Someone needs to explain to these people the difference between a 162 game season (MLB) and a 28 game season (MLS).

You can conceivably get your money back investing in baseball, because there are so many home games. But with MLS, it won't happen. Too few "matches".

Now, I think MLS would be great in Portland. I'm just not sure it's a good investment for the city to be making. Or if they do build a new stadium, they should put it down in the South Waterfront. Since it doesn't appear that anything else is going to be built there.

No Senator Proxmire to list the fleecing of Portland tax-payer....so very sad. But does not Portlanders deserve the government they keep electing?

I'm a huge soccer fan, but I don't support government involvement in bringing a team here or building a stadium for it. If this is such a great economic opportunity that will pay its own way, why isn't the private sector jumping at the chance to build the stadium? Only government can make "investments" everyone knows will lose money (see: Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac).

The $75 million price tag on this is about one-fourth the minimum investment that would be required for baseball.

And while there was "no money for baseball" the last time around, there was no owner, either.

The $75 million price tag on this is about one-fourth the minimum investment that would be required for baseball.

On baseball, the state was putting up $150 million. The city's share was another $100 million, IIRC.

I support this pork...yum, bacon...

Wait! The artist rendition of the park removed the beer garden! Down with this pork! Down with this pork!

$250 million for an MLB park is a joke these days. The newly completed Nationals stadium cost over 600 million and the new Yankee stadium is well over 1 billion. No way will the city or state pony up that kind of money and they shouldn't. Paul Allen isn't going to ride in on his magic money unicorn and buy another toy for this city.

That being said...this is all a minimal investment that revitalizes the Lents neighborhood and gets PDX another major league team and improves PSU's field. It's a win all around even if you don't like soccer.

Cities spend money to attract people to live there and improve the quality of life for residents. This is an investment that will pay for itself over time. It's not some fleece job. Soccer is proven to do well here and PGE Park is a bad baseball stadium. That's a fact.

"But does not Portlanders deserve the government they keep electing?"

We do indeed, but this is Randy's half-witted baby, and he basically ran unopposed, providing us with this bit of "Merrittocracy."

Paulson really is just a chip off the old block when it comes to corporate welfare and bailouts, which is hardly surprising: When one graduates from Yale, the first thing that is supposed to happen is that one's Poppy buys them a sports franchise somewhere in the provinces. It is one of the best ways to access the public trough. Paulson is particularly fortunate to have landed in a province with such a "stellar credit rating," along with a majority of whores (Sam, Randy, and who else?) willing to lend him the credit card.

That being said...this is all a minimal investment that revitalizes the Lents neighborhood and gets PDX another major league team and improves PSU's field. It's a win all around even if you don't like soccer.

I don't think 75 million is a minimal investment in Portland.

Also, there is no proof that a stadium will revitalize Lents. Stadium development has a checkered history in this regard. And the stadiums that do revitalize neighborhoods are traditionally MLB stadiums (82 home games) in dense developing neighborhoods, of which Lents is not.

Lastly, MLS is currently not a Major League Sport, unless it can somehow supplant hockey in the next decade or so. And the city will look like morons if they start claiming they acquired a second major league team. I like soccer just fine, and I hope MLS comes to Portland. But it's not a good deal for the city.

Is PGE Park even paid off from the last city "investment"?

Sorry, missed that last line up there...does anyone know how much is still owed?

Interestingly this entire thing, revitalization of the Lents neighborhood, a suitable AAA ballpark, a fantastic NCAA football park and MLS soccer park will only cost $20 million more than that damn tram at OHSU. I think by comparison it is a very worthy investment, and the Beavers end up in a top notch stadium that won't look sparse and will be 100% class. Are none of you PSU fans? What wonders a nice stadium will do for that program and in turn the city and the state for the matter. $75 million... chump change for everything we'd get out of it.

Imagine if they had decided, "hey, brand new soccer stadium in Lents" Likel $120 million, doesn't help the Viks, doesn't help the Beavers. It only helps Lents and the MLS team and its owners, and of course US, the citizens of a city willing to come up with a plan that actually helps a heck of a lot of people. 600 new construction jobs. Sounds good. a price tag equalling 1/2 of an MLS stadium price and for TWO stadiums, and for THREE TEAMS! That's amazing. This kind of deal will never come around again. We are lucky to have this working out the way it seems to be working.

My understanding, and I could be wrong, is that for Paulson to buy the Timbers and Beavers, he had to pay off the stadium. So, essentially it's been paid off, by the same guy willing to invest $40 million more into our city.

You are wrong. The city is basically on the hook for any upgrades to PGE Park that may arise. For example, the city just dropped ~$1,000,000 earlier in the year to replace the turf (with something called Field Turf, which expected to last 7 years).

This particular "public-private partnership" is more of a blank check, payable with the public dime, than an actual debt. Thanks Vera!

I really don't think Paulson made PDX whole on the PGE park renovations. If you look at cityhall's financial statements it looks like cityhall is using increasing sewer fees to fund its pet projects. It could easily afford to fund the Children's Investment Fund(CHIF) from its own largess (CHIF is up for renewal this November), but instead uses the guise of children to panhandle taxpayers. But what can the financially sane do in this town because local government has brainwashed over 50% of PDX citizens.

Lessee, $30M revenue surplus for two years, $35M on making PGE Park over for Mssrs Glickman and Gardiner (thank you Vera) and now Randy wants to blow another $40M. By my count that is $135M that could be used to:
- Fix the Sellwood
- Fix potholes
- Lower water/sewer bills
- Make schools a bit better

How do we get these trained animal acts for commissioners?

Bojack, we (timbers fans) knew you wouldn't like this deal.

Come on down to the stadium for our next game, and see how passionate Portland currently is about our soccer team, despite the fact they've had an awful season and play minor league ball. It's a great atmosphere, and MLS tickets across their league are hardly expensive when compared to the Blazers (plus, the two never overlap). The MLS is growing at an exciting pace; the league is starting to get national cable coverage and is drawing support from many of the nation's newest immigrants. PGE Park couldn't be a better location for a stadium, and there seems to be a lot of excitement in Lents about their proposal as well.

Even if you never come around to the idea of a relatively minimal investment in public infrastructure that would likely become a financially profitable community asset, you should at least go support your local club.

Heaping on more public debt right now is lunacy. But the biggest epic fail in this is wiping out the sports fields heavily used by actual kids and adults in active play in a community that needs more wholesome recreation desperately (along with better education). This neighborhood needs another passive entertainment with beer outlet like it needs another fast food joint.

The statement made by proponents of this thing, that they've carefully looked at all the possible locations, and the only reasonable one is this one that takes these important recreation amenities away for good, is just bullwash. Randy should be ashamed of even thinking about giving this heavily used park land away. Just because something doesn't have a building on it doesn't mean it needs one. Open space and recreation are far more important to quality of life and civic improvement than any kind of passive entertainment.

Can somebody cite that classic economics study which proves municipal investments in sports stadia are always a bad investment which sucks the wind out of surrounding small businesses and create cultural and economic deserts around them, or a good article about it? I used to have it, but didn't hang onto it because I thought it had become planner CW already. Not CW here, yet, apparently.

Any municipality which allows itself to be used for any kind of professional athletics is setting itself up for extortion from team and/or field owners at some point in the indefinite future.

If there is a market, then the local government, at whatever level, does not need to invest in it at all. It's the same rationale as the convention center hotel. If there's truly a market, it will happen.

Hey, I hear there is some land available in a very central location, it's owned by a major economic entity in financial difficulty and would probably sell it when the rest of the SoWhat development goes belly-up. I think a stadium (private, of course) right between the Ross Island and Marquam bridges would be excellent use of that old brownfield. Much better than a place for health and healing.

Of the many financial boondoggles that Portland has cooked up over the last two decades, PGE Park is one of the least. It's a great, historic old stadium that deserved to be preserved and really adds a lot to the Vikings, Beavers, and Timbers games.

Let's leave well enough alone. MLS is not in a position where they can strong arm cities into coughing up public money for stadiums. Portland is a strong market with a lot appeal to soccer, based on its soccer past and reputation as a very European city for an American city. A real city leader would negotiate from strength on this one, not bend over and spread 'em for MLS and developers.

To make my point, I'd remind everybody that the LA Galaxy payed NFL money to get David Beckham, the famed Manchester United superstar, to play in Dominguez Hills at the Home Depot Center. The capacity of the HDC is 27,000. The LA Galaxy provide MLS to fans from a greater SoCal draw of 20 million people. They share the venue with Cal State DH.

So the current PGE Park, sitting in the midst of the luxury condo forest of downtown Portland, remodeled with a capacity of 19,000 for a metro city of 1.5 million isn't good enough to get MLS here? What an F-ing joke!

I would love to have MLS come to Portland, but we've already got the people and the venue to offer. If Randy Leonard wants to take risks, he can take his Police & Fireman Pension check over to Spirit Mt Casino and play a little poker.

Change you can pay for!

Even if you never come around to the idea of a relatively minimal investment in public infrastructure that would likely become a financially profitable community asset, you should at least go support your local club.

I am a sports fan. I am even warming up to soccer. But I dont care how minimal the investment is...public funds should never be used for "for-profit" sports teams of any kind..ever.
If they are that sure its gonna be a good deal, they can spend their own money instead of lapping from the public trough.

This is particularly upsetting when they constantly bitch about not having enough money to fix crap around here. If it doesnt pencil out with your own private money, then dont build it. Its that simple.

"Can somebody cite that classic economics study which proves municipal investments in sports stadia are always a bad investment which sucks the wind out of surrounding small businesses and create cultural and economic deserts around them, or a good article about it?"

Which one?

Go to Google Scholar and search Robert Baade, Allen Sanderson, Brad Humphreys, Phil Miller, Roger Noll or Edward Coulson. Or look up the book "Sports, Jobs and Taxes", edited by Noll and Andrew Zimbalist.

If the stadium in Lents park is named Randyville.......

Better yet, read "Field of Schemes" by Neil DeMause (and I think he's still updating the website).

If Portland does this someone ought to run a statewide initiative decreeing that, in any year where any government entity subsidizes a pro sports team or a playing field/stadium where there is a pro sports tenant, that entity loses state funding for the next year in the same amount, deducted from all state funding streams in proportion to the size of the state funding.

It's a great atmosphere,

Good! Let's leave things just the way they are.

Sounds great! We could have two sorta-kinda-major-like teams for half the cost of replacing the Sellwood Bridge.

Even better! Forget about replacing the Sellwood Bridge, and then we could afford four sorta-kinda-major-like teams.

In regards to Justin Morton's first blog, let's reconsider former City Councilman Mike Lindbergs push to put a Regional Aquarium in South Waterfront since nothing else is going on down there.

Since the north portion of SoWhat is to have a two acre park according to the PDC's latest documents, why not an Acquarium with beautiful surrounding landscaping adjoining the river. It might help turn SoWhat's "Nowhere" to "Somewhere". Plus, OHSU and PSU can do research and teaching in combination with the aquarium. Now that's "synergy"-that Commissar Leonard so much likes.

"Matthew," posting from OHSU, wrote:

My understanding, and I could be wrong, is that for Paulson to buy the Timbers and Beavers, he had to pay off the stadium.

I doubt it. Paulson bought the team in the spring of 2007. As of March 2008, the bonds were still outstanding.

Understanding the details of financial deals is not a long suit up at OHSU.