My opinion? Nothing good for Portland will come from Mayor Wheeler. Once a radical, always a radical. If I were the business establishment, I would not believe anything he says. Wheeler has a track record at this point. One of the suburbs should take this on, with their friendlier business environment (Wilsonville would be ideal as closer to the rest of the Willamette Valley, and less an issue with traffic into downtown Portland)
lol Wilsonville? It takes an hour already to get to Wilsonville from Portland in rush hour on a good day. Add a ballpark and it’s 2 hours. This is a terrible idea.
I haven't been there, but it's hard to imagine a location much worse than Red Tail Golf Course where they wanted to build it a while back. That would have been such a nightmare getting in and out that I might have stayed away just due to traffic.
The Zidell Yard area has its own traffic issues (getting on and off the Ross Island Bridge during afternoon rush hour can be brutal), but at least with that spot there are transportation alternatives for those that want to avoid driving in traffic.
For sure, but for the stadiums I'm familiar with in urban areas you have alternatives available nearby like rail systems. And for those built on the outskirts of a big city (thinking of Atlanta's new stadium), it's in an area where you have room to expand the road/highway infrastructure to help mitigate traffic. That Red Tail location had neither.
This location has the Orange Line MAX but no mention of where there would be expanded parking. Which every MLB city has right now. But the investors need to come step up (Merritt Paulson).
There's also streetcar and bus stops right there too. Pretty sure the Zidell Yard property straddles the Ross Island Bridge. I think the plan calls for the stadium to be built on the north side closest to the transport stops near the Tilikum Bridge, and any parking + other development could be on the south side of the RIB.
I live in Seattle and go to Mariners, Sounders, Kraken, and (when I can score tickets) Seahawk games. I never see the traffic you speak of. I take light rail, and it drops you off 3 blocks from the stadiums. Easy. No traffic.
The point on traffic is that coming from the south on I-5, which many will, you do not need to go through Wilsonville and then the bottleneck all the way through downtown Portland. You only need to go as far as Wilsonville. With I-5 a mess, there are no good options for getting to and from games
Agree. He had a firm plan to solve homelessness 8years ago. Put it out in the burbs. Ted is a nice fellow with a huge family bank account who’s never done anything on his own in his life.
Dude, he is putting it on the river. It will look at Mt. Hood. The stadium will be in SW Portland. Dr. Jim We are building a metroplex city. De. Jim at drjimxx;law64@gmail. com
LOLOLOL...I've lived in the area all my life...since 1954, sans 3 years...1 in astoria, 2 in Eureka Ca. Spare me the view comments...If it weren't for radical leftists and Bureaucrats, & teachers union cronies. We'd have had a stadium waaay before Seattle...{Delta Dome ring a bell}? instead We got a remodled civic stadium/pge park/ whatever it is they call it now for minor league soccer & the soccer moms, & Drunk anarchists.
As has been said PDX is small time...It's so called leaders think small, act small time, and yet think it's important in the scheme of things....it isn't. We will NOT get a stadium at any time in the near future. Tim Wheeler is just another huge loser in a long string of loser morons, rapists, pedo's & drunks that have called themselves mayors of Portland. IMO the ONLY good politicians IN MY ENTIRE LIFETIME in Portland were mayor Terry Schrunk and his son Mike. Two VERY good people who cared deeply for this city.
Agreed 100% about Teddy Bear. FYI, be careful saying anything political here. I made a joke about our worthless Oregon governor, and her slaves lost their poop. Great comment, still.
Ted a radical? Oh man…he isn’t anywhere close to that. He’s just another moderate empty suit who has big family money. He won’t even be mayor come January.
"Salt Lake City has an ownership group and has felt for a while like a more evolved MLB expansion candidate." Those are sage words...SLC has everything, a stable and deep-pocketed ownership group, a designated stadium location plus advanced renderings of a stadium, public transportation already present to take people directly to the stadium's doorstep, massive community and political ($1B earmarked for a stadium from the legislature) support, etc...in my view, the only way that Portland, with all of its issues, supplants SLC as a contender is if it makes a massive donation to Rob Manfred's bank account. Most baseball people in the know will tell you that Nashville and SLC are 1 and 1A in any future baseball expansion or move location with other cities like Portland waiting on the bench.
35-40 years ago SLC decided to make itself into a tier 1 city and has invested and dreamed and made it happen. Olympics, hockey, soon baseball, etc and leapfrogged past Portland in many important metrics
Portland meanwhile remains the small town second rate mindset it’s always had. This newfound political interest is either gonna be short lived or too late
If you're asking me about SLC's ownership group, it's led by the Larry H. Miller Company, who used to own the Jazz until they sold it to Ryan Smith. Here's a link to their site that explains everything: https://bigleagueutah.com/ A simple Google search would have led you to the same conclusions. I'm unsure why you thought an ownership group in SLC didn't exist.
Here's what you fail to understand...there are 2.3 million residents, and growing, in the 80 miles between Ogden and Provo. Salt Lake City is equidistant from both of those locations (roughly 40 miles from each city). In addition, the location for the new ballpark will be serviced by pre-existing public transportation rail lines from both Ogden and Provo. Lastly, the ballpark will also be directly off the interstate, so if a person chooses to drive to a ballgame, they can do so with little to no fear of a bottleneck. Because the area where the ballpark will be built is immense, parking for anyone who chooses to drive will not be an issue at all. Look at the link I posted above. Whereas Portland still has a lot of work to do to get its MLB house in order, SLC has been shovel-ready for a year and has the support of the entire state across the aisle political establishment.
There is no sport more American than baseball.; mom, apple pie…it is a standard bearer of normalcy. Portland is 174 degrees from normalcy. There, Abraham Lincoln didn’t free the slaves and hold the union together. He supposedly did all kinds of bad stuff that bars him from ever being celebrated. Naming elementary schools after George Washington…forget about it unless you want to have your school library burned down.
Baseball is for places where its proponents won’t be shouted down by people who accuse them of offenses against indigenous people. After all didn’t the league have a team named the Indians? And isn’t there still a team named the Braves? Now every city has a small cadre of folks who are inclined to look at the world that way, it’s just that Portland has way…way….way more than a cadre. And if you really think they are a relatively small cadre then surely you must agree they do make a helluva lotta noise for a small cadre. In fact, for some years now they have brought a once fabulous, unique and quirky Pacific Northwest city to its knees. That cadre sure can destroy. MLB is probably of the belief that there are normal places like SLC, Nashville, Charlotte and others where its great American game will be welcomed and celebrated.
Many if not most small market MLB teams struggle each year because they simply can't compete for the best players. Unlike the NFL, NHL and NBA, major league baseball has no salary cap, which means rich teams are free to buy their way to greatness. (See 2024 World Series payrolls.) The NFL, NHL and NBA have something close to parity--thus NFL teams like Baltimore, Tampa Bay, Buffalo, Cincinnati and many others can be competitive. Major League Baseball's refusal to adopt salary caps has ruined the game for all but the fans of the big, rich teams. Would Portland fans really be happy with the kind of small to medium market mediocrity created by MLB's ridiculous "revenue sharing" model? The game is broken. Fix it, then expand.
If Portland gets a MLB team it will be in spite of leaders like Wheeler. He's likely looking for a legacy, something besides Antifa and BLM riots. He's a joke, locally and nationally.
The summer of 2020 proved he was no leader and he has struggled ever since. A lot of square footage has moved to the burbs and it will take some time to bring a boom back to downtown. Maybe a stadium and a franchise in 10 years is a reasonable timeframe, build it and they will come, maybe.
Good to see the city move beyond Keep Portland Weird.It’s a positive to finally have local politicians talk about supporting MLB to PDX.If memory serves correctly Vera Katz was last mayor to embrace sports in Portland positively.Hope they can build ideas and momentum from this.
Back in 2003 when the Montreal Expos were looking for a new home, but Portland was being used to get a relocation deal done in the DC and Northern Virginia area.
The Mariners will fight this tooth and nail. They see Portland as part of this Market. With Portland's lack of law enforcement who is going to invest in a Stadium in downtown Portland, and who is going to feel safe downtown. Do you all think Antifa is not going to disrupt the process once building starts. Maybe build a stadium for Triple AAA baseball instead.
As a Mariners fan, I’m rooting hard for Portland to acquire an MLB franchise. It would create another natural regional rivalry and would create competition that would put some pressure on the M’s ownership group to put a winning product on the field or risk losing business.
Right now the M’s owners are perfectly complacent with being middle of the road in payroll, winning just enough games to keep droves of fans coming year after year (many of them who travel to Seattle from elsewhere to cheer for the visiting team), allowing them to consistently be at or near the top of the league in profit margin, but laughably far away from putting a team on the field that can truly compete for a World Series title.
Could not have said it better myself. I quit watching and going to games. As long as I did I just enabled Mariner ownership to continue their business practice.
Under Ted’s “leadership”, a once great city became a national joke. Not buying what he’s selling, especially since there are still no ownership names attached.
My opinion? Nothing good for Portland will come from Mayor Wheeler. Once a radical, always a radical. If I were the business establishment, I would not believe anything he says. Wheeler has a track record at this point. One of the suburbs should take this on, with their friendlier business environment (Wilsonville would be ideal as closer to the rest of the Willamette Valley, and less an issue with traffic into downtown Portland)
lol Wilsonville? It takes an hour already to get to Wilsonville from Portland in rush hour on a good day. Add a ballpark and it’s 2 hours. This is a terrible idea.
I wouldn't exactly call Ted Wheeler a radical. Look at where his financial fortuned came from.
Less traffic in Wilsonville? Have you been to Wilsonville lately? It's like the Bermuda Triangle.
I haven't been there, but it's hard to imagine a location much worse than Red Tail Golf Course where they wanted to build it a while back. That would have been such a nightmare getting in and out that I might have stayed away just due to traffic.
The Zidell Yard area has its own traffic issues (getting on and off the Ross Island Bridge during afternoon rush hour can be brutal), but at least with that spot there are transportation alternatives for those that want to avoid driving in traffic.
Seattle has huge traffic issues around where the M's and Seahawks play. It's part of every city in MLB no matter where you go.
For sure, but for the stadiums I'm familiar with in urban areas you have alternatives available nearby like rail systems. And for those built on the outskirts of a big city (thinking of Atlanta's new stadium), it's in an area where you have room to expand the road/highway infrastructure to help mitigate traffic. That Red Tail location had neither.
This location has the Orange Line MAX but no mention of where there would be expanded parking. Which every MLB city has right now. But the investors need to come step up (Merritt Paulson).
There's also streetcar and bus stops right there too. Pretty sure the Zidell Yard property straddles the Ross Island Bridge. I think the plan calls for the stadium to be built on the north side closest to the transport stops near the Tilikum Bridge, and any parking + other development could be on the south side of the RIB.
I live in Seattle and go to Mariners, Sounders, Kraken, and (when I can score tickets) Seahawk games. I never see the traffic you speak of. I take light rail, and it drops you off 3 blocks from the stadiums. Easy. No traffic.
You must live in downtown Seattle. Right??
Nope. Closer to SeaTac.
It’s a two hour and 3 vehicle transit ride each way. Some option
The point on traffic is that coming from the south on I-5, which many will, you do not need to go through Wilsonville and then the bottleneck all the way through downtown Portland. You only need to go as far as Wilsonville. With I-5 a mess, there are no good options for getting to and from games
Exactly. Wilsonville would be a terrible location that is hard for a huge chunk of the metro area to get to.
Agree. He had a firm plan to solve homelessness 8years ago. Put it out in the burbs. Ted is a nice fellow with a huge family bank account who’s never done anything on his own in his life.
Wheeler: A complete idiot who has proven this time and again.
Dude, he is putting it on the river. It will look at Mt. Hood. The stadium will be in SW Portland. Dr. Jim We are building a metroplex city. De. Jim at drjimxx;law64@gmail. com
LOLOLOL...I've lived in the area all my life...since 1954, sans 3 years...1 in astoria, 2 in Eureka Ca. Spare me the view comments...If it weren't for radical leftists and Bureaucrats, & teachers union cronies. We'd have had a stadium waaay before Seattle...{Delta Dome ring a bell}? instead We got a remodled civic stadium/pge park/ whatever it is they call it now for minor league soccer & the soccer moms, & Drunk anarchists.
As has been said PDX is small time...It's so called leaders think small, act small time, and yet think it's important in the scheme of things....it isn't. We will NOT get a stadium at any time in the near future. Tim Wheeler is just another huge loser in a long string of loser morons, rapists, pedo's & drunks that have called themselves mayors of Portland. IMO the ONLY good politicians IN MY ENTIRE LIFETIME in Portland were mayor Terry Schrunk and his son Mike. Two VERY good people who cared deeply for this city.
Agreed 100% about Teddy Bear. FYI, be careful saying anything political here. I made a joke about our worthless Oregon governor, and her slaves lost their poop. Great comment, still.
Ted a radical? Oh man…he isn’t anywhere close to that. He’s just another moderate empty suit who has big family money. He won’t even be mayor come January.
"Salt Lake City has an ownership group and has felt for a while like a more evolved MLB expansion candidate." Those are sage words...SLC has everything, a stable and deep-pocketed ownership group, a designated stadium location plus advanced renderings of a stadium, public transportation already present to take people directly to the stadium's doorstep, massive community and political ($1B earmarked for a stadium from the legislature) support, etc...in my view, the only way that Portland, with all of its issues, supplants SLC as a contender is if it makes a massive donation to Rob Manfred's bank account. Most baseball people in the know will tell you that Nashville and SLC are 1 and 1A in any future baseball expansion or move location with other cities like Portland waiting on the bench.
35-40 years ago SLC decided to make itself into a tier 1 city and has invested and dreamed and made it happen. Olympics, hockey, soon baseball, etc and leapfrogged past Portland in many important metrics
Portland meanwhile remains the small town second rate mindset it’s always had. This newfound political interest is either gonna be short lived or too late
And whom, may I ask, again, is this ownership group? There isn’t one, it does not exist.
JC, if it wasn’t for all of your other excellent work I would cancel until you at least ASK that question and post that there was no answer!
That is the $1 Billion Dollar Question right now. The PDP seems to be elusive about it.
Exactly. Step up to the plate with the investor or this is all vaporware.
Yes. It's easy to make plans and come up with impressive looking drawings of a stadium.
Until a potential owner or ownership group with a high profile leader emerges, that's all the Portland Diamond Project is going to have.
Yes! That is what I’m most interested in. Who are the ones with the money for PDX MLB ownership?
If you're asking me about SLC's ownership group, it's led by the Larry H. Miller Company, who used to own the Jazz until they sold it to Ryan Smith. Here's a link to their site that explains everything: https://bigleagueutah.com/ A simple Google search would have led you to the same conclusions. I'm unsure why you thought an ownership group in SLC didn't exist.
He’s talking about Portland’s ownership group.
That's strange, seeing as he was replying to my comment.
The Portland metro area has 2.5 million residents, SLC's is 1.2 million. A huge tipping point.
Here's what you fail to understand...there are 2.3 million residents, and growing, in the 80 miles between Ogden and Provo. Salt Lake City is equidistant from both of those locations (roughly 40 miles from each city). In addition, the location for the new ballpark will be serviced by pre-existing public transportation rail lines from both Ogden and Provo. Lastly, the ballpark will also be directly off the interstate, so if a person chooses to drive to a ballgame, they can do so with little to no fear of a bottleneck. Because the area where the ballpark will be built is immense, parking for anyone who chooses to drive will not be an issue at all. Look at the link I posted above. Whereas Portland still has a lot of work to do to get its MLB house in order, SLC has been shovel-ready for a year and has the support of the entire state across the aisle political establishment.
I’ve lived here since 1962 and have wished for an MLB team ever since. Best game ever. I’m still hoping.
"We're the team to beat???" What an absolute clown. He needs to join Larry Scott as people we should never hear from again...
Does he realize there is stiff competition to bring MLB to their towns too?
“Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain”
There is no sport more American than baseball.; mom, apple pie…it is a standard bearer of normalcy. Portland is 174 degrees from normalcy. There, Abraham Lincoln didn’t free the slaves and hold the union together. He supposedly did all kinds of bad stuff that bars him from ever being celebrated. Naming elementary schools after George Washington…forget about it unless you want to have your school library burned down.
Baseball is for places where its proponents won’t be shouted down by people who accuse them of offenses against indigenous people. After all didn’t the league have a team named the Indians? And isn’t there still a team named the Braves? Now every city has a small cadre of folks who are inclined to look at the world that way, it’s just that Portland has way…way….way more than a cadre. And if you really think they are a relatively small cadre then surely you must agree they do make a helluva lotta noise for a small cadre. In fact, for some years now they have brought a once fabulous, unique and quirky Pacific Northwest city to its knees. That cadre sure can destroy. MLB is probably of the belief that there are normal places like SLC, Nashville, Charlotte and others where its great American game will be welcomed and celebrated.
Montreal is also a candidate but it's provincial government is very quirky too.
Many if not most small market MLB teams struggle each year because they simply can't compete for the best players. Unlike the NFL, NHL and NBA, major league baseball has no salary cap, which means rich teams are free to buy their way to greatness. (See 2024 World Series payrolls.) The NFL, NHL and NBA have something close to parity--thus NFL teams like Baltimore, Tampa Bay, Buffalo, Cincinnati and many others can be competitive. Major League Baseball's refusal to adopt salary caps has ruined the game for all but the fans of the big, rich teams. Would Portland fans really be happy with the kind of small to medium market mediocrity created by MLB's ridiculous "revenue sharing" model? The game is broken. Fix it, then expand.
If Portland gets a MLB team it will be in spite of leaders like Wheeler. He's likely looking for a legacy, something besides Antifa and BLM riots. He's a joke, locally and nationally.
You mean the riots where proud boy’s came into town to disrupt peaceful protests I think.
LOLOL if you actually believe that YOU are the problem.
I couldn’t care less what you think.
Yawn.
The summer of 2020 proved he was no leader and he has struggled ever since. A lot of square footage has moved to the burbs and it will take some time to bring a boom back to downtown. Maybe a stadium and a franchise in 10 years is a reasonable timeframe, build it and they will come, maybe.
Just as people and businesses are leaving PDX they think baseball will save the day? Hardly...
Fix the problems by changing policies before anything else.
I'll believe it when I see it.
Good to see the city move beyond Keep Portland Weird.It’s a positive to finally have local politicians talk about supporting MLB to PDX.If memory serves correctly Vera Katz was last mayor to embrace sports in Portland positively.Hope they can build ideas and momentum from this.
Back in 2003 when the Montreal Expos were looking for a new home, but Portland was being used to get a relocation deal done in the DC and Northern Virginia area.
The Mariners will fight this tooth and nail. They see Portland as part of this Market. With Portland's lack of law enforcement who is going to invest in a Stadium in downtown Portland, and who is going to feel safe downtown. Do you all think Antifa is not going to disrupt the process once building starts. Maybe build a stadium for Triple AAA baseball instead.
As a Mariners fan, I’m rooting hard for Portland to acquire an MLB franchise. It would create another natural regional rivalry and would create competition that would put some pressure on the M’s ownership group to put a winning product on the field or risk losing business.
Right now the M’s owners are perfectly complacent with being middle of the road in payroll, winning just enough games to keep droves of fans coming year after year (many of them who travel to Seattle from elsewhere to cheer for the visiting team), allowing them to consistently be at or near the top of the league in profit margin, but laughably far away from putting a team on the field that can truly compete for a World Series title.
Could not have said it better myself. I quit watching and going to games. As long as I did I just enabled Mariner ownership to continue their business practice.
The Sonics didn't fight it when Portland was able to get an NBA expansion team years ago.
Why would a highly respected journalist waste his time interviewing a moron who calls himself mayor? Nothing Wheeler says here is credible.
Under Ted’s “leadership”, a once great city became a national joke. Not buying what he’s selling, especially since there are still no ownership names attached.