Neighborhood Notes

Portland Business Journal
From the December 23, 2005 print edition

Baseball backers eye Coliseum as stadium site

Andy Giegerich
Business Journal staff writer

A group leading the charge to attract a big-league baseball team to Portland wants planners to study another high-profile stadium site.

The Oregon Sports Authority said it wants to analyze the Memorial Coliseum property in Portland's Rose Quarter district to determine whether the site could hold a Major League Baseball stadium. The plot would likely be the smallest plot among the six possible sites studied by city leaders. Kansas City, Mo., stadium design specialist HOK S+V+E could also be brought in to study the site at a later date.

The Kansas City firm analyzed the other potential sites on behalf of the city and local big-league baseball boosters.

In the meantime, Portland Development Commission officials say movement is beginning that could open up the U.S. Post Office-owned Pearl District property for development. Post Office officials are said to be exploring a new location for their distribution center.

Many groups exploring possible stadium sites, including the Oregon Stadium Campaign, consider the Post Office site as a preferred stadium plot.

PDC spokeswoman Elissa Gertler said if the site opened up, the commission would consider it prime development property regardless of whether a stadium would sit there.

The stadium questions emerge a month after owners of the Florida Marlins said they want to relocate the team from Miami. Portland, Las Vegas and San Antonio are three of the most-mentioned relocation city candidates.

Such a decision is also critical to Portland's future because, in cities such as San Diego and Denver, stadium districts have emerged around or near new baseball facilities, baseball backers argue.

Drew Mahalic, CEO of the Oregon Sports Authority, said his group will invite Marlins officials to visit Portland in the next month. Team representatives visited San Antonio shortly after baseball's winter meetings, held in Houston in early December.

Mahalic said a Coliseum site study should occur quickly because officials from the Portland Development Commission and Metro are exploring building a new "headquarters" hotel in the area.

"It's pristine acreage," said Mahalic, whose group seeks to attract major sports attractions to Oregon. "And with a headquarters hotel possibly being built over there, it will become more valuable."

The Coliseum property consists of eight acres next to the Broadway Bridge. It sits across from another possible stadium site, on land owned by the Portland Public Schools district.

Mahalic said he wants experts to determine whether a stadium could fit on the site, which sits adjacent to the Rose Garden arena. The site is smaller than a plot near the Union Station rail yards that stadium supporters had at one time considered as a possible baseball home.

Should the city-owned Coliseum emerge as a preferred stadium site, Mike Scanlon said his company Global Spectrum, which manages the building, would support it.

"It's ultimately the city's decision because they own the Coliseum," said Scanlon, the Rose Garden and Coliseum general manager. "I'd like to see whatever works best for the city. If that's the best site, we'd support it fully."

Post Office officials have long considered moving their distribution center, at the corner of Northwest Hoyt Street and Broadway, closer to the Portland International Airport. Postal officials estimated in 2003 it would cost between $150 million and $200 million to relocate.

Mahalic acknowledged that the site "would be the ideal location. The question is whether the [center] can be moved."

Gertler said any talk of putting a stadium there, though, is premature.

"There are a lot of ifs there, such as if we can get a team," she said. "We see a lot of people planning for the long term, but right now, it's just a lot of predevelopment analysis."

Stadium backers must also deal with city leaders who aren't as warm to baseball as former Portland Mayor Vera Katz.

Portland Mayor Tom Potter has said he won't support a stadium if it requires city funding. "If an owner comes in and wants to build a stadium, well, terrific," said John Doussard, Potter's spokesman.

Stadium costs vary greatly. HOK projected in early 2004 that a stadium on the Post Office site, without a roof, would have cost $372 million.

Such projects, though, typically contain massive overruns. Seattle's publicly funded Safeco Field cost in excess of $500 million, or at least $83 million more than planners had first projected.

Oregon state legislators passed a 2003 measure calling for sales taxes from player and team executive salaries to pay off more than $100 million in bonds for a new Portland baseball stadium.

Mahalic said the partial funding structure puts Portland in a good place when it meets with the Marlins.

"We've become the front-runner for any team looking to relocate," he said. "We like the match-ups at this point."

agiegerich@bizjournals.com | 503-219-3419