Posted Jun 14, 2017, 8:00 PM
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Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: Portland
Posts: 7,399
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Quote:
Allied Works' Grassinger & MAC Club's Rich discuss Providence Park expansion
Recently the Portland Timbers soccer team announced a new $50 million expansion to the east side of Providence Park that will add approximately 4,000 seats, bringing its capacity to about 25,000. This is the latest in a succession of expansions to the circa-1926 stadium by esteemed local architect AE Doyle, following projects in 1956, 1982, 2001 and 2011. Given that there are about 13,000 people on the Timbers' season-ticket waiting list, it will only reduce the list by about one-third. But the expansion will represent a striking addition to the stadium, and a first-ever stadium project for the city's most acclaimed firm, Allied Works.
The new expansion literally builds on the last expansion, designed by Ellerbe Beckett (now AECOM), which provided seating on the east side of the field for the first time, in order fully convert the stadium from multi-purpose to soccer-only and to meet a Major League Soccer stipulation that seats line all four sides of the soccer pitch. The design also manages to squeeze a lot of seats into a very confined space, along 18th Avenue, by stacking rows of seats vertically with a new large roof overhang. Allied also maximized space by extending the stadium over the sidewalk to create arcades, which are also part of Doyle's 1926 design.
A few days ago I spoke with Allied Works principal Chelsea Grassinger, who is leading the project, about the expansion. And this morning I spoke with Norm Rich, general manager of the Multnomah Athletic Club, which abuts Providence Park to the south, thereby preventing expansions in that direction, about what the future might hold in that direction. (More on that later.)
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...continues at Portland Architecture.
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