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March 08, 2009
Portland soccer stadium talks break down
I've been meaning for a while to catch up with goings-on in Portland, Oregon, where Merritt Paulson, owner of the local minor-league baseball and soccer teams — and son of former U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson — to use $85 million in public money to build a new minor-league baseball stadium and renovate the old stadium for a Major League Soccer expansion team.
Now events seem to have caught up with me: Talks between Paulson and the city broke down on Friday, with Paulson reportedly storming out of the last meeting after being told he'd have to agree to pay any cost overruns. (Paulson denies it.) There's also the problem that the plan is already $20 million short, even after kicking in everything from ticket taxes to urban renewal money to kickbacks of state income taxes by soccer players. Which, come to think of it, is much the same problem that Portland's MLB stadium proposal had. Must be some sort of local tradition.
Here was a "debate" on the local news over the weekend:
http://www.kgw.com/video/straighttalk-index.html?nvid=339590
Apparently Paulson has guaranteed all of the revenue streams except for the urban renewal money, and the AAA stadium is now being slated as part of planned remake of the Rose Quarter district (where the Blazers play) - it would be modeled on the Arena District in Columbus in an effort to make it a year round destination.
This will probably go down to the wire, and the main question within the council is whether this is a good use of urban renewal funds. They have two votes in city council but they need three - but nobody is on maternity leave or selling their vote for an extra half billion in neighborhood pet projects that I am aware of.
Honestly I think this a relatively good deal as far as public subsidies go... which isn't saying much, but Portland would still have by far the tiniest direct public subsidy for sports stadia of any top 30 metro region in the US.
Posted by Greg on March 8, 2009 10:28 PM
I took a casual glance over at this. Naturally, the local newspaper thinks this is a great opportunity:
http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2009/03/time_to_bend_it_like_portland.html
They deploy the usual logic:
"We don't want to minimize the daunting complexity of the loose ends that remain ... But now it is crunch time. This week, the City Council must make a decision. The City Council shouldn't let Paulson or Major League Soccer slip away."
So, there's a "daunting" amount of loose ends, but the City Council should just go ahead and approve the deal.
Stunning.
Posted by Thomas on March 9, 2009 02:27 PM
http://www.kgw.com/video/straighttalk-index.html?nvid=339590
Looks like the impasse was breached and the funding is moving forward. Portland would appear to be on the fast track to a new MLS franchise and stadium.
Posted by Dan on March 9, 2009 03:15 PM
Thomas,
You are twisting words around - there were not a daunting "amount" of loose ends, the issues were complex (structuring the bonds with an additional private backing, creating a new URD, and putting a baseball stadium where another private entity has development rights).
They had six months of meetings on this. A task force consisting of a wide variety of community interests recommended moving forward by an 18-0 vote, albeit with additional restrictions to protect the city.
I'm not expecting the crowd that reads Field of Schemes to get behind this, and in a perfect world I'd want all these deals to be 100% private. But on the spectrum of stadium deals, this comes out much better than most of the ones I've seen.
That is the local tradition in Portland.
Posted by Greg on March 10, 2009 03:21 AM
Greg,
My apologies, I did accidentally misuse daunting. To me, the point was that the local rag encouraged approving a deal immediately after they acknowledged there were complex items remaining unsolved.
Incidentally, they reached an agreement to put before the council tomorrow:
http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2009/03/major_league_soccer_deal_reach.html