Portland mentioned again as possible MLB town (Eugene, Bend: mortgage, credit)

[Drunkenwolf]

I live here in St.Louis.. I think MLB or NHL would be great for Portland however Seattle is ponying up over 600 Million just for a NHL team let alone if Portland were able to get a MLB team i would think relocating a team from a existing city makes perfect sense i mean who knows how much the MLB would be asking for expansion fee? As much as i enjoy MLB i love the NHL much better the game is so fast and electric...Speaking of ticket pricing for NHL games it depends what team you're wanting to watch your hometown team play.. Blues/BlackHawks tickets are premium buys they cost a fortune because its a true rivalry. I recently bought a ticket for a Blues/Panthers game not a rivalry by any means anyways the cost of my ticket to be up close to the action was 100 bucks so pricing like every sport always varies....

Good luck to Portland on pursuing a MLB team i don't think the NHL will be expanding for sometime though there might be a relocation or 2..

[texasdiver]

Originally Posted by Drunkenwolf

I live here in St.Louis.. I think MLB or NHL would be great for Portland however Seattle is ponying up over 600 Million just for a NHL team let alone if Portland were able to get a MLB team i would think relocating a team from a existing city makes perfect sense i mean who knows how much the MLB would be asking for expansion fee? As much as i enjoy MLB i love the NHL much better the game is so fast and electric...Speaking of ticket pricing for NHL games it depends what team you're wanting to watch your hometown team play.. Blues/BlackHawks tickets are premium buys they cost a fortune because its a true rivalry. I recently bought a ticket for a Blues/Panthers game not a rivalry by any means anyways the cost of my ticket to be up close to the action was 100 bucks so pricing like every sport always varies....

Good luck to Portland on pursuing a MLB team i don't think the NHL will be expanding for sometime though there might be a relocation or 2..

Portland already has an NHL-ready venue so they could take a NHL team tomorrow basically. Seattle is going to have to completely renovate Key Arena which at the moment is exclusively designed for basketball and somewhat dated, although it was completely renovated in the 90s for the Sonics. That's at least a 1-1.5 year job.

Baseball is going to be a 5-year project minimum just to get the stadium finished in Portland. The preferred site is a former industrial waterfront site. Figure 1-2 years minumum just for the planning, permitting, and site remediation. The fact that it isn't currently a superfund site is probably only because they haven't looked very hard. There has been 100 years of heavy industry and shipbuilding out there so god only knows what is under the surface. After that at least 2-3 years for the construction, highway and surface street rebuilding, utility work and I don't know what all else.

Despite that it seems baseball is in the cards, not the NHL.

[oregonwoodsmoke]

Portland won't build roads, so that might limit the amount of parking that will be needed. That cuts down on required acreage.

Portland will happily provide new bike lanes to the new arena, but bike parking doesn't require nearly as much space.

[texasdiver]

Originally Posted by oregonwoodsmoke

Portland won't build roads, so that might limit the amount of parking that will be needed. That cuts down on required acreage.

Portland will happily provide new bike lanes to the new arena, but bike parking doesn't require nearly as much space.

Just a guess on my part but I would expect an MLB baseball team to have a much more suburban and regional fan base than the Timbers. So a LOT more people driving in from the suburbs and from out of town from places like Salem, Eugene, Longview, etc. That was my experience living in Texas with the Rangers in Arlington. People would drive in from all over the region for the games.

By contrast the Timbers is much more Portland-centric hipster type crowd so a much higher percentage of people walk, bike, and take rail to the games. The bike racks around the stadium are astonishly full of bikes during every Timbers game. So a lot of additional highway access and parking is not really so important around the Timbers Stadium

I don't expect that to be the case for a future MLB team in Portland. No matter how much Portland might want people to bike and take rail to the games, the fan base is going to be more regional and will be expecting to drive and park. That's just the nature of what a baseball fan base is going to be.

So if the city thinks they can get by with siting a stadium in some corner of the city without good highway access and parking I think they are kidding themselves. Without major road improvements they are asking for a traffic fiasco 81 days a year and more if they go to the playoffs.

[take57]

Originally Posted by texasdiver

Just a guess on my part but I would expect an MLB baseball team to have a much more suburban and regional fan base than the Timbers. So a LOT more people driving in from the suburbs and from out of town from places like Salem, Eugene, Longview, etc. That was my experience living in Texas with the Rangers in Arlington. People would drive in from all over the region for the games.

By contrast the Timbers is much more Portland-centric hipster type crowd so a much higher percentage of people walk, bike, and take rail to the games. The bike racks around the stadium are astonishly full of bikes during every Timbers game. So a lot of additional highway access and parking is not really so important around the Timbers Stadium

I don't expect that to be the case for a future MLB team in Portland. No matter how much Portland might want people to bike and take rail to the games, the fan base is going to be more regional and will be expecting to drive and park. That's just the nature of what a baseball fan base is going to be.

So if the city thinks they can get by with siting a stadium in some corner of the city without good highway access and parking I think they are kidding themselves. Without major road improvements they are asking for a traffic fiasco 81 days a year and more if they go to the playoffs.

Problem solved. Hundreds of these shuttling between the ballpark and Terminal 4 where the Port of Portland and Toyota have plenty of parking...



(Hey, The Portland Diamond Project seems to have signed off on including a replica Med School aerial tram in the plans so a fleet of bullpen carts doesn't seem so far fetched )

[S550]

Originally Posted by texasdiver

Just a guess on my part but I would expect an MLB baseball team to have a much more suburban and regional fan base than the Timbers. So a LOT more people driving in from the suburbs and from out of town from places like Salem, Eugene, Longview, etc. That was my experience living in Texas with the Rangers in Arlington. People would drive in from all over the region for the games.

By contrast the Timbers is much more Portland-centric hipster type crowd so a much higher percentage of people walk, bike, and take rail to the games. The bike racks around the stadium are astonishly full of bikes during every Timbers game. So a lot of additional highway access and parking is not really so important around the Timbers Stadium

I don't expect that to be the case for a future MLB team in Portland. No matter how much Portland might want people to bike and take rail to the games, the fan base is going to be more regional and will be expecting to drive and park. That's just the nature of what a baseball fan base is going to be.

So if the city thinks they can get by with siting a stadium in some corner of the city without good highway access and parking I think they are kidding themselves. Without major road improvements they are asking for a traffic fiasco 81 days a year and more if they go to the playoffs.

I’m sure while working on this deal for OVER A YEAR now they have thought about all this. These people are loaded with money and have hired probably the best economists in the game to study all these questions.

I’m sure before they offered the money for terminal 2 they did well covered research on all these questions bud

[pdxMIKEpdx]

These people are loaded with money and have hired probably the best economists in the game to study all these questions.

And probably hired the best to figure out how to wiggle around all the problems, wind up spending the least amount of money they possibly can, and hire the best PR people to make it seem like we will be getting the deal of a lifetime.

Texasdiver is spot on about Portland, bud

[texasdiver]

Originally Posted by S550

I’m sure while working on this deal for OVER A YEAR now they have thought about all this. These people are loaded with money and have hired probably the best economists in the game to study all these questions.

I’m sure before they offered the money for terminal 2 they did well covered research on all these questions bud

So if I'm running a mult-billion dollar baseball partnership and I have the following choice:

1. A very large acreage of undeveloped land that I can pick up relatively cheaply and that has adjacent land that I can redevelop into thousands of apartment/condo units but that has poor highway and transit access. I can buy it, make a huge profit on adjacent development projects, and leave the highway/transit problems to the city with the expectation that if you build it they will come. Perhaps affiliated business interests will also be scooping up additional nearby parcels of undeveloped land to make additional profit on the project.

2. Expensive smaller portion of land with excellent highway and transit access and no adjacent land for redevelopment as the site is hemmed in by existing highways and rail.

I'm going to pick option #1 every time and expect the city to fall over itself to accomodate me with highway and transit improvements picked up by the taxpayer.

What's good for the developer isn't always what's good for the taxpayer. If the city is building a municipally owned stadium they will pick option 2 every time.

[SyraBrian]

The residents of the new neighborhood around the stadium should get baseball tickets included in their leases.

That would make it a baseball neighborhood and cut down the need for transit and parking.

[take57]

Originally Posted by SyraBrian

The residents of the new neighborhood around the stadium should get baseball tickets included in their leases.

That would make it a baseball neighborhood and cut down the need for transit and parking.

That idea would get you elected Mayor of Wrigleyville for life...