Rose Quarter ready to bud?

Back in the black, execs weigh proposals for long-term success

By kerry eggers

The Portland Tribune, Jul 6, 2008, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (9 Reader comments)

JIM CLARK / TRIBUNE FILE PHOTO

With the Rose Quarter safely out of creditors’ grasp, questions remain on the future of the district. Blazer executives would like to see it become a sports entertainment destination but don’t want to make a decision until plans for the area are more definite.

When the Rose Quarter opened in 1995, then-Trail Blazer President Marshall Glickman saw the possibilities as endless.

Thirteen years later, the Blazers are looking at a new beginning for the area that surrounds the Rose Garden.

Gone are the restaurants that stood with so much promise alongside the Rose Garden at its opening – Cucina Cucina, Tony Maroni’s Italian Pizzeria and Friday’s Front Row.

In their place are Rebound Orthopedic Physical Therapy Clinic, offices for the Winter Hawks, Lumberjax and Comcast SportsNet, and an empty 10,000-square-foot space where Cucina Cucina once did business.

After having turned the Rose Garden and Memorial Coliseum over to creditors for two years, the Blazers once again own the Garden and the Rose Quarter area and operate both arenas. According to chief executive officer Mike Golub, attendance for events at the two buildings is about 1.6 million for the 2007-08 fiscal year, which ends June 30.

Solid, Golub says, but only part of the story. The Blazer executive says the club is in the beginning stages of developing a master plan to make the Rose Quarter relevant not just on game nights, but 52 weeks a year.

“We feel the Rose Quarter is a well-functioning, vital complex,” Golub says. “It’s a successful enterprise in most respects. But like any business, you have to evaluate not a month from now, but a year, five years from now. We’re in the very early stages of engaging that.

“What should the Rose Quarter look like five to 10 years from now? What should the land around us become? How can this area continue to evolve? Exploring those questions is the responsible approach any business owner takes. That’s the task (on which) we’re embarking.”

Blazer owner Paul Allen owns land that once housed the Red Lion Hotel, alongside the Willamette River west of the grain elevator by the Steel Bridge to the Broadway Bridge.

“That’s part of the whole discussion,” Golub says. “We don’t want to do this on an ad-hoc, piecemeal basis. We want to come up with an integrated plan and have it all make sense. It’s a cool and fun undertaking to think about what could be.”

Golub says the Blazers would like to come up with a comprehensive plan within the next year. Mike Scanlon says the right kind of additions must happen to make the Rose Quarter a nongame-day destination.

“It needs a linchpin of entertainment – a business or businesses that people want to visit every day of the week,” says Scanlon, general manager of Global Spectrum, which has handled operations for the Garden and Coliseum the past three years. “The restaurants they originally had are not the type that are going to make people come down on weekdays to have lunch. It’s got to be an ESPN SportsZone, or something of that magnitude. You can’t go with Applebee’s or Old Chicago.”

For a customer reluctant to deal with traffic and parking issues on game nights, the Rose Quarter is an unlikely option unless the restaurant is something special. Another problem: Proximity to other entertainment entities.

Everyday destination desired

“The biggest challenge is that the Rose Quarter, the Lloyd Center and the convention center are all within 10 minutes walking distance, but it’s like they’re 100 miles apart,” Scanlon says. “They’re not connected. If you could connect those three areas for all the people who come in, you’d have magic. It could require more friendly streetscapes or passageways to make you want to walk up to the mall.

“When I go to lunch on MLK Boulevard, I can’t get into any of the restaurants. The lines are out the door. There’s an opening for the right restaurants in the Rose Quarter, but how do you get people to walk down (on nongame days)?”

Golub agrees, but says the geography offers a wealth of possibilities.

“(Blazer senior vice president for business affairs) J. Isaac describes us as being the hole in the doughnut, with the Pearl and Irvington and Broadway and the Lloyd Center all around us, coming of age,” Golub says. “We’re in position to fill in the hole of the doughnut.

“We’re trying to figure out what the Rose Quarter should become. Should what was originally envisioned be revisited? And should it become a more developed sports entertainment destination than it is now? We would answer yes. Now that we are on a solid foundation again, we’re in position to take a hard look at that. While the original vision hasn’t come to fruition, we believe there is lots of opportunity.”

Golub says there has been interest from prospective tenants of the old Cucina Cucina space. If the Blazers fill it, “we’d like to have something that sort of fits with a sports entertainment theme,” he says.

1 | 2 Next Page >>

Facebook	Digg	Del.icio.us
Newsvine	Stumbleupon	Reddit