Plans afoot at PGE Park

In grand scheme, Beavers get Lents stadium, Timbers go MLS

By kerry eggers

The Portland Tribune, Jul 6, 2008, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (54 Reader comments)

KYLE GREEN / TRIBUNE FILE PHOTO

If Beavers and Timbers owner Merritt Paulson gets his way, Major League Soccer will expand into Portland as early as 2010 and the Triple-A Beavers will get a new stadium.

By 2011, the landscape of Portland’s outdoor sports facilities could have an entirely different look.

PGE Park could be the home of the Portland Timbers of Major League Soccer, and a new 8,000- to 10,000-seat arena for the Triple-A baseball Portland Beavers could be the centerpiece of a Lents Park revitalization project.

That is the fervent hope of Randy Leonard, the city commissioner who admits he is picking sides when it comes to a potential site for the Beavers.

“I’m supportive of the prospects of Portland getting Major League Soccer, but I’m increasingly excited about the prospects of having a new park for the Beavers be located in Lents,” Leonard says.

Leonard lives in the Mount Scott area, not far from Lents Park, and drives or rides his bike through the area twice each workday.

“After hearing from many (Lents Park residents), I’m convinced it would be a phenomenal shot in the arm to a community that needs it,” Leonard says. “It would take downtown Lents and completely transform it into a destination place for people all over the region, to have dinner and recreate before and after a game. The potential it creates is almost incalculable compared to what exists there now.”

The new ballpark would replace dilapidated Walker Stadium, which sits on the east side of Lents Park.

“The footprint would be roughly the same,” Leonard says.

There have been a series of meetings with Lents community members and representatives of Lents Little League.

“We’re very focused on making sure it doesn’t adversely affect them and, in fact, benefits them,” Leonard says. “It’s fair to say they are excited about the possibilities.”

Leonard also believes the steady presence of professional baseball players “provides role models in a part of the city that can use some inspiration.”

None of this will happen, of course, unless Merritt Paulson, the energetic young owner of the Beavers and Timbers, lands an MLS expansion franchise. There’s a good chance that will happen.

Dan Courtemanche, MLS senior vice president for marketing and communications, says Portland is in a group of nine North American cities identified as candidates to procure the league’s 17th and 18th franchises as early as 2010. The other candidates are Atlanta, Las Vegas, San Diego, St. Louis, Miami, Montreal, Vancouver, British Columbia, and a second team in New York City.

“We’ve been speaking often with Merritt and his group,” Courtemanche says. “Portland is a market we believe could be very successful in our league. There is a tremendous history of support there for not just soccer but other sporting events.

“There is a first-class ownership group and a booming Hispanic population in the area, and the demographics are what we call ‘New America’ — young, diverse and digital.”

Seattle, which comes into MLS next season, and Philadelphia, which enters in 2010, each paid a $30 million franchise fee. Ensuing expansion teams will be required to put up a minimum of $40 million, Courtemanche says.

“If it’s the right situation, (a new franchise) could potentially come in 2010, but the target is 2011 or even 2012,” he says.

Park needs improvements

If Portland were to land an MLS franchise, it would do so with the provision that enhancements to PGE Park would bring it up to MLS standards and make it a soccer venue. Portland State would continue to play its home football games there, however.

The Beavers could share PGE Park with the MLS team for two or three years until construction of a new baseball stadium was completed. All permanent changes to the stadium would be made after the Beavers departed.

The major change to PGE Park would be in providing 6,000 premier seats along the east sidelines. Total capacity would be about 20,000.

Something would be done with the upper-level seats at the north end, “whether it be (establishment of) a restaurant or other amenities you typically have at a top-shelf sports venue,” says Paulson, who has drawn up a plan he says he will unveil to city commissioners in late summer. “There are changes necessary for plumbing, bathrooms, concession stands and some facility costs for the players in terms of training facilities required by MLS.”

Paulson says he will cover the entire $40 million franchise fee. The city, he says, would be on the hook for a substantial part of the rest of the costs associated with improvements at PGE Park and the new Triple-A stadium.

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