Tag Archives: Randy Leonard

Memorial Coliseum: The empire strikes back

portlandmemorialcolWell, damn those architects’ pointy little heads. What right do they have to protest the demolition of a historically important building when a billionaire’s profits are on the line?

Astonishingly, that seems to be the subtext of this morning’s banner story in The Oregonian, under the reductionist headline, Save the coliseum, but for what? Unlike the paper’s previous reporting on the issue of razing or saving Memorial Coliseum, which has been solid, this piece feels like it belongs on the op-ed page. Even then, it’s poorly thought out — mainly, in its thrust, a repetition of the Portland Trail Blazer/City of Portland talking points and a flicking-away of the several legitimate counterproposals that have been made for use of the building. Now that Mayor Sam Adams has given the Coliseum at least a temporary reprieve, this morning’s story reads like the first strike in a counter-campaign to get it torn down, after all. That’s a legitimate goal for an opinion-page story, even though I happen to think it’s the wrong choice. But why am I reading it on the front page, in the guise of a news story?

I won’t get into the arguments in favor of preserving the Coliseum, which have been made well and often in several places (among them Portland Arts Watch, Burnside Blog, Portland Architecture and Culture Shock), except to say this: For all of Portland’s vaunted reputation as a well-planned city, it’s hardly overloaded with buildings of real architectural distinction, and that makes the potential loss of any excellent work of architecture a matter for deep public concern. I’m not an architect, and the International Style is hardly my favorite — indeed, I have a lot of issues with it — but you save what you have, and in the case of Memorial Coliseum, what Portland has is an elegant, almost startlingly pure expression of the International ethos. We’re not talking about an abandoned Home Depot here, in spite of City Commissioner Randy Leonard’s unfortunate stab at architecture criticism.

After establishing the impracticality of the architectural trade in general (why, you’d almost think they were college professors!), The Oregonian’s story gets down to business: The Coliseum is a money-loser. An accompanying bar chart reveals that, yes, for the past three years it’s lost money, mainly because the city’s spent close to $2 million in that time period on needed upkeep (the bill’s been $3.2 million since 2000). And it could cost another $13 million or more to make up for years of neglect and get the place in really good shape again.

Fair enough, although the chart also reveals that in the three immediately preceding years the Coliseum stacked up profits of $243,000, $338,000 and $275,000 — even though the Blazers, who have the sole right to manage and book the building even though it’s city-owned, haven’t had a lot of incentive to push the Coliseum to the detriment of their own Rose Garden a quick jog away.

Continue reading Memorial Coliseum: The empire strikes back

Memorial Coliseum saved. Now what?

Conceptual drawing for Lents baseball stadium, 1760.  Wikimedia CommonsThis morning’s Oregonian headlined the news that Mayor Sam Adams and his partners-in-sports have backtracked and won’t take the wrecking ball to Memorial Coliseum, after all.

Hooray for that. But the story’s far from over.

Mark Larabee’s report says that aspiring mogul Merritt Paulson will shift his proposed minor-league baseball stadium back to the Lents neighborhood of Southeast Portland instead of trying to squeeze it into the Rose Quarter site controlled by full-fledged mogul Paul Allen, whose Trail Blazers organization wants to redevelop the whole shooting match for a highly questionable, theme-park-ish entertainment district. Fellow scatterer Barry Johnson, over at his alternate-universe blog on OregonLive.com, raises several pertinent red flags. Read his column — it’s important.

Questions:

1. Why build a 9,000-seat minor-league baseball park at all? Lents might want it, and maybe it’ll be good for a neighborhood that could use a few good things, and certainly it’ll provide some decent (if short-term) construction jobs. But is it necessary? PGE Park, which is now slated to become a soccer-only stadium for Paulson’s new major-league soccer franchise, is still a great place to see a baseball game. We’re told the soccer league insists that member teams provide soccer-only stadiums, but let’s face it: “Major” league or not, we’re not talking baseball or football or the NBA or even big-league hockey here. Why not call the league’s bluff? After all, we’re all paying for this thing. It’s in the public’s best interest to (a) insist on the best deal possible, and (b) decide whether it wants to make a deal at all. Sam doesn’t get to decide that all by himself.

2. Why should the Blazers decide what the best use of Memorial Coliseum will be? Yes, I know the city cut Allen and his companies a sweetheart deal on management of the Coliseum and the rest of the district, which is part of the reason the Coliseum’s become run-down: The Blazers don’t have a lot of incentive to let it compete seriously with their own Rose Garden. Time for the city to rethink this thing and stand up for itself. The Coliseum needs to be reimagined as an attractor for the entire city, not just a money-maker for the Allen organizations. I still very much like the idea of a first-class participatory sports and recreation center. That would draw thousands of people into the Rose Quarter, year-round.

3. Why are Randy Leonard’s heels dug in? The famously assertive city commissioner, who has been Adams’ sidekick through this thing, says that with the Rose Quarter off the table for the baseball stadium, he won’t consider any option other than Lents for the new ballpark. “It’s either Lents or I’m off the deal entirely,” Larabee quotes him. Wait a minute: What about leaving the Triple-A Beavers at PGE Park, where they could easily be scheduled around the new big-league soccer team and would — hello — help keep the stadium from sitting idle most of the year? Our city council isn’t prepared to even consider that? This is the cheapest option. It might also be the best.

4. What about big-league baseball? We’re talking $55 million for a 9,000-seat minor-league baseball park when (a) most Portlanders simply don’t care about minor-league baseball, and (b) there’s an even chance that in the next five to ten years the city could lure an actual big-league franchise? Then what? How much more will the city pay for a big-league stadium? Where will the stadium be? And what will happen with the little Lents park? Maybe we should just sit out this whole Triple-A deal and work on the real thing.

5. Can someone please explain how the Hooters at the city’s northern gateway is an improvement on the old Waddle’s restaurant it replaced? At least Waddle’s had a decent corned-beef hash. This may seem like a digression, but it’s not, really, because it echoes the main trouble with the Blazers’ proposed entertainment district: It substitutes tired, watered-down (if also pumped-up) cookie-cutter ideas about culture for the local, truly individual, real deal. To borrow a line from Nancy Reagan, maybe it’s time to Just Say No.