Today I’m taking a break from talking about little real estate (houses) to talk about big real estate (stadiums). It’s opening week for baseball, and the Giants are on pace to win 122 games, and that’s all the excuse I need. A while back I wrote about the efforts to get Major League Baseball to Portland and now that there are Official Updates, I’m updating.
Briefly though, the how and why of where we are. A group called the Portland Diamond Project, full of good intentions and shadowy money that I probably don’t want to know about, has been charged with leading the efforts to bring a team to Portland. The most realistic path at this point– since the A’s have decided to wander like nomads rather than come here– would be an expansion team, as MLB has said that within the next few years they want two more of those, assuming that the stadium situation for the aforementioned A’s and the Tampa Rays have been resolved. Nashville is probably going to be one of them. The smart money says the second team would land either in Portland or Salt Lake City. Hopefully it doesn’t come down to which city can pull off the biggest public shafting, since that dishonor would almost certainly put a team in Utah.
As for who should win that battle, take a look:
I’d say that’s a better view than whatever Salt Lake City can come up with, and never mind that the Portland metro’s population is twice the size of SLC’s. The latest ballpark plan (after a couple of questionable or even downright ludicrous ideas) is Zydell Yards at the South Waterfront, which for the out-of-towners is about a mile from downtown proper. Right now it’s a fairly sleepy area with a bunch of glass and steel condo/apartment towers, a smattering of commercial buildings, and adjacency to OHSU. Oh, and the flagship Old Spaghetti Factory, which is already pretty busy but would absolutely pop 81 times a year with a stadium nearby.
It’s exactly the kind of location that would benefit from this type of development in the same way other cities have seen. For those who have done some traveling: think of where the baseball stadiums are in San Francisco, San Diego, Denver, Washington DC, and probably a bunch of others. All of the downtown(ish) locations where stadiums were built in those cities were pretty quiet but are not anymore. Sure, it’s a lot of same-looking restaurants and bars that look like they should be chains but aren’t, but isn’t that what people want before or after a game? Even the sophisticated urbanites of Portland would hang at some place that looks like a Yard House but isn’t. As for the upscale condos that also spring up around stadium projects, we’ve already got those! One step ahead.
As for logistics, there will always be something to complain about but I don’t think it would be all that bad. There is one light rail line that goes directly to the stadium location, and the nearest stop on the more-traveled lines is about a mile away, and quite walkable– keep the river on your left and you’ll be there in a quick. Surface traffic would probably suck, but that’s their fault for driving to the game. Any of this will be easier than any single approach to Dodger Stadium.
I don’t particularly want to know how shady and gross the financing would have to be to make this happen. As long as it’s not a total grift (looking at you Las Vegas, Atlanta, a whole bunch of others), I can swallow it. I know that stadiums don’t bring all the economic bonus that their backers will claim. I know that the jobs they create are primarily in the putting-nachos-into-a-helmet category. I know that paying for it with bonds or taxes on hotel rooms or rental cars or whatever else is simply taking public money and making it private, and that the “jock tax” they’re proposing won’t be adequate. I don’t care. A Major League Baseball team legitimizes a city in intangible ways and a stadium brings activity to places that sorely need it, so let’s spend the money.
I just want baseball. The end.
