Rose Quarter changes on hold?

• Move to cut Rose Garden losses upends growth plans for the neighborhood

By Jim Redden And Kristina Brenneman

The Portland Tribune, Mar 2, 2004, Updated Oct 30, 2009

The Oregon Arena Corp.’s bankruptcy filing last week could delay city plans to revitalize the Rose Quarter, which has fallen far short of the lively entertainment district the city envisioned when it worked with billionaire Paul Allen to develop the area in the early 1990s.

Don Mazziotti, executive director of the Portland Development Commission, said any major redevelopment in the area would be on hold until the City Council can agree on a single major project to redefine the district Ñ a process that may have to wait until the arena corporation emerges from bankruptcy. Allen is the sole stockholder in the company.

In some cases, bankruptcy proceedings take years to resolve.

“It would be ill-advised for any developer to move forward on anything without being able to involve all the property holders,” Mazziotti said.

The PDC has reviewed several proposals for constructing streets and new housing, retail and other buildings in the area, he said, although it has not approved one.

Allen’s company is the major tenant in the area along the east bank of the Willamette River, just south of the Broadway Bridge. It leases much of the property and owns two of the major buildings there Ñ the Rose Garden Arena and the nearby entertainment complex that houses an Italian restaurant, a sports medicine office and the Portland Trail Blazers’ broadcasting studio. The company also has the first development rights on Memorial Coliseum.

Arena corporation officials could not be reached for comment on the filing’s potential impact on redeveloping the area.

The bankruptcy filing came a few days after Mayor Vera Katz and city Commissioner Erik Sten threw their weight behind a plan to turn the aging Memorial Coliseum into an amateur sports complex called the Metropolitan Athletic and Recreation Complex.

The athletic complex would cost approximately $89 million. Katz and Sten asked the Salvation Army to consider funding the project with part of a -$1.5 billion bequest by the late Joan Kroc of San Diego, heir to the McDonald’s fast food restaurant fortune. Kroc left the money to the agency with the understanding that it be used to create community recreation centers across the country.

Katz and Sten could not be reached for comment.

The sports complex project was proposed as part of a redevelopment effort spearheaded by Urban Design Associates of Pittsburgh and local planner Doug Obletz.

The firm was retained by the PDC about three years ago after city officials conceded that the Rose Quarter was not living up to its potential. A second proposal, to turn the coliseum into a megasized home retail center, has been promoted by Gerding/Edlen Development Co.

Few people visit the neighborhood when there are no events at the arena or coliseum. Only one restaurant, Cucina Cucina, is open during normal business hours. Allen’s company tried but failed to talk nightclub operator House of Blues to open a venue there in 1999.

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