thing can work.”

http://djcoregon.com/news/2011/06/07...-a-soundstage/