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Portland Beavers Ballpark
Stadium in Portland, Oregon
Stadium in Portland, Oregon
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| name | Portland Beavers Ballpark (unbuilt) |
| location | Portland, Oregon |
| opened | Abandoned 2010 |
| tenants | Portland Beavers (PCL) |
| seating_capacity | ~10,000 |
Portland Beavers Ballpark was a description of a new stadium in Portland, Oregon, or in an outlying city that was being planned for the Portland Beavers of the Pacific Coast League of Minor League Baseball. The ballpark idea was abandoned in October 2010, with no location ever determined for it; several locations were rejected due to public criticism.
Background
Until 2010, the Beavers played in PGE Park, now Providence Park and shared it with the Portland State Vikings college football team and the Portland Timbers soccer team, which played in the USL First Division, the second division of American soccer.
In 2009, the city of Portland was awarded a Major League Soccer (MLS) expansion franchise for 2011, also to be named the Portland Timbers. Due to MLS requirements about the playing surface, seating configuration, and scheduling, PGE Park was to be renovated as a soccer- and football-only stadium and a new stadium was to be built for the Beavers.{{cite news
On February 3, 2010, the Portland City Council approved a $31 million agreement with Beavers' and Timbers' owner Merritt Paulson to renovate PGE Park, meaning that the Beavers had to find a new place to play their home games by 2011.
Location
In the initial proposal, funding for the new soccer team was dependent on a replacement Beavers stadium being found in Portland. Initially, the ballpark was to be built at the site currently occupied by the Memorial Coliseum, which would have been torn down. But public outcry about demolishing a Portland landmark led Portland mayor Sam Adams to propose a second site in the Rose Quarter area north of Memorial Coliseum, which proved to be too small.
Attention then turned to a third site, Lents Park in the Lents neighborhood in southeast Portland, which had been considered in the early planning stages but rejected due to less-accessible location. After a series of contentious public hearings in which neighbors objected to construction of the stadium in a city park, the Lents site was removed from consideration.
On June 24, the Portland City Council voted to separate the soccer and baseball projects, allowing renovation of PGE Park to proceed without completed plans for a baseball stadium in place. Other locations that were considered included a vacant terminal at the Port of Portland, Delta Park, the Portland Expo Center, Portland Meadows, the Westwood Corporation Heliport site, and a building owned by Portland Public Schools near the Rose Quarter.
Other locations outside the Portland city limits were also under consideration. Clackamas County promoted a location near the Southeast Fuller Road station on the recently completed MAX Green Line light rail,{{cite news and Vancouver mayor Tim Leavitt indicated interest in bringing the team to his city.{{cite news
Abandonment of project
Unable to find either a suitable site, public support, or a source of funding, and with time running out before the start of the next season, Paulson sold the Beavers in October 2010. The new owners, the San Diego Padres, found a home for the team, renamed to the Tucson Padres, in Tucson, Arizona until the 2013 season, when it was planned that they would move to a new stadium in Escondido, California, a San Diego suburb. After those stadium plans were placed on indefinite hold, the team remained in Tucson for the 2013 season and moved to El Paso as the El Paso Chihuahuas for the 2014 season.
The Portland area was without minor league baseball in 2011 and 2012. After the 2012 season, the NWL Yakima Bears relocated to a new 4,500-seat stadium in the northwest suburb of Hillsboro and became the Hillsboro Hops.
References
References
- (2009-03-20). "MLS awards 18th franchise to Portland". mlsnet.com.
- Jaquiss, Nigel. (2008-11-25). "Paulson's Pitch". [[Willamette Week]].
- James Mayer. (February 3, 2010). "Portland City Council approves soccer deal for PGE Park". oregonlive.com.
- Jackson, Josh. (2009-03-11). "Beavers' new stadium a step closer". [[Minor League Baseball]].
- Frank, Ryan. (2009-04-22). "Saving Portland's Memorial Coliseum may cost taxpayers". [[The Oregonian]].
- Larabee, Mark. (2009-04-23). "Vote on stadium delayed; Lents Park site back on the table". [[The Oregonian]].
- Larrabee, Mark. (2009-06-22). "Lents Park out as Beavers' home". [[The Oregonian]].
- Larabee, Mark. (2009-06-24). "Major League Soccer plan still alive as Portland council endorses latest plan". [[The Oregonian]].
- Larabee, Mark. (2009-07-21). "Beaverton in running for new Beavers baseball stadium". [[The Oregonian]].
- Breier, Michelle. (December 15, 2010). "Council votes to bring baseball to Escondido".
- Hill, Benjamin. (May 31, 2013). "El Paso prepares to "play ball" in PCL". [[Minor League Baseball]].
This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.
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