Paulson, Leonard pitch PGE Park renovation

Making stadium suitable for Major League Soccer and building a baseball park would take $75 million

By Jason Vondersmith

The Portland Tribune, Sep 3, 2008, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (28 Reader comments)

The Portland Beavers and Timbers have this rendering of PGE Park as a soccer-specific facility that also would be home to Portland State football.

Multimillion-dollar figures, stadium concepts and big dreams aside, nothing will happen with the grandiose idea of bringing Major League Soccer to Portland until early 2009.

If Portland doesn't get an expansion franchise – and the MLS will let prospective owner Merritt Paulson and enthusiastic city Commissioner Randy Leonard know by early next year – all the plans introduced to the media and public Wednesday at PGE Park will be moot.

Paulson and Leonard want to renovate PGE Park for MLS and build a baseball stadium, probably at Lents Park, for the Triple-A Beavers. It would take $75 million in city-backed funds, with Paulson forking over $40 million for an MLS expansion team.

Paulson, who owns the Beavers and Portland Timbers, has said he will apply for the MLS franchise by the Oct. 15 deadline. The league wants to award teams to two cities by early 2009. Montreal, Vancouver (British Columbia), New York (Queens), Atlanta, San Diego, Las Vegas and St. Louis also have expressed interest.

No specific negotiations have transpired between Paulson and the city.

"It'd be a waste of time until we saw that it happened," Leonard says, referring to MLS.

"We're going to need public funding for both facilities, and a lot of it would come from what Randy Leonard talked about – ticket sales tax and rent," Paulson says. "They would be city-owned facilities."

Mind you, PGE Park underwent a $45 million renovation to be home for the return of the Beavers and Timbers in 2001. A group of mostly local investors known as Portland Family Entertainment undertook the project with the city's blessing, and then exited the first year of operation with losses approaching $10 million. Managing partners Marshall Glickman and Mark Gardiner left, and ownership went through various hands until Paulson bought the two teams– and management of PGE Park – in early 2007.

The Beavers and Timbers have enjoyed successful years recently, and Paulson claims the past renovation project "is almost totally paid off. ... And that was done through ticket tax – a great case study in low-impact public financing."

The proposed projects would be backed by city bonds and paid for in part by ticket tax and rent.

The city's contract with PFE had built-in protections, so the taxpayers wouldn't be left holding the bag. One would assume a contract on a $75 million project would have similar protections.

"Part of being a city is you have to take risks," Leonard says. "This is not a substantial risk.

"A good analogy to draw is the public streetcars," he adds, of Portland government's emphasis on public transportation in the city. "It's an amenity, but it's an amenity that pays for itself."

Leonard says he doesn't worry about possible bad public relations generated from such a project at PGE Park and Lents, because of Paulson and his commitment to the community. Paulson, a Chicago native, moved here from New York.

Leonard says the previous team owners were various groups from across the U.S. "and other countries" – although PFE consisted of mostly local partners.

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