Mayor Sam Adams has received a lot of what he describes politely as
“unbridled, unvarnished feedback” over the last two weeks about the
plan to plop the new Beavers ballpark on the Memorial Coliseum
site.
“We have so many ugly buildings we could tear down and use for the
stadium,” said an architect at a packed public meeting last week about
the plan. “This is not the building to tear down.”
At that meeting, Adams explained that citywide studies of possible
ballpark sites had led the team to the decision to place the stadium at
Memorial Coliseum.
On Monday, April 20, six days after that heated meeting, Mayor Sam
Adams announced his team would take an extra week to explore a way to
fit the new stadium into the Rose Quarter without scrapping Memorial
Coliseum. But how will the city find a new home for the stadium in a
week, if years of research led to Memorial Coliseum?
Adams’ office explained that the citywide study Adams referenced in
the meeting was a 2004 study of possible ballpark locations in
Portland.
“The study wasn’t terribly exhaustive,” says Portland Spectator
Facilities Manager David Logsdon, who helped investigate the study’s
six sites. Also, that study was intended for a Major League Baseball
park. At 38,000-42,000 seats, the Major League ballpark the team
analyzed was more than four times larger than the Triple-A Minor League
Baseball stadium the city is currently racing to place.
Another siting study was conducted in 2008, when Portland Beavers
owner Merritt Paulson hired consultant Don Mazziotti to find publicly
owned land in Portland that could accommodate a Triple-A ballpark.
“I can assure you that I looked at every single site,” says
Mazziotti, listing off problems with the 22 locations he investigated:
the Blanchard Portland Public Schools site just north of the Coliseum?
One acre too small. Industrial land near OMSI? Not publicly owned.
Mazziotti saw the Memorial Coliseum site as the most difficult of
the top three possible sites because of public support for the
building.
Instead, Mazziotti flagged Lents Park in Southeast Portland as the
top choice. The ballpark there would replace an old neighborhood
stadium and, hopefully, cost $5-10 million less than the Memorial
Coliseum site.
But the siting choice “shifted primarily because the mayor felt it
would be better to have a central location for the stadium,” says
Mazziotti. The Coliseum site is also attractive because parking already
exists close by and the area is linked to light rail transit.
Adams explains he did not want construction of the Triple-A stadium
to “compete with or cannibalize the neighborhood improvement projects
already on the table” in Lents. But Adams is looking to another urban
renewal area for Rose Quarter redevelopment money—Monday night,
April 20, he pitched the idea of expanding the Interstate Corridor
Urban Renewal Area into the Rose Quarter to pay for the Coliseum
renovations.
One of the main complaints about the stadium siting is that the
process moved too fast. “I really don’t know what to tell you except
that Merritt Paulson must be a very convincing man,” says Multnomah
County Chair Ted Wheeler, who is skeptical about the pace. “Leadership
is about pushing big visions, but in this case I’m concerned that haste
is leading to sloppy analysis.”
A personal assurance from Don Mazziotti! He’s scrutinized all the other options! That’s worth a whole lot…
The same Don Mazziotti who left PDC in disgrace after spending thousands of public dollars for his personal meals and entertainment.
Yep.
Also the same guy who recently assured a room full of people that the soccer/baseball projects would create hundreds of jobs, the “majority of which will pay in the $45,000 to $60,000 range.”
Such a statement must be true: it came from Don Mazziotti, right?
Pillar of the community.
Development expert.
However this deal works out, it’s already a public relations debacle and a textbook case of how NOT to build public support for a project.
Oddly enough, though, even with his credibility in the toilet, people continue to give money to Don and the Gallatin Group to do public affairs and lobbying work.
Good help must be hard to find these days.
But we must think of the children. Lets turn to our golden god Thomas Lauderdale for the answers! I called his assistant but she said he was too busy composing an opus for the Coliseum and stomping his feet around his apartment.
He’s a very important man that Thomas Lauderdale his opinions must be known and presented as the end all of how Portland as a whole feels.
I need a haircut. Anyone know where Amanda Fritz gets hers cut?
Well BOF you’re really asking two questions there. The first one takes me back to 1934. Admiral Burn had just reached the pole, only hours ahead of the Three Stooges.
I guess he won the argument, but I walked away with the turnips. The following morning I resigned my commission with the coastguard. The next thing I knew there was civil war in Spain.
And, that’s everything which happened in my life right up to the time I answered this question.
The trick is to add just a little dollop of butter to the recipe. Makes it taste so fine, yes sirree!
buildng a giant stadium is a complicated issue. I’m glad their trying to save Memorial Coliseum, and I hope the find a good compromise.
What about that spot of land next to OHSU southwaterfront where Cirque De Soleil sets up every year?
ITEM: Fort Wayne, Indiana opens new ballpark downtown this past week to much acclaim.
RELATED ITEM: Portland Beavers consider building new ballpark in Ft. Wayne…errrr, Lents