Initiative Behind Portland’s Bid for MLB Team Reaches Deal with City’s Port for 45-Acre Ballpark Site – CoStar


The Portland Diamond Project is poised to develop a new Major League Baseball stadium in a traditionally industrial riverfront neighborhood north of the city’s downtown.
Portland Diamond Project Hopes to Revive Gritty Industrial Guilds Lake Neighborhood with Future Stadium

Portland, Oregon’s dream of landing a Major League Baseball franchise is one step closer to reality. The organization behind the city’s effort to landing a big league team, the Portland Diamond Project, has selected a riverfront site to host a new stadium for a proposed expansion team.

If successful, proponents hope the project will transform the traditionally industrial-focused port neighborhood much like the Washington Nationals’ new stadium served as a catalyst for development in the nation’s capital.

The Portland Diamond Project noted in an announcement this past week that it reached an agreement in principle with the Port of Portland to develop a ballpark on a 45-acre site, dubbed Terminal 2. While the terms of the agreement were not disclosed in the announcement, local media outlets have reported that the property deal will be structured as a long-term lease.

Plans call for the Portland Diamond Project to act as master developer for the stadium with other developers jumping in to build additional projects like mixed-use developments that are currently being built near the Texas Rangers and St. Louis Cardinals stadiums.

“We believe this has the potential to be a transformative landmark project for the city,” Portland Diamond Project Founder and President Craig Cheek said in a statement. “Building an iconic, state-of-the-art ballpark along the Willamette River will catalyze economic development and capture great views of both the urban scale of the city and regional character of the Pacific Northwest.”

The Portland Diamond Project, which has courted a group of investors that include Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson and Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter Ciara, has been searching for a potential ballpark site over the past year, according to Cheek.

“For the past year, we’ve been highly focused on securing the best possible property for development of a ballpark and have deeply analyzed multiple sites,” Cheek said in a statement.

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Article by:CARLOS LIKINS & EMILY ANDERER

CoStar
DECEMBER 07, 2018|