Portland Beavers Ballpark - Location

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. In Beaverton, preliminary plans included building the park next to the Beaverton Central MAX station. Clackamas County promoted a location near the Southeast Fuller Road station on the recently-completed MAX Green Line light rail, and Vancouver mayor Tim Leavitt indicated interest in bringing the team to his city. None of these proposals gained enough momentum to proceed to the planning stage.