Portland Diamond Project (MLB) | Proposed

[MarkDaMan]

Originally Posted by urbanlife

Heck, I am confused that they are getting an NHL team, I guess they have enough of a fan base for that or they have someone wealthy enough that is really into hockey.

If Jody Allen had sold the Blazers operations to Knight, we would probably have had a hat in the ring for the franchise. Instead, we have a losing team, inactive owner, aging arena, and an organization that doesn't appear to have anything exciting to engage the community. C'mon Jody, sell the team!

[urbanlife]

Originally Posted by MarkDaMan

If Jody Allen had sold the Blazers operations to Knight, we would probably have had a hat in the ring for the franchise. Instead, we have a losing team, inactive owner, aging arena, and an organization that doesn't appear to have anything exciting to engage the community. C'mon Jody, sell the team!

I don't buy this because if Knight wants to bring a MLB team to Portland, nothing is preventing him from doing so. His offer to the Jody Allen was such a low ball offer, he was just hoping to buy the team for cheap and she was wise enough not to sell it to him for his low ball offer.

I could see Knight not wanting to pursue a NHL team because he doesn't own the Blazers, but MLB is looking to expanding and MLB2PDX would do well with someone like Knight being the primary financial backer.

[MarkDaMan]

Originally Posted by urbanlife

I don't buy this because if Knight wants to bring a MLB team to Portland, nothing is preventing him from doing so. His offer to the Jody Allen was such a low ball offer, he was just hoping to buy the team for cheap and she was wise enough not to sell it to him for his low ball offer.

I could see Knight not wanting to pursue a NHL team because he doesn't own the Blazers, but MLB is looking to expanding and MLB2PDX would do well with someone like Knight being the primary financial backer.

That's just not true. Phil Knight's starting offer was above $2B. The Utah Jazz, a smaller but similiar market sold for $1.66B in 2020 and only 7 teams have sold above $1B. While sales of teams are not an everyday occurance and values are rising into the multiple billions of dollars, his offer was neither offensive nor final. But Jody wouldn't even have a conversation with his representatives.

I don't know if Knight has any desire to be an MLB owner but I do know if he was an owner of the Blazers and the Rose Quarter, he'd be looking to maximize those investments by luring in additional pro sports including NHL and the WNBA.

[babs]

Originally Posted by MarkDaMan

That's just not true. Phil Knight's starting offer was above $2B. The Utah Jazz, a smaller but similiar market sold for $1.66B in 2020 and only 7 teams have sold above $1B. While sales of teams are not an everyday occurance and values are rising into the multiple billions of dollars, his offer was neither offensive nor final. But Jody wouldn't even have a conversation with his representatives.

I don't know if Knight has any desire to be an MLB owner but I do know if he was an owner of the Blazers and the Rose Quarter, he'd be looking to maximize those investments by luring in additional pro sports including NHL and the WNBA.

I've done a bit of traveling this fall and winter, attending NBA games in many cities. The Moda Center was state of the art 30 years ago. Unfortunately, it may now qualify as one of the worst NBA arenas. It's the lack of investment that's causing me to wonder if Jody plans to move the team and then sell it for a larger sum. Her lack of communication with Portlanders about her long term vision for the team makes me nervous.

[PhillyPDX]

Originally Posted by babs

I've done a bit of traveling this fall and winter, attending NBA games in many cities. The Moda Center was state of the art 30 years ago. Unfortunately, it may now qualify as one of the worst NBA arenas. It's the lack of investment that's causing me to wonder if Jody plans to move the team and then sell it for a larger sum. Her lack of communication with Portlanders about her long term vision for the team makes me nervous.

Talk out there of a Vegas team...come on Phil! Or at least Jody to show that you care to win and also intend to maintain the team in Portland.

[urbanlife]

Originally Posted by MarkDaMan

That's just not true. Phil Knight's starting offer was above $2B. The Utah Jazz, a smaller but similiar market sold for $1.66B in 2020 and only 7 teams have sold above $1B. While sales of teams are not an everyday occurance and values are rising into the multiple billions of dollars, his offer was neither offensive nor final. But Jody wouldn't even have a conversation with his representatives.

I don't know if Knight has any desire to be an MLB owner but I do know if he was an owner of the Blazers and the Rose Quarter, he'd be looking to maximize those investments by luring in additional pro sports including NHL and the WNBA.

That was 2020, now the Utah Jazz are valued at about $3 billion, which is roughly how much the Blazers are valued. Moda Center will be going through renovations, and a sale of the time probably wouldn't happen until after that, which in that amount of time the value of the team will most likely continue to rise. This is why Knight's offer wasn't considered. I wouldn't have been surprised if she sold the team to him if he has come in at a high $3 billion or even $4 billion.

Jody has been looking into bringing in the WNBA to Portland, but based on the WNBA, that won't happen until the Moda Center is renovated because they don't want renovations to disrupt the team since their league plays in the summers when renovations would typically happen.

Originally Posted by babs

I've done a bit of traveling this fall and winter, attending NBA games in many cities. The Moda Center was state of the art 30 years ago. Unfortunately, it may now qualify as one of the worst NBA arenas. It's the lack of investment that's causing me to wonder if Jody plans to move the team and then sell it for a larger sum. Her lack of communication with Portlanders about her long term vision for the team makes me nervous.

The Moda Center is planning to renovate the arena in the coming years to upgrade and modernize the building. So I wouldn't be concerned with any plans to move the team, plus I doubt the NBA would allow for another move like that with a popular team.

Originally Posted by PhillyPDX

Talk out there of a Vegas team...come on Phil! Or at least Jody to show that you care to win and also intend to maintain the team in Portland.

The Blazers are in full rebuild right now, the winning part is years away. They are gonna be a tank team for the next couple years at least to maximize their draft prospects. Basically we are watching the Blazers do what OKC did several years ago.

[MarkDaMan]

Originally Posted by urbanlife

That was 2020, now the Utah Jazz are valued at about $3 billion, which is roughly how much the Blazers are valued. Moda Center will be going through renovations, and a sale of the time probably wouldn't happen until after that, which in that amount of time the value of the team will most likely continue to rise. This is why Knight's offer wasn't considered. I wouldn't have been surprised if she sold the team to him if he has come in at a high $3 billion or even $4 billion.

Jody has been looking into bringing in the WNBA to Portland, but based on the WNBA, that won't happen until the Moda Center is renovated because they don't want renovations to disrupt the team since their league plays in the summers when renovations would typically happen.

Jody didn't even engage though. Had she said to Phil, come up with $4B and it's yours, he probably would have made it happen. Jody is an absent owner who lost our star player, tanked the team and seems disengaged with the community.

If she was serious about WNBA, they could have updated the Memorial Colisuem over the next two years prior to the start of the Moda overhaul to make it suitable as a temporary venue. Hell, they could even use it for a Blazer season too. Would be incredibly nostalgic to watch the Blazers play on the same home court that featuryed Drexler, Duckworth, Kersey, and Walton.

[urbanlife]

Originally Posted by MarkDaMan

Jody didn't even engage though. Had she said to Phil, come up with $4B and it's yours, he probably would have made it happen. Jody is an absent owner who lost our star player, tanked the team and seems disengaged with the community.

If she was serious about WNBA, they could have updated the Memorial Colisuem over the next two years prior to the start of the Moda overhaul to make it suitable as a temporary venue. Hell, they could even use it for a Blazer season too. Would be incredibly nostalgic to watch the Blazers play on the same home court that featuryed Drexler, Duckworth, Kersey, and Walton.

It's probably because the team wasn't for sale. As an owner, she seems pretty present to me, and for losing Dame, that was going to happen since Olshey screwed over the team with all his mediocre moves. As for tanking, that's the smartest thing the team can do post Dame. Look at OKC, they tanked and picked up a lot of quality players through the draft and now have a solid playoff team.

The problem with the WNBA is that the WNBA didn't want the team playing in a temporary home at all. Portland will most likely get a WNBA team after renovating the Moda Center.

[uncommon.name]

Originally Posted by urbanlife

It's probably because the team wasn't for sale. As an owner, she seems pretty present to me, and for losing Dame, that was going to happen since Olshey screwed over the team with all his mediocre moves. As for tanking, that's the smartest thing the team can do post Dame. Look at OKC, they tanked and picked up a lot of quality players through the draft and now have a solid playoff team.

The problem with the WNBA is that the WNBA didn't want the team playing in a temporary home at all. Portland will most likely get a WNBA team after renovating the Moda Center.

I'm a bit exhausted with the OKC comparisons. OKC "tanked" around the 2020-21 season and sat around the bottom of the conference until this last year. The Blazers have been tanking just as long (had a .473 win pct in 21-22) and have gotten progressively worse, but are showing no signs of improvement and I don't believe a single piece of this constantly ongoing "rebuild" talk. They aren't getting better at the rate an NBA team should be. This isn't college ball, they need to be doing more to build this team back up if they are serious about winning games and bringing fans back into the arena. They need to win to sell tickets. Jody is NOT taking this seriously and has been given a very generous offer for the team but won't let it go.

[Bigtimecharlie]

To me, the Blazers have simply become a farm team for bigger market teams. We draft the players, get them trained up, then the larger, richer teams cherry pick what they want. We haven’t been serious about competing since Paul Allen passed.

[PhillyPDX]

Sometimes you get lucky too. SGA was picked at #11, obviously no one expected him to be nearly the elite the player he is. Eventually Blazers will hit on a pick to outplay his draft spot, the more chances you have the better. 2 picks in top 12 this draft will go a long way. It might not be an elite draft by historical standards, but I guarantee a few picks will end up being all stars.

[uncommon.name]

Originally Posted by Bigtimecharlie

To me, the Blazers have simply become a farm team for bigger market teams. We draft the players, get them trained up, then the larger, richer teams cherry pick what they want. We haven’t been serious about competing since Paul Allen passed.

We are the Mariners of the NBA.

[urbanlife]

Originally Posted by uncommon.name

I'm a bit exhausted with the OKC comparisons. OKC "tanked" around the 2020-21 season and sat around the bottom of the conference until this last year. The Blazers have been tanking just as long (had a .473 win pct in 21-22) and have gotten progressively worse, but are showing no signs of improvement and I don't believe a single piece of this constantly ongoing "rebuild" talk. They aren't getting better at the rate an NBA team should be. This isn't college ball, they need to be doing more to build this team back up if they are serious about winning games and bringing fans back into the arena. They need to win to sell tickets. Jody is NOT taking this seriously and has been given a very generous offer for the team but won't let it go.

Y'all need to move on from Phil Knight, he isn't buying the Blazers and Jody isn't going to accept a lowball offer because it most definitely wasn't "generous."

OKC is a very good comparison because when they moved on from George and Westbrook, they were basically headed towards a rebuild, but Chris Paul helped them have a good year following that, but after losing all of their present talent, they worked the draft for two years before seeing any improvements with wins.

The Blazers haven't been in full rebuild until this year because of Dame leaving. Sure they have had a couple years of tanking the second half of the seasons due to injuries that have taken them out of the playoffs, but now the team is in Post Dame and it's probably another year or two before we start to see any real progress with our draft picks.

[sopdx]

By Shane Dixon Kavanaugh | The Oregonian/OregonLiveJonathan Bach | The Oregonian/OregonLive

The Portland Diamond Project has agreed on terms to buy property at Zidell Yards on the city’s South Waterfront, the organization’s leader told The Oregonian/OregonLive, marking a possible step forward for the at times halting effort to bring Major League Baseball to Portland.

“We think it’s going to be an epic location for baseball,” Craig Cheek, the group’s founder and president, said in a brief interview Monday afternoon. Cheek didn’t say how many acres the stadium and associated facilities would occupy, nor how much his group would pay or when any deal might close.

Members of the Zidell family that owns the site did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Monday.

It was unclear how advanced the talks are. The Diamond Project previously signed a deal that gave it negotiating rights for the Port of Portland’s Terminal 2, a little-used marine dock north of downtown Portland, but it let that agreement lapse without moving ahead.

It also previously offered $80 million to buy the Portland Public Schools headquarters site on Portland’s east side before pulling the offer, saying the site should instead go to the Albina Vision redevelopment proposal.

Most recently, the group offered $30 million to buy the RedTail Golf Center, which is owned by the city of Portland but located outside city limits, near Beaverton.

The group previously considered Zidell Yards in 2019, too, and was in talks with the owners of the Lloyd Center mall.

No sale by the Zidell family’s ZRZ Realty Co. — which owns the property along the Willamette River near the Ross Island Bridge — had been logged in Multnomah County records as of Monday afternoon. ZRZ last year was moving ahead with plans to subdivide the more than 30-acre property, which previously hosted the Zidell barge business.

The family had once planned a skyscraper district on its land, with as much as 2,200 apartments and 1.5 million square feet of office space. Those plans fell apart in 2018 when the Zidells and the city’s economic development agency couldn’t reach an agreement on how to pay for $90 million in streets, parks and pipes to support all the new construction.

The stadium news comes after Portlanders learned last week that professional woman’s basketball would soon return to the city. The WNBA awarded an expansion team scheduled to begin playing in 2026.

[PhillyPDX]

Originally Posted by sopdx

By Shane Dixon Kavanaugh | The Oregonian/OregonLiveJonathan Bach | The Oregonian/OregonLive

The Portland Diamond Project has agreed on terms to buy property at Zidell Yards on the city’s South Waterfront, the organization’s leader told The Oregonian/OregonLive, marking a possible step forward for the at times halting effort to bring Major League Baseball to Portland.

“We think it’s going to be an epic location for baseball,” Craig Cheek, the group’s founder and president, said in a brief interview Monday afternoon. Cheek didn’t say how many acres the stadium and associated facilities would occupy, nor how much his group would pay or when any deal might close.

Members of the Zidell family that owns the site did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Monday.

It was unclear how advanced the talks are. The Diamond Project previously signed a deal that gave it negotiating rights for the Port of Portland’s Terminal 2, a little-used marine dock north of downtown Portland, but it let that agreement lapse without moving ahead.

It also previously offered $80 million to buy the Portland Public Schools headquarters site on Portland’s east side before pulling the offer, saying the site should instead go to the Albina Vision redevelopment proposal.

Most recently, the group offered $30 million to buy the RedTail Golf Center, which is owned by the city of Portland but located outside city limits, near Beaverton.

The group previously considered Zidell Yards in 2019, too, and was in talks with the owners of the Lloyd Center mall.

No sale by the Zidell family’s ZRZ Realty Co. — which owns the property along the Willamette River near the Ross Island Bridge — had been logged in Multnomah County records as of Monday afternoon. ZRZ last year was moving ahead with plans to subdivide the more than 30-acre property, which previously hosted the Zidell barge business.

The family had once planned a skyscraper district on its land, with as much as 2,200 apartments and 1.5 million square feet of office space. Those plans fell apart in 2018 when the Zidells and the city’s economic development agency couldn’t reach an agreement on how to pay for $90 million in streets, parks and pipes to support all the new construction.

The stadium news comes after Portlanders learned last week that professional woman’s basketball would soon return to the city. The WNBA awarded an expansion team scheduled to begin playing in 2026.

How many times has the location moved?

[pdxsg34]

Originally Posted by PhillyPDX

How many times has the location moved?

If I recall correctly, the ESCO site in NW, Terminal 2, Lloyd Center, Beaverton (RedTail), and I believe they considered Hillsboro and E Portland at times.

Traffic and accessibility concerns with the S Waterfront are going to be front and center, which is valid, however, this site is miles better than the Beaverton one they were previously considering. Lots of public transit options available in S Waterfront, plus if the OMSI plan comes to fruition, it'd be great to grab a bite there, then walk the tilikum over to the ballgame. If they can get this right and address the transportation issues, this could be a boon for the area.

[babs]

Originally Posted by pdxsg34

If I recall correctly, the ESCO site in NW, Terminal 2, Lloyd Center, Beaverton (RedTail), and I believe they considered Hillsboro and E Portland at times.

Traffic and accessibility concerns with the S Waterfront are going to be front and center, which is valid, however, this site is miles better than the Beaverton one they were previously considering. Lots of public transit options available in S Waterfront, plus if the OMSI plan comes to fruition, it'd be great to grab a bite there, then walk the tilikum over to the ballgame. If they can get this right and address the transportation issues, this could be a boon for the area.

If they are smart, they would partner with OHSU to incorporate a major sports medicine research facility into the ballpark. That could create jobs and make it truly a year round facility.

The transportation issues aren't a major hurdle here. You have the streetcar, MAX and the transit only bridge with easy pedestrian access. Cars could be accomodated by a joint OHSU/Baseball parking garage that uses the available space in the evenings for the games. This is a great spot.

[subterranean]

Seems like a decent option, although I agree that roadways will need to be reworked. Yes, there's good transit, but that area is a clusterfuck already in terms of traffic and poorly designed interchanges.

[downtownpdx]

Some great views of the city from this spot, on the water, centrally located. I’ll take this any day over the other options. I mean how did Beaverton or Hillsboro even come into the picture, hopefully those are off the table now.

[maccoinnich]

Exclusive: Portland Diamond Project president talks MLB at ZIdell Yards



A Major League Baseball stadium on the Willamette River in or near downtown Portland has long been a dream of Craig Cheek’s.

Now, both this dream and Cheek’s vision of bringing professional baseball to Portland, either through a league expansion or the relocation of an existing team, are one step closer to becoming reality.

Cheek is founder and president of Portland Diamond Project, which is leading the effort to bring MLB to Portland. On Monday, PDP announced Monday night that it intends to purchase the 33-acre Zidell Yards site on the South Waterfront from ZRZ Real Estate, a Zidell family business, to build an MLB stadium.

In an exclusive interview with the Business Journal, Cheek revealed the project had previously considered Zidell Yards.

“Whether it's serendipitous or providential, it came back around as an option, and we're just thrilled that it's still there and we can dream again,” said Cheek. “We can see a ballpark down there on the waterfront, between Tilikum Crossing and the Ross Island Bridge, and we just think it's an ideal location for our effort and for Portlanders.”

Cheek declined to provide financing details, other than to reiterate that private funding would cover most of the project costs.

...continues at the Portland Business Journal ($).