Perhaps your reader also took pictures of the antiquated concession stands and restrooms? The crammed councourse? It's one thing to go in there for a single hour long event and leave a few hours later, not to return for a few years. It's a whole other to show up six or eight times a month for hockey only to find toilets that don't work, concession lines choking the concourse, and a seat that hasn't been repaired since the Ted Nugent show in 1991. The building needs to go.

The building needs to go.

Fine. You can pay whatever rent Paul Allen charges, or play at Lloyd Center.

The building needs to go.

Because surely it is cheaper to tear the building down and build something else than to perform some routine maintenance that has been put off.

And if they tear it down they aren't going to put something back that you can play/watch hockey at are they? So if there is a better place to go already, just go instead of complaining. (vote with your feet.)

Defer maintenance for a couple of years and then claim it would cost to much to fix so you boot the renters out so you can convert it to condos. I think they call them slumlords(and much worse) in NYC.

What's the difference here.

Chris,
How about this: The politicians that didn't take care of the upkeep need to go. You can say the same things about antiquated sewer lines, and other rundown parts of the city that they're not taking care of as they rampage around in a project frenzy that just gets more frantic by the week.
How about this? We get some new politicians to redo the concession stands, etc...and we agree not to come back in a few years and do it over again like at PGE park.

The most laughable complaint out there is that the concession stands need to be redone. We're talking about a quarter of a billion dollars because your hot dog needs an upgrade? I'm a little more concerned with the concessions we're making to the Paulson family.

I just wonder if they plan to approach MLS like they did Goldman Sachs. You know, keep your opponents in ruins while you use your people on AIG's board to funnel Goldman Sachs billions, and then emerge from TARP to be the only viable team left.

You better check what they do to PGE park. The last thing the Paulsons and Goldman Sachs want is a level field.

..perform some routine maintenance that has been put off

They figured they had $10 million in deferred maintenance a decade ago, with another few million a year piled on each year nothing was done. Figure we're $20 million into it right now. Is anyone here seriously advocating we spend $20 million to rehab the Coliseum? Seriously?

$20 mil is nothing to sniff at, but it sounds about 12.5 times better than $250 million for what amounts to be a similar (and arguably less useful) public / private sports venue. Or did we forget that all of that money DOESN'T ACTUALLY EXIST YET???

Chris,

In any case how is tearing it down going to solve your problem? You aren't going to be watching/playing hockey on a baseball diamond are you? So it sounds to me like your choice is to go somewhere else, or push to get Memorial Coliseum improved.

I would much rather the city spend the money to rehab the Memorial Coliseum than to tear it down, and build some smaller junk in it's place that they again won't maintain.

I would not trust any of the Paulsons or their cronies, in NYC or Portland, as far as I could throw them!
Can we get a new city council and a new mayor please, ASAP?

Snethen's comments underscore why municipalities shouldn't own stadiums: they are lousy landlords and fail to keep them in good repair.

Once the silver shovels are put away and the ribbons cut, the politicians forgot about the boring stuff like maintenance, visitor experience, and janitorial.

And I can't imagine they open up even half the concession stands for a hockey game: if the lines are too long, you need to open more concession stands or increase the productivity. You don't demolish a facility because of long lines for a hot dog and beer.

The politicians that didn't take care of the upkeep need to go.

Agreed. 100% agreed. But let's be real here. No one on the council is going anywhere. Who's the last member to be voted out? You could argue The Scone, I suppose, but I think you have to go back to Ivancie. In short, everyone is staying no matter how badly we wish they were gone.

we agree not to come back in a few years and do it over again like at PGE park.

Again, agreed. The thing that pisses me off about this thing is the city is being sold the exact same bag of gas that Marshall Glickman sold Vera a decade ago. He told us AAA baseball would mean 3x the attendance of single-A because it was 3x better. Right. Now Paulson wants us to believe attendance will swell expodentially for MLS and a new baseball park. It's a load.

We're talking about a quarter of a billion dollars because your hot dog needs an upgrade?

There's a perfectly servicable and world-class arena right next door. It used to serve a fantastic hot dog that my uncle and I deemed "the homewrecker". Six bucks and worth every penny. Unfortunately it's gone.

We're on the same side on 96% of this, Bill. My opposition to the stadium deal has nothing to do with my desire to see the Coliseum torn down. They're exclusive of one another. We keep PGE Park as Vera (and Sam) intended it and we sell the Coliseum to Allen to blow up develop as he wishes. It'll never happen, but that's my ideal scenario.

Sorry.

Sorry.

Portland doesn't need two stadiums so close to each-other. It's ridiculous. I'm not saying Portland should spend a lot of money to build another stadium, just that the Coliseum has outlived it's usefulness.

It all depends on what you want to use it for. It could be rehabbed into an excellent recreational facility, if only we hadn't spent all our city budget on cr*p foisted upon us by Gerding and Homer.

No true Blazer fan believes that Memorial Coliseum has become irrelevant!

Chris Snethen, I hope you enjoy your hotdogs and urinal at the Valley Ice Rink out on the Beaverton Hillsdale Hwy to watch your hockey games. There are numerous date conflicts if you try to book hockey in the Rose Garden with the Blazers and all the other winter events.

At least you'll have front row seating because that is about all they have at Valley, there's little else.

Two things-

1- If the MC is kept around the city better come up with the $30+ million that it will take to update (and bring into code) the building...important items like earthquake upgrades, electrical wiring (the whole building needs rewired), major plumbing repairs, roof replacement, tear out and replacement out all arena seating, restroom upgrades, concession upgrades etc. The $30+ million wouldn't include a much needed upgrade of the MC's ice surface which isn't regulation size for hockey and the WHL (the league the Winter Hawks play in) will insist that this happen to be able to continue play in the building.

2- Is it worth it to spend $30 - 60 million on the MC for hockey and a political rally every 4 years when the Rose Garden sits right next door? Not in my opinion. I urge people who support saving the MC to go watch a few hockey games in the Fall in the building...after you go to a few you will want to tear down the place yourself.

I don't support the MLS idea and building a new AAA ballpark, but people need to realize that if the MC stays it will cost a ton of money to keep it going. Another issue I have with the building of an AAA ballpark is that the Rose Quarter site won't allow for expansion of the park into a MLB park some day...which is just stupid! There will be some MLB teams looking to move in the next 5 years....

And one more thing, the Winter Hawks will end up playing all games in the Garden if the MC goes away...not Valley Ice or Lloyd center. The scheduling will work. Up in Seattle the Sonics and Thunderbirds shared the Key Arena for years (along with concerts, the circus, and other stuff) with no impact on the Birds not being able to get many weekend dates. Plus the Garden draws much better for the Hawks and is such a better place to watch a game!

I don't support the MLS idea and building a new AAA ballpark, but people need to realize that if the MC stays it will cost a ton of money to keep it going.

From what I understand of basic economics, it will also cost a lot of money to keep the ball field going.

Not to mention building it, of course.

darrelplant, in 101 Portland Economics you never include the maintenance cost. Portland Economics is very basic, like however politicians and developers can frame it to better their cause. Hypocracy be damned.

What mayor creepy forgets to mention is that Demolition is very expensive... If you have 20mil to do the DEMO , then you have it to restore the MC.

I pulled my daughter out of school that day in March 2008 to see Barack Obama speech at MC, telling her she was going to hear the next president speak.