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Baseball stadium plan has new ideas
The finished bid for a major league team, any team, has some new numbers and a proposed wrecking ball for PGE Park
By JOHN HUNT
The Oregonian
Friday, August 27, 2004

After 18 months of calculations and negotiations, Portland unveiled its finished major league baseball stadium finance plan, calling it "a good starting point."

Portland Mayor Vera Katz, Oregon Stadium Campaign leader David Kahn and city officials held a news conference Thursday at the Oregon Sports Hall of Fame, where they stressed two familiar themes: A stadium would mean no new taxes or loss of city services, and the goal is to attract any team, not just the Montreal Expos.

They also stressed two new ones: PGE Park could be torn down if a major league ballpark is built, and a prospective owner has expressed an interest in owning a major league team in Portland.

"Are there people who have evinced an interest in owning a team in Portland, Oregon, and have the wherewithal to do it? Of course there are," said Kahn, who would not elaborate or say whether any of those people were owners of existing franchises.

Portland is trying to position itself as a better alternative than Las Vegas for future relocation. Major League Baseball officials are holding serious talks with representatives from Washington, D.C., and Northern Virginia in hopes of finding a home for the league-owned Expos. If the Washington area gets the Expos, that would leave only Portland, Las Vegas and possibly Monterrey, Mexico, on the relocation map -- for now.

And if the owners of, say, the Oakland Athletics, Florida Marlins or Minnesota Twins look for greener grass in Portland, they now will have a full-color, 91-page document to review.

"They will pay attention to us," Katz said. "We have laid the foundation for the next steps. What will get us there is this document."

City spectator facilities manager David Logsdon said the $350 million stadium plan is very flexible.

"This is a plan and a plan only," Logsdon said. "It's not a take-it-or-leave-it offer."

It is much the same plan as the one city officials outlined in May for the baseball owners meetings in New York, with these changes:

The state revenue projections -- the income taxes collected from players and team officials -- dropped to $115 million from $124 million, which had been a drop from the original estimate of $150 million.

A ticket tax rose to $85 million from $75 million, which had been beefed up from $49 million.

The stadium district tax now is estimated at $56 million, although there is nothing approaching a firm agreement with the business community.

"I think there's agreement on the principle of pursuing revenues that exist with a team and don't exist without one," said Mike McCallum, executive director of the Oregon Restaurant Association. "The details, particularly of the hotel tax, are yet to be worked through. We don't like, frankly, the utilization of room tax dollars for PGE Park today -- reallocating those is a very positive step."

That is another new component of the finance plan: $13 million generated from the reallocation of the hotel and vehicle taxes that are being used to pay off the PGE Park renovation.

City officials plan to raze the ballpark and redevelop that property, effectively cutting their losses on the stadium that has proved problematic with a current tenant, the Triple A Portland Beavers.

"We learned the hard way that once the Rose Garden was built, we still had the Memorial Coliseum to deal with," Katz said.

She also said that part of the reason for wrapping up the finance plan was that she knew she wasn't going to be in office "after December 31st, 11:59 p.m.," and that the city has "created a body of stakeholders who will be pushing the council when the time comes."

Commissioner Jim Francesconi, a possible successor to Katz as mayor, issued a statement Thursday, distancing himself from the baseball effort.

"I love baseball, but I don't like this proposal," said Francesconi in the statement. "At a time when so many are out of work, we cannot ask taxpayers to bear the majority risk for a stadium project."

The revised plan also includes a $3.5 million annual team lease.

"It's meant to be flexible," Logsdon said. "If an owner wants to structure team's share differently, the city would be open to that."

Katz also appointed a 12-person advisory committee made up of business leaders and city officials. One of the first tasks facing the committee is to begin the public process of site selection, Kahn said. Without knowing the site, the business district component would be even more vague.

Katz couldn't resist using a baseball analogy:

"We crossed home plate. Unfortunately, we still have extra innings."

John Hunt: 503-294-7643; johnhunt@news.oregonian.com