Portland funding gap more like $26 million (not an April Fools thread)

Why do you keep beating this horse? Who cares what Fish and Fritz think?

My understanding is that PPS would actually like to leave that building, but as Marquis notes there probably is not time to make that part of the process.

The ridiculous thing is that here, and in the newspaper site comments, and on local architecture forums, everybody says "why don't they do this" thinking they've come up with some brilliant plan on their own. The city has been studying this for months. Paulson (and probably the Blazers) are going to spend millions of dollars on expansion fees and construction. Randy Leonard is the king of Portland. Do you really think they haven't considered using the Blanchard PPS site already?

 

They don't really have to gain and lose teams, though, do they? You can just promote teams temporarily.

 

Which makes me wonder why they aren't using it. The school district wants out of that site. And a lot of people don't want Memorial Coliseum to be torn down. It just makes sense. The only thing in the way is timing. So why the rush? MLS can bend the expansion timeline if need be. Why not try that option? Or maybe Paulson needs to finalize plans ASAP to get a few bond buyers on board or else he loses them.

 

Promote whom? The Beavers are a Padres affiliate. If they suspended operations, the Padres would have to find a new affiliate somewhere else. If they went to a current AA franchise, then that would just shift the problem to the AA level, as there would have to be a replacement city found somewhere to take that place in AA. They could theoretically go to Tucson, which just lost its PCL team to Reno, but they would probably lose loads of cash because Tucson fans aren't going to embrace a team that is interloping for one year.

If it came to a point of suspending operations, it would probably have to be an indefinite suspension until the time comes when they could uproot a team from a struggling AAA market.

 

I'm doubtful that it's bond buyers. I think it's trying to secure the guaranteed maximum bid for construction that Paulson's been offered. Think considerable cost savings.

Even then, I sense that'll be available in 6 months... but I'm not as privy to economic shifts as Paulson likely is.

 

You don't have to kick the can that far down the road to come to a place where the number of affiliates is not set in stone. And affiliations change, that's just in the nature of minor-league baseball.

I find it hard to believe that in recent baseball history they haven't had this type of problem (no place for a minor-league team to play for a couple years) several times before, that they don't have means of addressing it, and that this problem would be allowed to hold up another project.

 

You have to go all the way down to Short-Season A before you get something different from exactly 30 teams per level.

It happens, but it's usually kind of messy. Portland has the Beavers now because Albuquerque had a decaying stadium, so the team moved when they renovated Civic Stadium into PGE Park. Albuquerque was out of MiLB for a while until it was able to get a new stadium built and snagged the team from Calgary.

So they could shut down/move the Beavers, but probably would not do so knowing exactly which existing franchise they would poach to get PCL baseball back in Portland. But with a new stadium they would be able to get back in sooner or later.

 

Triple A as musical chairs has accelerated over the last ten years. Right now, Richmond is the one without a chair. During my heyday of season ticket holding with the Bulls, the Braves minors were amazingly stable, for a run of at least ten years there were no changes (Richmond AAA, Greenville AA, Durham A-Advanced, Macon Low-A, Danville Rookie). Today, Greenville is the only team still in place with the Braves. Even the Yankees (Clippers) left Columbus.

 

How is the Richmond Braves stadium going?

 

http://www.nypost.com/seven/04122009/business/paul_son_may_rise_in_west_164077.htm

If the Paulsons are already in for 10% of their fortune, plus the MLS expansion fee, plus any private commitments they have made to the city of Portland ... it makes more sense now why they aren't willing to pay more themselves.

Current obstacles:
- $15 million funding shortfall
- $12 million still to be determined through the state legislature
- $36 million in risky bonds needs to be sold in a tough market
- political resistance to fast-tracking Rose Quarter designs and threatening to demolish Memorial Coliseum
- mayor likely to face a recall vote

 

http://www.portlandtribune.com/news/story.php?story_id=123956118581541000

Saltzman is the swing vote. He was originally tabbed as being opposed back in March, but he voted "yes" to allow the process to proceed after axing the $15 million from a proposed URD around PGE Park. If the numbers aren't panning out, it is likely that he will go back to "no".

 

Nope; the G-ville Braves move to Pearl, MS three years ago. The Greenville, SC team is a class A club that move from Columbia, SC, and is affiliated with somebody else.

 

And FWIW on top of all that, it was just announced that Oregon has 12% official unemployment. So I imagine the Portland and Oregon governments are receiving far less tax revenue than they had projected for this fiscal year.

http://www.qualityinfo.org/pubs/pressrel/0409.pdf

 

Shouldn't this thread be in the Portland forum?

 

When has this ever happened?

When has this ever happened?

30 MLB teams. Each one needs/wants one AAA affiliate, and one AA affiliate and a number of A affiliates.

You could move the Beavers somewhere else in the region, temporarily, I guess (are there any other reasonable-sized cities in Oregon or southern Washington where it would make sense?) and then back into Portland.

But if you suspended the Portland Beavers' AAA club for a period of time, the Padres' AAA players have to go somewhere. It would not be desirable for them to scatter them among other teams (and there aren't any non-affiliated teams in MiLB that I'm aware of - maybe there are, but not at a high level).

So they could take a AA city and make it AAA, I guess, assuming the PCL would take that city and it made sense. But whatever league you poach it from has to have a replacement. And so on.

Not all MiLB teams are owned by their MLB parent club (aren't the Braves one of the few who own their lower-level clubs? Maybe the only?) but there are PDCs - Player Development Contracts - that specify who's going to pay for what and what affiliation you're going to have for a certain period of time. With, like any other contract, I guess, penalties for breaking it.

But if the Beavers have no place to play, it's not as simple as just saying "Okay, no Portland Beavers for a while."

 

http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2009/04/memorial_coliseum_advocates_we.html

Personally, I hope they figure out a way to keep Memorial Coliseum. It just seems like a huge shame to knock it down to build a tiny baseball stadium, when they could spend that money to refurbish it or repurpose it. *sigh* Just one more year; I hope it makes it onto the historical register.

Sorry, Timbers fans. I don't mean to come off as against the stadium deals in general. I just think that this is a totally unnecessary thing to be doing. Aren't there any fans in the TA who are smart enough to come up with some compromise proposals? Think about that "civic pride" thing. Memorial Coliseum is part of Portland and Northwest history. There is nothing stopping PGE Park, the new baseball stadium, and Memorial Coliseum from co-existing other than short-sightedness.

 

I like history and nostalgia as much as the next guy (maybe more), but let's be honest here...there's a reason they built the Rose Garden. History tells us that you don't keep the old building standing that long after the new building goes up (The Spectrum - coming down soon - and Reunion Arena - which is also coming down soon, I believe, are long-term exceptions). You just don't.

You think Memorial Coliseum means more to Portlanders than the Boston Garden meant to Bostonites? Maybe to some. Maybe as much. Certainly not more. Where did more things happen that are worth remembering? Boston Garden or Memorial Coliseum? And yet they tore Boston Garden down two years after the new place opened. Now it's a parking lot.

That sucks, I guess. I'm sure there are people that are wistful for those days, as most of us are for what we perceive to have been a simpler time.

But they tore down Tampa Stadium, which is a place I spent the better part of my youth. They tore down Al Lopez Field, which was right next to it. Same deal. That's unfortunate.

But the price of progress is that some things have to go. The little house you lived in when you and your wife were first married holds great memories, but you don't usually stay there forever because you usually outgrow it. It no longer serves your needs.

If you're going to say "We could have all of these things, PGE Park, new baseball stadium and Memorial Coliseum and not tear Memorial down," then, sure, I guess you probably could. But does it make sense? Take nostalgia out of the equation for a second. Does it make sense? Usually it doesn't.

It's unfortunate when business overrides emotion. I'm glad the Coliseum in Rome is still standing and we need to preserve churches and historic places and stuff like that, when we can. But that's kind of different. As much as we romanticize our sports venues, they're still ephemeral. Wrigley Field and Fenway Park are exceptions.

Is Memorial Coliseum still functional? Still being used regularly? Does it make sense, or is it a drain? Can you sell it to a church like the Forum in Inglewood or something? If it can be repurposed, fine. If not, it's a building. If they tore down the Boston Garden, they can tear down Memorial Coliseum.

Such is the price of progress. Unfortunate sometimes, but true.

Well, not yet, but it will be.

At the end of the day, yeah, it doesn't matter. Or it doesn't matter enough because there are other uses for that space. You could say that about any of the historic buildings in America, I guess, but then we're not building another Old North Church right next to the original, are we?

 

I'm with Kenn and the Marquis here. Stadia come and go. It's the nature of the beast.

There are very few exceptions right now - Wrigley Field, Fenway Park, arguably the LA Colliseum. But they all have WAY, WAY more history to them than any stadium in Portland.

If Yankee Stadium and Boston Garden can be torn down with all the history they have, then any stadium can be razed.

 

Plus, and let's take Wrigley and Fenway as practical examples rather than emotional ones - what are the alternatives?

I don't know about Boston, but there's precious little space where you could put a modern ballpark in that area of Chicago. Except maybe....where it's sitting right now. Which is only a slight improvement (unless you bought some surrounding real estate, which isn't going to be cheap, so you could expand things). And where do they play in the interim? Schaumburg? Groundshare with the White Sox? (Mets and Yankees did it for two years.)

And one of (I believe) Andy MacPhail's things was "Folks, we need to figure out if this is a ballpark or a museum." I can tell you from years of having gone there that as a museum it's great. If you go to 1-2 games a year or in your lifetime, it's a great experience...I don't want to say pilgrimage, because that's making too much out of it, but it's great.

But go 15 times a year. Do that for several years. You see that infrastructurally, that place is a mess. Blah blah blah charm blah blah blah old school blah blah blah tradition blah blah blah ivy all that stuff. I get that. But can we have ivy on the walls and not have to whiz in a trough? Would that be a lot to ask? There's a reason everybody builds new stadiums now, and while part of the equation is revenue generation, part of it is also that fans demand creature comforts now (and they're willing to pay for them, which goes back to the revenue generation thing). You can't have a bunch of teams playing in Camden Yards-type places while you keep playing in Three Rivers Stadium. (Chicago and Boston are exceptions to this...and likely will continue to be so as long as they pack the house every day...but there's a finite limit to how long you can patch them up. I do not believe Wrigley and Fenway will exist in their current forms in 2040.)

 

On a sports forum, the posters will think all that matters is sports. I think Memorial Coliseum means more than just the Blazers used to play there. It is not an ugly building, IMHO, and it can be refurbished or repurposed. The structure does not need to be knocked down. It can be used for so many things, and as the recently posted article shows, it is already used for a lot of things.

Nostalgia plays a part. But I am thinking more about the landscape of the city and being more efficient with available money and land. The Kingdome was knocked down, yes, but they ended up getting more out of that plot of land by building a beautiful new stadium and a convention center. How does knocking down Memorial Coliseum (think of it as a structure, not as a redundant basketball arena) and replacing it with a tiny baseball stadium get more out of that plot of land? It doesn't pencil out. Plus, the baseball stadium will not add anything to the look or identity of Portland. They can't even have the outfield face the river, so you aren't going to get nice views. You can argue about the general idea of tearing down old sports stadiums, but it doesn't make sense to me in this specific instance. Especially when they have a much better plot of land right across the street where they can site the stadium for possible MLB expansion.

If Memorial Coliseum wasn't a pawn in the MLS Timbers bid, would anyone seriously consider tearing it down? You have to think with a broader scope than just "give me my MLS team ASAP, the rest of the city can go f itself". Portland is in no danger of losing their bid. So there is no reason to rush this Rose Quarter development. Portland is supposed to do things right. They've instituted no-growth boundaries, built a great transportation system, and are the forerunners of green building initiatives.

 

this whole discussion is bordering on the ridiculous IMHO. there's a huge difference between Memorial Coliseum and those other places, and that is: Memorial Coliseum ISN'T USED FOR ANYTHING. as far as 95% of PDX's sports fans go, it's a relic that sits there 365 days a year. all of this sudden 'nostalgia' for this place is amazing, because the majority of sports fans in Portland don't go there anymore, and frankly they probably don't even know what type of events it books (what few events it does).


this situation is not analogous to a Wrigley Field or Fenway -- those are still in use. for all practical purposes, MC is not in use. i can't think of many other situations off hand that are 100% analogous.