Looking past the coliseum
Redoing the arena is just first step for Rose Quarter
http://www.portlandtribune.com/news/...26380514582900
By Jim Redden
The Portland Tribune, Mar 11, 2010
As the Portland City Council moves closer to deciding the fate of Memorial Coliseum, two larger questions are starting to loom – what to do with the rest of the Rose Quarter and how to pay for all the improvements that the city and other interests would like to see.
By the end of May, the council is scheduled to pick a development team to overhaul the coliseum. Most City Hall observers expect the nod to go to the Portland Trail Blazers organization, which proposes maintaining the coliseum as a sports and entertainment arena. But the Blazers’ plan still faces competition from other proposals that would remake the coliseum into an athletic or arts-oriented facility.
After the council makes its decision, a new process starts to plan the redevelopment of the property surrounding the coliseum, the Rose Garden, the Blazers’ office building and two city-owned parking garages. Most observers also believe the Blazers have the edge in the second process as well. That is largely because the Blazers already have presented a concept for revitalizing the Rose Quarter as a lively entertainment district dubbed JumpTown.
“We see our plan for the coliseum as key for JumpTown, and JumpTown as the way to revitalize the entire area,” says J.E. Isaac, the Blazers’ senior vice president of business affairs.
Advocates for rival plans – the Memorial Arts & Recreation Center (MARC) and the Veterans Memorial Arts & Athletic Center – also say their developments would ignite a broader renewal of the surrounding area, although they have not yet prepared even preliminary concepts for the Rose Quarter.
But regardless of what the council decides to do with the coliseum and Rose Quarter, no one is sure how much all the work will cost and who will pay for it. One of the biggest questions is where the city will find the money to upgrade the coliseum – which it owns – and to build the street, sidewalk, water and sewer improvements that will be needed in the Rose Quarter. Depending on the scope of the projects, such work could easily cost hundreds of millions of dollars.
An obvious source of money is urban renewal funds, the same city financing source that helped spur growth in the Pearl District and South Waterfront area, at least before the economy slowed down. In fact, the Portland Development Commission is overseeing a planning process that could pump $18.5 million or more into new redevelopment projects in North and Northeast Portland. It would add six parcels of property – including the Rose Quarter – to the existing Interstate Corridor Urban Renewal Area, which has already helped fund such projects as the Interstate MAX line and the New Columbia housing development.
But there is already intense competition for the money. An existing advisory committee has identified nearly $90 million in priority projects that do not include the Rose Quarter. The Overlook Neighborhood Association wants the PDC to build promised mixed-use developments along the Interstate MAX line. Portland Community College is looking to partner with the PDC to redevelop portions of North Killingsworth Avenue near the Cascade Campus. And community activists want more affordable housing and money to help longtime residents stay in their homes.
“In the end, it has to be win-win for everyone,” says Roy Jay, head of Portland’s African American Chamber of Commerce. Jay also sits on a 23-member citizen committee advising the North Northeast Economic Development Initiative.