RESIDENTS OF the Southeast Portland Lents neighborhood are cautiously optimistic about a sports deal that could build an 8,000-seat stadium for the Beavers minor-league baseball team in their beloved neighborhood park. The debate among the community is primarily about parking—but at its core, it’s also a discussion about what kind of neighborhood Lents wants to be.
The possible Beavers stadium move actually hinges on deals within a different sport: Merritt Paulson, the owner of the Portland Beavers and Timbers, is looking to acquire a Major League Soccer (MLS) team for the city. If Portland wins the soccer contract, PGE Park—the current home to both teams—would need to be brought up to MLS standards. That would mean shelling out public funding for an estimated $35 million renovation of PGE Park and booting the Beavers elsewhere.
Consultants hired by Paulson think the best place for a new baseball-only stadium is where the 1,000-seat Charles Walker Stadium currently sits, on the edge of the grassy 38-acre Lents Park at SE 92nd and Holgate, close to a planned MAX line. The site is also in the middle of the Lents Town Center Urban Renewal Area, which has neighbors fantasizing about the new restaurants and retail spaces that could spring up to serve the game-goers.
Beavers games at PGE Park have brought in an average 5,408 fans per game this season. With 72 home games a year, that could mean big money for the struggling neighborhood. At a meeting last month, neighbors say Beavers consultants told them each game could bring $250,000 into the neighborhood.
“Not all the people in the neighborhood really believe that it could bring in that much,” says Jeffrey Rose, a member of the Lents Neighborhood Association (LNA) who is more excited about the new social dynamics a stadium could create than the economic benefits. “You’d see more Lents folks going to the game, and it’d be something positive where we could see our neighbors,” Rose says.
The sticking point for many neighbors is that the 5,000 people potentially pouring into Lents for a game would need places to park. Paving over a major part of the park—the neighborhood’s precious open space—is not a popular idea.
“It’s a very, very important park to the neighborhood,” says LNA Crime Prevention Coordinator Clint Lenard. “We have music in the park, we have movies in the park. I’m in favor of having AAA baseball here, but I’m not in favor of donating half of Lents Park to make it happen.”
The Lents neighborhood email list has been lighting up with ideas since a stadium work-group meeting last week. Some suggested locating parking at the nearby Eastport Plaza, or maybe constructing an underground parking garage. But the email discussion also contained reflections on how the stadium could change Lents’ character.
“I hope we also can visualize this community for the next generation, and consider what we are passing along for them to build their memories of,” wrote LNA Chair Dewey Akers in a sincere, seven-paragraph-long email to his neighbors.
But Lents may be getting ahead of itself: The nitty-gritty planning details are still for a highly hypothetical parking lot, with the whole deal hinging on whether Portland will win the MLS contract.
“It’s a competition, and one of the factors will be the community support for the stadium,” says Beavers consultant Dan Lavey, referring to both the enthusiasm about the stadium and the willingness to pony up public money for the renovations.
There is not a single professional soccer team in the USA that is turning a profit without subsidies being paid to the teams by local communities in the form of tax breaks and other incentives, and the amount of new employment that these teams bring to town is minimal. The city needs to stop footing the bill for sport’s franchises that come to town, charge them property and other taxes, and let them compete on an even / level playing field with other businesses in the city.
Because other businesses in the city do not receive tax breaks and other incentives.
And whether or not the team itself turns a profit ultimately has anything to do with benefit to the community.
As usual, Charles shows off his staggering amount of ignorance.
Charlespaugh has no idea what he’s talking about. Apparently he’s never heard of the corporate minimum tax or the city giving tax breaks to businesses to lure them here. Also, the Timbers are turning a profit. Shows you how much chuck up there knows.
This is a flat out great idea that should be supported by the city and the Lents neighborhood. Everybody wins!
Bringing MLS to town stands to have a $1.1 Billion net positive impact on the Portland economy over 9 years through tax revenues, job growth and infusions for ad spends – according to the third-party economic assessment. This is not something we as a city should turn our back on just because some old dude is afraid of traffic near his house on a few days a month in the summer.
Pro sports stadiums don’t bolster local economies, scholars say
http://www.news.uiuc.edu/news/04/1117stadiums.html
Experts “haven’t uncovered a single instance in which the presence of a professional sports team has been linked to a boost in the local economy.”
Also, eight weeks ago, NPR did an expose supporting these same numbers that professional sports teams do NOT boost local economies. It is a fallacy.
“Sports economists agree that cities–and taxpayers–get close to nothing from spending public money on sports teams. What they haven’t figured out is why we’re still doing it.”
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2006/03/19/ballpark_figures/
These are some resources for you to turn to. Sports teams do NOT assist local economies but rather in the long run hurt them. Thirty years of numbers don’t lie. Akers, there is no supporting evidence to your $1.1B claim whatsoever.
Actually, Charles is correct, and he at least has the guts to attach his real name to his comments instead of hiding in anonymity.
Audrey B. Davidson is chairwoman and associate professor of the department of economics in the College of Business and Public Administration at the University of Louisville, , she said, “the benefits [of bringing a pro sport team to a city are] often are overstated while the total costs are typically not fully revealed or recognized. As a result, franchise owners have become the beneficiaries of the increased value of their teams, often at the expense of local economies.”
http://www.bizjournals.com/louisville/stories/2001/04/30/editorial4.html
I see is too many people making this decision based on emotion rather than examining the facts. I don’t believe that a professional soccer franchise is good for the city economically. If sport teams were such a financial boon, then Seattle would have gladly built the Sonics a new stadium preventing the team’s sale and ultimately being moved out of town.
If sport teams were so good for a city, then why haven’t we seen any sizable development in the area around our stadium where the Blazer’s play?
We spend public money on parks and other forms of community entertainment. This isn’t necessarily about money but is about civic pride and entertainment opportunities.
We have far too many other projects in Portland that need paid for ahead of bringing a professional soccer team to our city. It is a mistake to have the city give tax breaks to sports teams or pay for their coliseums that are of interest to a small fraction of citizens when we can’t even afford to pave our city roads that need fixed.
That study is regarding much larger major league stadiums (in the hundreds of millions), and even its findings conclude that the smaller the geography, and the larger the draw to that geography, the more likely it is that the recipient geography of a new stadium will net some economic benefit.
In this case, we’re talking about a neighborhood. Sure, the metro region probably won’t gain much economically, but the Lents neighborhood, and plausibly the city of Portland will.
Building a new stadium is expensive. It needs an accurate design that will accommodate a large number of seats for the viewers. Holding a city to ransom, a few hundred years ago, meant a siege, and lots of death and destruction. Today, it means a professional sports team threatening to leave their traditional home unless they get a hefty sum of cash in order to build a new stadium. A few teams currently extorting their fan base are the LA Dodgers, the Boston Red Sox, and the New York Yankees. The idea is that the new stadium will be able to pack in more fans, and increase profits for the teams’ owners. This has worked in the past, but ultimately the citizens of the city finance these new stadiums; the same citizens that they want to come out and pay to go to a game. This USA Today story shows just how out of control the costs are. According to Gary Thorne, “The Yankees have already received $942 million in tax exempt bonds for the construction of the new Yankee Stadium. They are seeking an additional $366 million in such bonds.” It’s all being paid for by Joe Taxpayer. Dennis Kucinich (D – Ohio), the Congressional Subcommittee Chair, hits the nail on the head by observing that such ransoming is a “transfer of wealth from the taxpayers to a few wealthy owners.” If the rest of America values sport as much as most of us, then this may be a necessary evil. However, the same standard doesn’t seem to apply in regular financing. If you take out payday installment loans, do you expect the lender to pay it back for you? Of course not, and neither should the owners of baseball teams be extended these privileges. Let us hope that this system of fleecing the public gets put to an end, before the people that can afford to enjoy major league sports are the owners, instead of the fans that pay their salaries and for the stadiums they play in. Click to read more on payday installment loans.
The AFL is the country’s longest-standing professional football league, other than the NFL. Against a backdrop of a weakened economy and mounting financial losses and belt-tightening even by the NFL and other professional sports leagues is considering suspending its 2009 season.
The NFL, whose average franchise valuation has topped $1 billion for the first time, is looking to cut costs and the league will offer a voluntary separation package to 150 staffers over the next 60 days. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell says the league intends to reduce its staff of 1,100 by at least 10% to 15% and salaries will be frozen at least through 2009.
Similar layoffs have been announced by Major League Baseball, the NBA and NASCAR teams, and the NHL reportedly has implemented a hiring freeze.
While consumers are cutting back on non essentials, corporations, which have long pumped billions of dollars into sponsorships as well as pricey suites and season tickets, also are curtailing expenditures. Numerous corporations have pulled their ads from the Super Bowl. Golf and tennis are heavily reliant on sponsorship revenue like NASCAR. The LPGA cut three events from its 2009 schedule, and the PGA Tour and tennis is considering following suit.
College sports are not immune as the weak economy likely will mean delayed stadium construction, lower booster donations and weaker financial performance of school endowments.
Oregon’s unemployment rate is 7.3% tied with the most corrupt state in the nation Illinois and Ohio 7.3% with only Alaska at 7.4%, D.C. 7.4%, California 8.2%, Nevada 7.6%, Rhode Island 9.3%, South Carolina 8.0% higher than Oregon with more layoffs being reported in this state daily.
Major League Soccer is heavily reliant on sponsors and butts in the seats.
Now sell me today on a kick ball team in Portland, major renovations to PGE Park and a new baseball stadium on the backs of taxpayers, with packed stands, substantial sponsorship money when Pitiful Paulson cannot answer the one simple question.
“Will the Paulson family be guaranteeing the performance… with its personal assets?”