When Bob Richmond, president of the Northwest Baseball League, was asked last week about the chances of a minor league team playing in Milwaukie, he responded with a deep, tired sigh.

That is because over the past couple of months he has answered the same question from countless residents, city officials and reporters. In fact, the onslaught of phone calls was twice as bad a few weeks ago, he said, before the league announced that Hillsboro would gain a team.

Richmond said there is a buzz about the likelihood of minor league baseball arriving in two Portland suburbs. However, citizens and government officials say the excitement stems from more than just baseball.

“In the end, baseball is a tenant – a long-term tenant, but just a tenant,” said Steve Greagor, director of Hillsboro Parks and Recreation. “In excess of 300 days out of the year, the stadium will be used for something else.”

Proposed stadiums – Hillsboro’s is moving forward, while Milwaukie’s is contingent on the city landing a team – are expected to fulfill a variety of community functions as well as attract more visitors, city officials say.

Hillsboro’s 4,500-seat stadium, with an estimated construction cost between $13 million and $15 million, will help the city meet a demand for more parks and recreational areas, according to Greagor. The stadium’s artificial turf will provide a year-round playing field for youth sports, adult recreational leagues and possibly high school state tournaments.

Additionally, the city is working with the Hillsboro School District to plan student events, like graduation ceremonies, at the stadium. Music concerts and festivals are also being considered.

Many of these events, especially the state tournaments and music concerts, will attract new visitors to Hillsboro and open the city to a wider audience, Greagor said.

“It will help establish an additional aspect to our community’s identity,” he said. “It will bring family-friendly, very affordable entertainment not only to Hillsboro, but the whole Portland area.”

Greagor said the stadium is the largest project the city has taken on in years and will provide many construction and engineering jobs, though he could not give exact figures.

Milwaukie’s proposed 4,000-seat stadium, which could potentially cost $25 million, would also be used for recreational sports and outdoor music events. City officials say the indoor concourse area could be used as a marketplace or an event area for weddings, movie nights and other social events.

Between baseball ticket sales and leases for private events, Milwaukie city officials say the stadium could generate annual revenues up to $7.1 million.

“It’s just going to be a beautiful gateway to the city,” said Joe Loomis, a Milwaukie city councilor. “I see it spurring small businesses, especially in downtown Milwaukie – like bike shops and small coffee shops.”

The stadium also would give the city a recognizable landmark, according to Pepi Anderson, a resident in the city’s Lewelling neighborhood.

“Milwaukiens have great pride in being a city that’s trapped in between Portland and the nether lands out there,” she said. “(The stadium) will bring people into Milwaukie and help them discover the good things we have here.”

Of course, the idea of the city having a professional sports team is also exciting, Anderson said. Officials from both cities have marveled at the idea of having a metro baseball rivalry, which would be unique (no existing NBL teams are so close). And, according to data collected by the NBL, there is a large demand for baseball to return to the Portland area – enough to support two teams.

But baseball would be only the beginning. The stadiums could become ambassadors for both Milwaukie and Hillsboro, Loomis said.

“The people that come to events will have the opportunity to see the local businesses and bike trails and say, ‘Well, I’ll bring my family back and rent a bike, and we’ll ride the trails,” he said. “It’s just exposing Milwaukie to other folks.”

The city of Milwaukie has set a deadline of July 24 for an existing team to make a commitment to move there; it will not build the stadium otherwise. Hillsboro city councilors last week officially approved an agreement to bring the Yakima Bears to town. The team has an agreement with the city, but it still has to sign an agreement with the NBL before Sept. 4 to make the deal official.

When Richmond was asked whether Milwaukie and Hillsboro would both have teams, he said wearily, “It looks like it’s going to work out,” and then hung up.

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Hillsboro’s city council on Tuesday voted to delay its decision on whether to move forward with the construction of an $11 million single-A baseball stadium.

The council thought it would be better to decide on the issue once the city is sure it can obtain a spot in the Northwest Baseball League, said Barbara Simon, public affairs manager for the city.

“We don’t want to build the stadium if we don’t have a team,” she said.

The decision has now been pushed back to an undetermined time. If approved, Hillsboro would pay and $13.4 million to build a 4,500-seat stadium at the Gordon Faber Recreation Complex on Northwest 229th Avenue.

Also on Tuesday, the city of Milwaukie voted to continue its efforts to bring a single-A team to a site the Oregon Department of Transportation currently holds in the north industrial area. The NBL has not stated whether both Hillsboro and Milwaukie can have teams; Hillsboro’s decision to delay the vote was not influenced by Milwaukie’s decision, Simon said.

“This is not about a competition; this is about what’s best for Hillsboro,” she said.

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When Reynolds High School was built in Troutdale in 1976, plans existed for sophisticated athletic facilities.

But “plans never came to fruition,” Principal Jeff Gilbert said. “I don’t know why.”

“We say we have the worst outdoor athletic facilities of any 6A – or even 5A – school in the state,” Assistant Principal and Athletic Director John Olsen said.

Reynolds has approximately 2,850 students, and most schools with comparable enrollments have a synthetic-turf football field with lights and stands. Reynolds’ “practice-quality” fields, however, force sub-varsity football games and even varsity soccer matches to be scheduled around sunset, so some start as early as 3 p.m, Olsen said. Varsity football games are played on a rented field at Mount Hood Community College.

But the Reynolds School Board last month authorized fundraising – completely from private sources – for a new football stadium at the school. Gilbert believes ground could be broken on a new stadium within two years.

“The goal is that students who are freshmen now will be playing on the facility by their senior year,” he said.

To kick off the process, the school district enlisted to assemble a master plan for athletic facilities.

“They are blessed with a lot of space to work with,” said Group Mackenzie Director of Civil Engineering Matt Butts.

The master plan calls for not only a football field with stands and a track, but also two softball fields, two baseball fields, two soccer fields – and space for youth fields and other options.

The master plan is designed in phases, with phase one focusing on the football stadium; its design and construction costs are projected to be $4.5 million to $5.5 million. A more detailed design would be commissioned later, according to Gilbert.

“We have the feasibility study done, so we know that permitting is possible, the water drainage can happen, and that the physical structure can exist in that location,” he said.

The district doesn’t plan to start building additional fields at the high school – such as those laid out in the master plan – in the near future; however, it was also important to map out where they might be constructed later on, Gilbert said.

“We wanted to make sure that, five to 10 years down the road, we hadn’t put in a football stadium where we wanted baseball,” he said.

If the second phase is built out in the future, it will mean better drainage on Reynolds’ extensive grounds for multiple sports. The baseball facilities and others in the master plan are estimated to cost $2.5 million to $3 million.

The team behind the project has decided to pay for it without district money and without a request for a voter-approved bond.

“That’s pretty standard these days,” Butts said. “I think, from a funding standpoint, it’s difficult for districts to commit much funding to this (kind of project.)”

Group Mackenzie recently completed two similar projects funded by parent organizations or athletic boosters, Butts said.

“People pay a lot in taxes already,” Gilbert said.

He said he has spoken with people who appreciate that only the people interested in building the stadium are being asked to pay for it. That’s one reason, he said, why the community is energized already.

“Since we made the announcement, we’ve had people approach us who want to volunteer their time: construction workers, electricians and businesses,” Gilbert said. “They’re not only saying they want to help financially, but they’re giving a lot of in-kind donations of labor and materials.”

Interest is coming from a wide area because Reynolds High School draws students from several surrounding cities, including Portland, Gresham, Fairview and Wood Village.

“The stadium is bringing people from all those municipalities together,” Gilbert said. “When people come to visit, they see the overwhelming amount of spirit and excitement that’s happening here.”

The post Reynolds football stadium effort kicks off appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

The Eugene School Board earlier this year shot down three redevelopment proposals for Civic Stadium, a vacant and deteriorating landmark owned by the school district. But a lease deal being discussed would bring in money for the district in the short term, while a plan is developed to potentially incorporate two of the rejected proposals.

During a school board meeting last week, Sheldon Berman, the district’s new superintendent, said he is in the process of working out an agreement with Civic Community Group LLC, an entity wholly owned by Market of Choice CEO Rick Wright, to lease Civic Stadium for one year.

The school board earlier this year rejected three long-term proposals for the site of the 10.2-acre ballpark built in 1938. One was for a new shopping center anchored by Fred Meyer, another was for a new YMCA recreation center, and a third was for a facility upgrade to accommodate minor league soccer and other local sporting events.

The Fred Meyer proposal, pitched by developers Steve Master and Peter Powell, was recommended by former superintendent George Russell because it would have the highest dollar return for the district – about $330,000 annually.

Wright has since worked to bring together the groups backing the YMCA and multi-sports proposals. By leasing the property for a year, he said, he hopes to assemble a feasible plan for redevelopment.

Wright is proposing to lease the facility for a year for $200,000, as well as the north parking lots for an additional $50,000. Over that time, he said, the two groups would conduct separate feasibility analyses and start fundraising drives. If a feasible plan were developed, the group would look to sign a long-term lease or purchase the property, he said.

“(Civic Community Group’s) long-term interest is to develop a community recreation complex featuring a new Eugene YMCA, a new indoor tennis facility, a multiuse athletic complex featuring a soccer/lacrosse field with other recreation uses, and the historic Civic Stadium,” Wright wrote in a letter to the school board.

During the school board meeting, Berman said a lease agreement was not signed yet; however, he added that he hopes one can be worked out in the near future. Wright said Monday that he hopes lease terms can be worked out this week.

Both proposals supported by Wright have gained ample community support; however, some people are questioning Wright’s involvement. A Fred Meyer store could compete with Wright’s Market of Choice chain, which has four locations in Eugene.

“People can come up with their own conclusions,” Wright said. “But I will spend more money helping these two proposals than I stand to lose from a competing new Fred Meyer.”

Wright said his involvement is mostly because he wants to see a new YMCA facility. He added that a lot of his customers strongly support preservation of Civic Stadium.

If a lease were signed, Wright said both teams would begin testing feasibility of their proposals. He said that by October or November, they would know whether the community would support projects moving forward.

However, the school board would most likely issue another request for proposals before deciding on the facility’s long-term fate. And developers of the Fred Meyer-anchored proposal could then submit an updated one.

According to a survey that the developers posted on the Internet, nearly 65 percent of respondents said they prefer the Fred Meyer project over other proposals.

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The support keeps piling to bring minor league baseball – and a $22.7 million publicly financed stadium – to Vancouver, Wash.

After the Columbia River Economic Development Council released an economic impact report on the project last week – accompanied by a unanimous vote of support – the board of directors at Vancouver’s Downtown Association has followed suit.

“While the financing details are still being worked out, the board of directors of (VDA) supports the concept of the stadium and welcoming Short Season LLC to Vancouver,” wrote VDA Director Lee Rafferty in a letter of support.

Short Season owns the minor league baseball team the Yakima Bears, and it has been working over the past few months to move the team to Vancouver. The LLC would move the team if the city built a baseball stadium near Clark College that could be used by both the college and the public when the baseball team wasn’t playing.

While people have supported bringing baseball to town, some are concerned about the 5 percent entertainment tax that Clark County officials have proposed to help pay for the stadium. In addition to concerns from some members of the Clark County Board of Commissioners, there has been little support from the Vancouver City Council.

But according to the report released by the CREDC last week, the economic benefit the stadium would have on the area would far surpass the public involvement. According to the report, the stadium would generate $206 million over a 20 year period and would create 280 construction jobs, 12 full-time positions and about 130 game day part-time jobs.

“The jobs created first by the construction and then by the operation and booking of the facility have been quantified in the economic impact study,” Rafferty wrote. “The numbers are very impressive.”

While the VDA is in support of baseball and the stadium, Rafferty urged decision makers to carefully consider the impact of the project on nonprofit organizations and to exhaust all other financing tools before relying on the entertainment tax.

Both county and city officials will resume talks regarding the stadium later this month.

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While key decision makers seem to be divided in Vancouver, Wash. – and Clark County – over whether to build a stadium to support minor league baseball, one local economic development group doesn’t see a downside.

The Columbia River Economic Development Council – a nonprofit focused on economic development in Clark County – has released an economic impact report on the $22.7 million stadium to attract the to the area. And while the stadium would need a public investment to move forward – in the form of an admissions tax – the group says the economic benefit would be worth it.

Through the group’s analysis, the new facility, which would be located at Clark College and open to the public, is expected to generate $206.5 million over the expected 20 years of public and private investment. About $126.5 million of that would come from the construction and operation as a baseball facility, while the other $80 million would come from the stadium’s other uses, like hosting regional sporting events.

The group also expects the project to create 280 construction jobs, 12 full-time positions and about 130 game day part-time jobs.

While most people seem to be supportive of the baseball team coming to town, some city and county councilors are concerned with the 5 percent admissions tax on things like movie and concert tickets. The tax is estimated to raise about $900,000 a year.

“We are encouraged that the project not only would create a significant boost to the economy through construction, but would continue to generate economic activity many times greater than the proposed public investment,” said Eric Fuller, owner of a Vancouver-based commercial real estate firm and chair of the CREDC.

The stadium would be publicly owned but privately maintained by the owners of the baseball team. The Clark County Board of Commissioners will take up the discussion about the tax again at an Aug. 24 work session. For the stadium to be ready for the 2012 season, construction would need to begin by November of this year.

To find out more about the CREDC report, .

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For all the battles you see over the construction of new stadiums between sports franchises, public officials and citizens, it is sometimes hard to remember the stadiums that could have been.

The online magazine took time out to remember ten of these with renderings and a history of the projects as part of a . It’s really worth taking a look at how such ambitious ideas come to be, and how quickly they can be derailed when funding involves both the public and private sectors.

Being a Pacific Northwesterner, and a die-hard Mariners fan, it’s hard for me to select anything other than Seattle’s proposed floating stadium as my favorite. The stadium, which would have been located in Elliott Bay, would have followed the other major Seattle projects of the 1960s, most notably the Space Needle and the monorail.

Could you imagine if the Kingdome never existed? Would it have been for the better?

I also am fond of Edmonton’s Omniplex and Manhattan’s Westside Stadium.

While looking over the slideshow, I also came across a link to a from the blog Cafe Unknown about Portland’s bid for the 1968 Olympics and the facilities the city planned to build. It is totally worth your time to read, and I think it draws some parallels to how city officials view the city now in the context to the rest of the world.

The post Floating Seattle stadium that could’ve been appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

For all the battles you see over the construction of new stadiums between sports franchises, public officials and citizens, it is sometimes hard to remember the stadiums that could have been.

The online magazine took time out to remember ten of these with renderings and a history of the projects as part of a . It’s really worth taking a look at how such ambitious ideas come to be, and how quickly they can be derailed when funding involves both the public and private sectors.

Being a Pacific Northwesterner, and a die-hard Mariners fan, it’s hard for me to select anything other than Seattle’s proposed floating stadium as my favorite. The stadium, which would have been located in Elliott Bay, would have followed the other major Seattle projects of the 1960s, most notably the Space Needle and the monorail.

Could you imagine if the Kingdome never existed? Would it have been for the better?

I also am fond of Edmonton’s Omniplex and Manhattan’s Westside Stadium.

While looking over the slideshow, I also came across a link to a from the blog Cafe Unknown about Portland’s bid for the 1968 Olympics and the facilities the city planned to build. It is totally worth your time to read, and I think it draws some parallels to how city officials view the city now in the context to the rest of the world.

The post Floating Seattle stadium that could've been appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

“Sustainable” isn’t the first word that comes to mind when I think of a giant sports stadium. But in Philadelphia, the Eagles on Thursday that will place dozens of wind turbines and thousands of solar panels on the team’s Lincoln Financial Field, according to USA Today. The goal? To offset around $60 million in energy costs over the next 20 years of operation.

of Orlando, Fla., will install 80 20-foot-tall spiral wind turbines, 2,500 solar panels and a 7.6 megawatt biodiesel/natural gas co-generation plant in the next year at Lincoln Financial Field. The turbines will sit on the upper rim of the stadium and the solar panels will be affixed to the stadium’s facade. The turbines and solar panels alone will provide 30 percent of the stadium’s energy needs.

I’m skeptical of projects that attempt to ‘green’ a gigantic building, but this upgrade will demonstrate how renewable energy can be integrated in an urban environment. And hopefully, it will prove me wrong and perform as well as the Eagles had planned.

The post Eagles stadium to produce own energy appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

“Sustainable” isn’t the first word that comes to mind when I think of a giant sports stadium. But in Philadelphia, the Eagles on Thursday that will place dozens of wind turbines and thousands of solar panels on the team’s Lincoln Financial Field, according to USA Today. The goal? To offset around $60 million in energy costs over the next 20 years of operation.

of Orlando, Fla., will install 80 20-foot-tall spiral wind turbines, 2,500 solar panels and a 7.6 megawatt biodiesel/natural gas co-generation plant in the next year at Lincoln Financial Field. The turbines will sit on the upper rim of the stadium and the solar panels will be affixed to the stadium’s facade. The turbines and solar panels alone will provide 30 percent of the stadium’s energy needs.

I’m skeptical of projects that attempt to ‘green’ a gigantic building, but this upgrade will demonstrate how renewable energy can be integrated in an urban environment. And hopefully, it will prove me wrong and perform as well as the Eagles had planned.

The post Eagles stadium to produce own energy appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.