Only two years after Populous opened its Portland office, the stadium design firm is planning to move into a larger downtown space this fall.

Populous is close to signing a lease, said Jeff Yrazabal, the firm’s principal and senior architect in Portland. He declined to identify the exact location before the lease is signed.

The move will end Populous’ two-year stay in Beam Development‘s Eastside Exchange building and mark a new chapter for the firm in Portland.

Based in Kansas City, Missouri, the firm has 12 regional offices in North America, and is best known for designing massive, cutting-edge sports stadiums such as Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London, Yankee Stadium in New York and a 2010 renovation of Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City.

“Populous has grown rapidly throughout the years,” Yrazabal said. “Globally, the firm has just grown at an incredible pace.”

In Portland, Populous has quickly made its mark, designing the Hillsboro Hops‘ under-construction ballpark, a shared training facility for the Portland Thorns soccer club and the city’s forthcoming WNBA franchise, and concepts for a Major League Baseball stadium for booster group Portland Diamond Project (PDP).

The firm’s growth in Portland is inextricably tied to the city’s fortunes as a sports town. Portland winning a WNBA team and the right to host the 2030 NCAA Women’s Final Four show the city’s sports industry has momentum, Yrazabal said.

Yet the sports industry seems fragile amid recent news that the Trail Blazers are for sale, sparking speculation that a new owner could move the NBA team elsewhere.

“Hosting large-scale events like the Women’s Final Four, those kind of big victories for this town I think are indicators that absolutely Portland is thriving now,” Yrazabal said. He acknowledged the city’s challenges, but said the area’s sports ecosystem is healthy and growing.

Yrazabal was hired from SRG Partnership in 2023 to recruit for and establish Populous in Portland. The firm now has 19 local employees, including 12 architects; they either came from local designers or moved to the Pacific Northwest outpost.

Yrazabal had substantial previous experience in the sports realm while at SRG. He led the design team for the reconstruction of Hayward Field, the University of Oregon‘s iconic track stadium, and also worked on Oregon State University‘s expansion of its football venue, Reser Stadium.

It was at OSU that Yrazabal first connected with Populous.

“You have an opportunity to meet some people, and I just got a sense of the talent, the process that was really refreshing to me,” Yrazabal said. Populous’ design culture and expertise also impressed, he said.

Dave Otte, owner and principal at Holst Architecture, has become close friends with Yrazabal. Otte said he appreciates Yrazabal’s attention to detail.

Perhaps Populous’ highest-profile project in Portland is PDP’s ongoing drive to attract an MLB team.

PDP has worked since 2017 to attract a baseball team, but MLB has yet to play ball. The group recently secured a site in the South Waterfront, and Populous has produced renderings for a ballpark where hitters could launch home runs into the Willamette River with Mount Hood in the background.

The question remains whether MLB will ever come to Portland. Yrazabal himself isn’t sure.

“To be completely honest with you, I don’t know,” he said.

Yrazabal said Portland’s MLB effort has a formidable champion in Craig Cheek, the CEO of PDP.

“He’s committed — he has been for years and years,” Yrazabal said. “He brings the energy, and he captures the Portland story and connects the baseball ethos and the history of baseball here to the idea of something new.”

MLB has not announced a timeline for expansion, and no teams appear ready to move to a new city.

The Athletics are set to break ground on their stadium in Las Vegas in June, according to The Associated Press, and the team will play in Sacramento until the stadium on the Strip is ready for the 2028 season. Meanwhile, the Tampa Bay Rays will move into their repaired stadium for the 2026 season.

Portland’s MLB expansion hopes also face competition from other cities, including Salt Lake City; Nashville, Tennessee; Charlotte, North Carolina; and Montreal.

PDP took a major step forward last fall when the group announced that it had agreed to purchase Zidell Yards in the South Waterfront for a future ballpark. It would fit tightly on the property on the west bank of the Willamette River, with bridges immediately to the north and south, a large hill to the west and the river to the east.

Yrazabal said the stadium would be smaller than most in MLB and similar in capacity to Providence Park, which seats 25,218 for pro soccer.

“All ballparks that have adjacencies to rivers are incredible,” Yrazabal said. “What makes Portland unique and the Pacific Northwest unique is our connection to nature. So, to have a ballpark that sits right in between the river and the city, with the views of Mount Hood in the background — it’s iconic.”

On a smaller scale, Populous in partnership with SRG is the architect for the Hillsboro Hops ballpark for the Single-A minor league team. Yrazabal has a longstanding relationship with Hops President and General Manager K.L. Wombacher, and designed the team’s first Hillsboro ballpark.

“That’s been a fun journey to see the success of the Hops,” Yrazabal said.

The design team was charged with building a year-round venue for the team’s under-construction ballpark.

“We are going to go for it, and not many minor league teams are going for it at the scale we want to, but it was bold and exciting, and now you see it out of the ground,” Yrazabal said.

The Hops’ ballpark is expected to open before the 2026 baseball season.

Populous is also capitalizing on the growth in women’s sports with a $150 million, 63,000-square-foot training center for the soccer and basketball teams in Hillsboro owned by the Bhathal family.

“There’s a lot of momentum around women’s sports right now, but it’s not new in Portland,” Yrazabal said.

Thorns players visited the Populous office to discuss their wish lists for a training facility.

While Populous is best known for sports cathedrals, the firm is bringing its understanding of public gathering spaces to other fields, such as airports and colleges and universities. Outside of the Portland area, the firm is engaged in master planning for Deschutes County’s fairgrounds in Redmond.

Meanwhile, Populous’ Portland contingent is getting ready to move downtown. Investing in the downtown core was a goal for Populous, Yrazabal said.

“This is a moment right now in Portland where downtown needs businesses, needs people on sidewalks, it needs people in restaurants,” he said. “So, we are committing to that for our city and we’re excited about it.”

Editor’s Note: A passage about design details at Hayward Field has been edited for clarity.

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Developers looking to build in Portland are increasingly coming to the same conclusion: In this market, it’s time to go big or go home.

Large projects are in development or under construction all over the Portland-metro area, including a 35-story mixed-use downtown tower from Walt Bowen’s BPM Real Estate Group and Downtown Development Group, Gramor Development‘s The Waterfront Vancouver and the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry master plan. Security Properties of Seattle is on the verge of breaking ground on a 24-story mixed-use tower at the Press Blocks in Goose Hollow, and beginning the design review process for the PepsiCo superblock redevelopment on Sandy Boulevard.

A number of factors are pushing developers in the direction of large projects, according to sources:

• Institutional lenders and investors are behind many of Portland’s largest current projects, and they prefer to dole out capital in large chunks rather than small ones. Big projects need big loans. Some lenders are also willing to accept smaller returns and remain patient while large projects get built.

“They’re willing to do lower and lower yields than we’ve seen before,” said Tom DiChiara, founding principal at Cairn Pacific.

Cairn Pacific’s major backer is Prometheus Real Estate Group of San Mateo, California. Prometheus has taken a long-term position on Cairn Pacific’s Slabtown projects in Northwest Portland, DiChiara said. Cairn Pacific is the developer behind the George Morlan Plumbing building and the Leland James, L.L. Hawkins and New Seasons mixed-use projects in the fast-changing industrial area.

• In the 10th year of economic growth, most developers have successfully completed profitable projects in recent years and are flush and confident enough to do something bigger. Developers figure if they made a little money with a smaller project a couple of years ago, they can make more with a larger project now.
• The loss of income due to inclusionary housing rules, which require developers to either devote 15 or 20 percent of units to qualifying tenants below market rate or pay a hefty fee, hurts less in a large project.

“Part of it is that there’s economies of scale, especially when construction costs start going up,” said Sam Rodriguez, senior managing director of Mill Creek Residential Trust, a major multifamily developer in Portland. “Inclusionary housing, for example – it becomes at some point somewhat neutral.”

• Many costs are fixed or grow only modestly with larger scale. The same holds true for permit approval: a multifamily project of 350 units and one of 150 units face similar design review processes.
• Land costs are high.

“You paid for the land,” Rodriguez said. “In theory, the more density you put in, the less you’re paying per unit.”

• Population and job growth are driving demand for ever-increasing density in central Portland.

“Demand is driving most of the need,” said Bob Thompson, founding principal of TVA Architects. “The demand for housing, it’s just over the top.”

TVA Architects designed Fremont Place Apartments, a 17-story tower that won approval from the City Council in May after an appeal from the Pearl District Neighborhood Association. The firm is also designing a potential future $1 billion Major League Baseball stadium for the Portland Diamond Project in a partnership with global firm Populous.

“That’s an exciting project that is a reflection of the growth we’ve seen,” Thompson said.

A number of headwinds suggest the red-hot pace of development could cool. Construction costs are causing some developers to carefully consider whether to pull the trigger, and subcontractors are so backlogged that projects are facing delays.

“The labor pool is just completely tapped,” DiChiara said. “Everybody is behind schedule, the cost is higher and the quality is lower. It’s a tough recipe.”

Furthermore, new projects face increasing competition, particularly in the multifamily and office sectors, as earlier projects deliver. DiChiara said he expects to see some developers hit pause on large projects.

“I can’t really see how any of them make economic sense,” he said. “I think a lot of people, frankly, don’t know their costs, and they’ll be shocked when they come in.”

Then there’s the question of when the broader economy could cool. Interest rates have risen, and a flattening yield curve is showing foreboding signs. A slowdown may be in the offing, DiChiara said.

“I don’t have concerns about the long term here,” he said, “but I think the next year or two could be a little bumpy.”

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