By J.E. Isaac, Senior Vice President of Business Affairs, Portland Trail Blazers
September and October were active and productive months for the project teams at the City, PDC and the Trail Blazers. The Mayor’s Stakeholder Advisory Committee, a 32 member panel of citizens selected to advise City Council on the future of the Memorial Coliseum and Trail Blazers’ development of the Rose Quarter, began their bi-monthly meetings.
Initial meetings focused on the history and current operating conditions of the neighborhood, Memorial Coliseum and the Rose Quarter, and the agreements between the City and the Trail Blazers. The group toured the Memorial Coliseum and the Rose Quarter, were briefed by experts on the key issues, and agreed on a project vision statement and urban design principles for the Rose Quarter. The group has also established criteria to judge ideas and concepts that can be submitted by the public starting November 2. The PDC has established an excellent website, Rosequarterdevelopment.org, which has a tremendous amount of information and is where you should submit your ideas for the Memorial Coliseum.
The Trail Blazers have also been busy working with project partners, including local architects and designers Rick Potestio and Nike’s Tinker Hatfield, on initial design concepts and beginning our public outreach to gather input from neighbors, fans and community organizations.
We want to hear your feedback on our initial vision for the Rose Quarter and our ideas for the Memorial Coliseum, and encourage you to contact us through our website to send us your input or to arrange a presentation to your group. We want to retain the value that the Memorial Coliseum brings to the community and the Rose Quarter as a multi-purpose arena, and to improve it and add non-event usages to it to enliven it during non-event times. We want to protect the architectural integrity and uniqueness of the building while respecting and improving the Memorial to our heroes.
We feel the project is off to a great start and we are looking forward to moving through this process with your help to realize our vision for Jumptown.
The best use of MC is to tear it down and build the 3rd piece of what could be Portland’s Three Sisters — the convention center, the Rose Garden and “Memorial Stadium.” The third piece would resemble Seattle’s Safeco Field…a major league baseball stadium with retractable roof that could host many other events from concerts to other world class entertainment. The MC has served its purpose. It is a waste of money to play around with this glass shell. Memorial Stadium can serve to honor all war veterans as well as other public heroes who have fallen on our behalf.
What time does Friday’s Front Row close tonight?
Seriously tho…grenade the Coliseum and redevelop the site.
If you can’t build a ballpark in there, at least think about a proper shed for summer tours. That “Costco for concerts” in Ridgefield is a dark, sterile, unimaginative, plain vanilla box that is difficult to get to and from. Something in between Edgefield and Clark County.
Cool idea. I think the name jump town has got to go. Hopefully that is just a working title and won’t be what you call the area. I am all for demolishing the memorial coliseum. It is less than historic although a few historic events took place in it. If you want progress, it is time to get ride of it. Let’s get some baseball in the Rose Quarter!
John Dillin is spot on in the first comment above.
Build a ballpark for baseball. It will keep the area lively through the Spring, Summer and Fall. It is your best bet as far as making “Jump Town” happen.
I think 95 out of 100 people are on the same page. The memorial coliseum must go. A baseball stadium is the obvious choice.
I trust the Trail Blazers will not listen to psychos or local Taliban who want to “grenade” Memorial Coliseum.
It looks to me from the block of anti-Coliseum commenters that some group has made a concerted effort to mislead the Blazers. In reality, an overwhelming majority of Portlanders want to see this classic modernist arena, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, be preserved.
I’m appalled at and embarrassed for those actually calling to “grenade” a buiding that was built to honor veterans of World War I and World War II. For shame.
I love the old memories of the MC (and ive got plenty of them)…but come on, lets tear it down and build an expandable triple A ballpark (someday the majors may come calling). To list the MC on the historic buildings registry is a complete joke. If they could level more historic buildings like The Boston Garden, Tiger Stadium, Chicago stadium, Yankee Stadium and the like why is tearing down an obsolete old arena such a problem. Only in Portland. “Classic modernist arena”…come on give me a break! Portland as a City tries to be so “progressive”, in the end the powers that be are so short sided they are truly turning the 23rd largest City in the US into a try “minor league” city.
In addition to its function as a memorial, many people in the area have also graduated here. It was the setting of battles of the bands and the Mayor’s Ball, when Bud Clark was elected. It could be an open place to showcase the best of Oregon and Portland.
We have local musicians who can draw their followings where they go: Janice Scroggins, Linda Hornbuckle, Norman Sylvester, Curtis Salgado, The Decemberists, and on and on.
We have Stumptown and other coffee companies. We have tea companies written up in the New York Times (Townsend’s).
We have the McMenamins, the Widmers, and keep going with this thread also.
We have a nursery industry–think One Green World, which has had a fruit tasting event that is something else.
We have wildly electric-colored salad and stewing greens (Wild Garden Seeds).
We have Columbia Sportswear.
Up the Gorge, we have the toe-glove shoe company. We also have wind-surf companies.
Shouldn’t we all know about this stuff, especially in these times?
Shouldn’t people who come to visit us at the convention center know, and take the news of our products back home with them?
What if we put a karaoke where you could jam around with musicians for an audio/video post card to send to family and friends? Or ask the musicians if they’ve ever thought about writing a song about this or that?
I can think of all kinds of art, flora, maybe even fauna that could go in there, especially on the south-facing part (seasonal-affective-caffeine-treatment wall).
These one-note guys on the beginning of the thread are a tiny minority, which you can tell by what happened when Randy Leonard and Merritt Paulson went to Lents to announce their ideas for the Little League area.
There are guys who want to sit in a chair, drink beer, and watch other people run around. It’s their right to do that, but I don’t want to hear it.
I sure don’t want them to be role models for my kids or for my neighbors’ kids either. I’d rather they would go down by the noisy cars.
You can dance to the afore-mentioned groups. I go to Halibut’s II for that sometimes, but I’d love to see a bigger branch. Halibut’s III with sweet potato fries would do some business.
I agree. Jumptown is what we need, especially in these times when so many are unemployed. They used to at least have dance marathons for unemployed people.
And we need to honor the people whose property was taken. New York cherishes the Apollo Theatre. What happened here?
“For shame”!? C’mon, Brian…don’t confuse the building with the memorial. Even churches get razed, when its time to build a better one.
You can be sure that whatever replaces the MC will include an even nicer WW1/WWII memorial, one any veteran would be proud to see. I’m confident they’ll name the new structure the ‘Memorial’, too.
There’s nothing the least bit disrepectful, let alone appalling, about wanting to make the best possible use of a very key piece of real estate.
The Blazers talk about honoring Veterans. Since when? Memorial Day all the lights around the walls and fountain were off. Everytime someone says anything about the Blazers or their PAM, THEN you mention Veterans. Paul Allen never cared about the Veterans and neither does the PAM group.
Are there any Veterans on the committee, who are they and can I talk to them?
David,
If that did somehow happen, our apologies, but we can assure you that war memorials at the Memorial Coliseum are respectfully maintained 365 days a year by the staff of AEG Facilities.
Special attention is given to the Pine Court and Fountain Court areas in preparation for both Memorial Day and Veterans Day. Both areas are meticulously cleaned and new flowers are planted. The fountain at the WWII Memorial is cleaned, serviced and operational, weather permitting. Additionally, the three flags that fly over the Rose Quarter commons are replaced twice a year in advance of Memorial Day and Veterans Day.
Our organization, from Mr. Allen down, recognizes the tremendous sacrifices made by war veterans and their loved ones. One of the guiding principles in our development plan is to honor the service and bravery of Oregon’s veterans.
Veteran interests are accounted for in the Mayor’s Stakeholder Advisory Committee that meets twice monthly to discuss the future of Memorial Coliseum and the Rose Quarter. For more information, visit http://www.rosequarterdevelopment.org.
Thanks.
Chris Oxley
General Manager, AEG Facilities
For better planning and critical mass issues it should be three or four districts into one planned super district. The potential blows your mind!
Are all your info correct? I am not trying to be a jerk, on the other hand I don’t notice how this makes total sense! Much Thanks!