Cash boost for Portland’s MLB stadium

Image: Portland Diamond Project

A bill that authorizes $800 million to help fund a Major League Baseball stadium in Portland, Oregon has been signed off by city authorities.

Oregon Live said city officials hope to lure one of two expansion franchises the league plans to award by early 2029, and to put the team on Portland’s South Waterfront.

Plans call for diverting income taxes generated by the team’s players and staff to pay off the bonds. Sceptics doubt that the taxes would generate enough to reach the new, $800 million target.

But supporters say it would be up to the team to make up any shortfall, and to come up with the rest of the money to build a $2 billion ballpark.

They maintain that a high-profile waterfront stadium would boost the city’s image and help pull Portland out of the prolonged economic malaise that followed the Covid-19 pandemic.

Rep. Daniel Nguyễn said, “The stadium is the economic and cultural shot in the arm that Portland needs to swing out of the doom loop.”

The Portland Diamond Project, which has worked to bring an MLB team to Portland since 2017 in fits and starts, landed on Zidell Yards in September as the location for a potential stadium.

The 32,000-seat venue would feature a translucent, retractable roof that would allow the stadium to be a “civic asset 365 days a year”. Renderings show a glass and timber structure nestled between the Ross Island Bridge and the Tillikum Crossing.

The stadium was designed by Jeff Yrazabal at the architecture firm Populous. Yrazabal was also the Principal Architect for the 35,548-capacity Reser Stadium (Corvallis) renovation at the Oregon State and the 12,650-capacity Hayward Field in Eugene (Oregon).

Despite the broad political support for the project, however, Oregon may still be an underdog in the race for an expansion franchise.

Major League Baseball has indicated it wants one new team in the western U.S. and Portland is competing with Salt Lake City, which already has an ownership group, public funding package and ballpark site.

Backers of Portland’s bid are playing catch-up. They haven’t identified a principal owner for the city’s prospective franchise, and it’s not clear who — if anyone — would pay several billion dollars in expansion fees and stadium costs to bring a team to Portland.

The Portland Diamond Project,the private group leading the city’s bid, hasn’t specified who is funding its effort or how much it has spent.

Organizers floated several possible locations before settling on the former Zidell Yards shipbuilding site on a narrow strip of land between the Ross Island Bridge and the Tilikum Crossing.

The property offers terrific views of the Willamette River and great access to public transit, but few routes to the ballpark for private vehicles.

And the site is in a liquefaction zone, meaning the ballpark would need expensive supports to ensure it could survive a major earthquake.

The ballpark’s supporters say they are working on ways to address all these issues but haven’t identified any of them publicly.

Critics contend that, even if a Portland baseball team proved popular, it wouldn’t meaningfully boost the city’s economy.

Instead, they warn that it would siphon disposable spending away from restaurants, bars, other local sports teams and homegrown attractions.

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