[vjoe]

http://www.kgw.com/news-local/stories/020207_sports_rose_garden.451a6805.html

I was trying to find out if the Nuggets game is on TV tonight and stumbled on to this piece of news.

[pdxman]

Interesting...i guess this means he and the blazers will stay put for the forseeable future. It would be awesome(tho not likely) if he would get more involved in the rose quarter area and perhaps invest in some development or something, to help liven that area.

[Dougall5505]

i like paul but besides that blazers have won 7 out of there last 10 and are only 3 games out of the last playoff spot in the west. its time for portland to notcie the blazers again

[JiminyCricket II]

and you guys got the best rookie on your team... yes a cougar is giving props to a husky... it'll be the only time. But Brandon Roy is amazing, and he's a good person too.

[zilfondel]

I just might forgive Paul if he turns around his evil ways. ;-)

[PDX City-State]

He's gonna sell the team.

[Fiat Lux]

He's gonna sell the team.

To who? I doubt he sells.

[PDX City-State]

When the team was for sale last summer, weren't the offers pretty low because the arena wasn't part of the deal?

[65MAX]

That's fine, let him sell. The city has an ironclad contract to keep the Blazers here for 30 years (after completion of the Rose Garden) no matter who the owners are. So they're here till at least 2025, give or take. New ownership would be a good thing.

[Dr. Smoke]

Did you know that there's a fanboy site that does nothing but track Paul Allen's yacht (Octopus) all over the world? Vicarious thrills, whatever.

[ericb4prez]

i kind of miss his wild spending old days...yes trader bob made some mistakes, but they were trying to win...

combine lessons from the old days with some new money...and i think we could put together a good team.

last season we sold out a total of ZERO games and this season we've already sold out four, including the last two home games.

[JiminyCricket II]

^that's because portland has the most promising young team in the league.

[65MAX]

Well, when you hit bottom, there's only one way to go.... :previous:

[PDX City-State]

No shit--we're still losing, but the Blazers are fun to watch again. People are tired of hating them, and tired of disliking Allen.

[Fiat Lux]

^that's because portland has the most promising young team in the league.

They aren't even the most promising young team in their own division.

[westsider]

I'm not tired of hating them. Ever since the CF game 7 loss to the lakers I have despised them with a passion, and I don't see that changing anytime soon.

[pdxman]

Yeah, i still remember that game like it was yesterday...changed the franchise forever. The blazers always let you down...

[MarkDaMan]

Paul Allen reclaims his Rose Garden
Blazers - Vulcan Inc.'s acquisition returns the arena -- and its revenue -- to the team's billionaire owner
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
HELEN JUNG
The Oregonian

After more than three years of stalled negotiations, bankruptcy proceedings and an on-again, off-again sale, the Rose Garden is back where it started -- in the hands of billionaire Paul Allen.

Allen's Vulcan Inc. investment firm said Monday it has completed its acquisition of Portland Arena Management, the entity that owns the 12-year-old arena. The purchase price wasn't disclosed for a deal tentatively announced in early February.

The deal reunites the Rose Garden, which Allen forfeited two years ago to his lenders, with his Portland Trail Blazers NBA team. By reacquiring the arena, Allen's Vulcan Sports & Entertainment division also gains control of valuable sources of revenue that Vulcan says can help fix the "broken economic model" that keeps the Blazers tens of millions of dollars in the red each year.

The acquisition also closes the book on one of the most tumultuous periods for Portland's only major-league sports franchise, as mounting financial losses, a dwindling fan base and, seemingly, a disaffected owner all brought the team to the brink of being sold.

But Allen appeared to take a renewed interest in his team in recent months, particularly after last year's draft in which a string of trades and picks landed several popular rookies and helped reignite fan enthusiasm. Allen and the group of lenders who owned the Rose Garden signed a letter of intent earlier this year for Allen to buy PAM and its assets, and released the news to the public on Feb. 2.

"It's a great day for all Blazers fans because this was a really important step for ensuring this franchise was going to be a Portland-based and viable franchise for years to come," said Tod Leiweke, president of Vulcan Sports & Entertainment, which will run the arena and the Blazers.

"There's still a lot of work to do to get the franchise back on solid financial footing," he said, adding that the team needs "to fill the building up and sell a lot of season tickets."

He said the company is in "preliminary talks" over a long-term contract with Global Spectrum, which has managed the Rose Garden for the past two years, as the arena management company.

"Overall the feeling is they've done a pretty good job," Leiweke said. "I think that they're inclined and I would think we're inclined" to continue working together.

Global Spectrum brought about 300 events to the Rose Quarter last year, said general manager Mike Scanlon. The company, based in Philadelphia, is a division of Comcast-Spectacor.

In Portland, Global Spectrum employs about 95 people full time and an additional 400 part time, he said.

Without knowing the purchase price, it's difficult to assess whether the past three years have been a fruitless -- and costly -- game of chicken between Allen and his lenders. While a bankruptcy filing for a company owned by a multibillionaire may appear unseemly, businesses sometimes file for bankruptcy protection as a way of renegotiating what they consider to be bad deals. Allen owed his lenders $192 million at the time of the bankruptcy filing and sought to settle the debt for about $89 million.

But the lenders, including Prudential, TIAA-CREF and other insurers, rejected the offer, opting instead to try their hand at owning the Rose Garden. The move put financial services firms in the unfamiliar territory of running an arena, put Allen and his Trail Blazers in deeper financial instability and pitted the two entities against each other for fans' dollars.

Now, the arena is back in Allen's hands. And the lenders "are very satisfied with the transaction," said Rich Josephson, a board member for PAM before Allen's purchase.

Helen Jung: 503-294-7621; helenjung@news.oregonian.com; blog.oregonlive.com/playbooksandprofits

http://www.oregonlive.com/business/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/business/11755689149340.xml&coll=7

[MarkDaMan]

so has anyone confirmed for sure what all the equipment and and digging is for across from the Rose Garden on Paul Allen's land? Hopefully not a surface parking lot!

It also looks like they are going to turn a large portion of the Amazon.com 'mural' on the old mill right there into some mega-billboard. They've outlined a huge area in white.

[brandonpdx]

^I think it's for the big pipe project.

[Bender13]

I saw on the news a couple days ago that they are beginning construction on the final phase of the big pipe project. They showed a map of the work area that a long circle drawn from the Rose Garden area to Swan Island.

[MarkDaMan]

On the link below I've shaded the area the big pipe staging ground is in yellow, but the area in red is where the heavy work is right now. It seems like a rather large parcel for big pipe work, most of which will be underground.

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=102335025092962891876.00000112967ff15c9e631&t=k&om=1&ll=45.530042,-122.668018&spn=0.004239,0.00824&z=17