Paulson soccer deal stumbles along
There's a curious story in the O this afternoon, reporting that there's nothing new to report on the spendy re-renovation of PGE Park for "major league" (by U.S. standards) soccer. The only item of information not heard before is buried way down in the story: Fireman Randy told Little Lord Paulson to "shut up":
On Oct. 13, Paulson uttered words that brought action to a stop: "MLS will not come to Portland unless I do a deal for a new baseball park."What a sophomoric exchange. But while these two geniuses haggle over who's going to buy the hot dog relish, the construction schedule gets tighter and tighter, which means the price tag keeps going up and up. The $31 million liars' budget for this one is likely to be off by eight figures on the low side. It will be interesting to see who really gets stuck with the overruns.Two days later, an irritated Leonard said he was ready to cancel the whole thing. Paulson and his lobbying team from Gallatin Public Affairs went to City Hall to soothe Leonard. The commissioner's advice to Paulson was to "shut up" about tying Major League Soccer in Portland to the fate of the Beavers if he wanted a final deal.
Meanwhile, that troublemaker concerned citizen Peter Apanel, who's trying to convince the city to scrap the PGE remodel and build a new stadium for soccer, writes us today to report that as reconfigured, PGE Park will have the fewest toilets per seat of any stadium around. By his calculations, the newly remodeled grandstand will have a seat-to-toilet ratio of 1:130, whereas the "major" soccer league's guidelines call for 1:47. Apanel writes:
There is a very thorough discussion of restroom ratios in the article, "New Ballpark Statistic: Stadium's Toilet Ratio," by John Branch, which was published in the New York Times on April 13, 2009. The article deals primarily with the issue of "potty parity," but also gives details on the number of restroom fixtures at the two new baseball stadiums in New York City that opened earlier this year, both of which have overall ratios which exceed local code requirements. The new Yankee Stadium has an overall ratio of 1:68, which exceeds the code by 43%. The new Citi Field/New York Mets stadium has an overall ratio of 1:62, which exceeds the code by 59%. And the new Meadowlands/New York Giants football stadium in New Jersey, set to open in 2010, will have an overall ratio of 1:63, which exceeds the New Jersey code by 88%.It appears that a new cheer will need to be devised for the "major league" Timbers: "Hold... it... in!"By way of comparison, FIFA (the international soccer association) recommends a minimum ratio of 15:1,000 toilets and urinals for men; and 20:1,000 toilets for women; plus, 1:5,000 for family toilets, which would result in an overall ratio of 1:58.
Also by way of comparison, UEFA (the European soccer association) requires that stadiums have a ratio of 1:200 for toilets, and 1:125 for urinals, which would result in an overall ratio of 1:77.
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Comments (11)
Wel, the good news is since the seats will only be about 10% full, bathroom lines shouldnt be an issue.
Posted by mk | December 1, 2009 4:47 PM
This could cut into beverage sales.
Posted by Allan L. | December 1, 2009 4:48 PM
The Washington Park Reservoir is close by....
Posted by Nonny Mouse | December 1, 2009 5:22 PM
Here are a few more interesting details to report about the renovation plans for PGE Park, all of which Oregonian reporter Mark Larabee labeled as "baseless accusations," in an email he sent to me in October.
1) At a restroom ratio of 1:130, PGE Park would have an overall deficit of 254 toilets and urinals, based on MLS requirements.
2) Based on MLS requirements, all of the 18,817 existing grandstand seats in PGE Park are sub-standard because the row width throughout PGE Park is only 30", while MLS requires 33", and recommends 36".
3) Based on MLS requirements, all of the 5,000 new, so-called "premium" seats proposed for the new grandstand in left field would also be sub-standard, because current plans call for row widths of only 30".
4) Based on MLS requirements, all of the 10,681 existing bench-style seats would have to be replaced with individual seats, which would reduce PGE Park's overall capacity by 1,525 seats, since the bench-style seats allocate only 18" per seat location, while the minimum width of an individual seat would be 21".
4) Based on MLS guidelines, PGE Park would need 500 linear feet of food concession stands along the concourse, approximately twice the amount that currently exists.
So, all of this may explain why this project has suddenly stopped moving forward.
The official explanation from the city has been that Major League Soccer is suddenly in the process of retroactively "revising" its current guidelines, which were last updated on September 1, 2008, but for some reason never made public during the public review process for the current soccer deal.
Back in September of this year, when the current MLS guidelines were finally made public, the city said that the "revised" guidelines would be ready by the end of November. Now they're saying that MLS won't be issuing those revisions until January.
All of this may also explain why the Oregonian ran the story today, with someone other than Larabee writing it. The Oregonian's editors may finally realize that the current deal is dead in the water, and now headed for a long, but predictable, face-saving death spiral.
Posted by Peter Apanel | December 1, 2009 5:56 PM
It's only a baseless allegation if you don't believe that MLS and LLP might be allowing Portland to build them a substandard stadium just so they could shake down the city for a replacement or threaten to leave town after a few years?
Or if the league goes under in a few years then well, they made their money at least.
Posted by Ten | December 1, 2009 6:08 PM
Does anyone buy Randy's mock theatrics any more?
Here's the MO, people - Paulson gets the bare min he thinks he can shake Randy down for to get MLS here. Then one of two options:
1) MLS actually meets forecasts - Paulson threatens to move unless we build toilets in every seat (or some other non-sense.) Randy huffs/puffs, then rolls over since he sees a position as GM of the Timbers and puts a dome over PGE Park.
2) MLS dies - Lights out. PGE Park empty all year long. $45M down the few toilets installed at PGE Park.
Posted by Steve | December 1, 2009 6:38 PM
Peter Apanel, Mr Larabee was on the latest list of O buyouts that was recently published by WW. The date for those buyouts has lapsed. His departure -- if it has indeed been effected -- may explain his absence from today's piece in the O.
Posted by Gardiner Menefree | December 1, 2009 7:19 PM
I just read an article about contract negotiations for MLS. The players want major changes - they don't like the league owning all the player contracts instead of the individual clubs. There's no internal market and players can be ordered around at will.
So the success that MLS has had - such as it is - is based on a contract that the players really don't like. Stay tuned.
I sense an economic model that's about to change.
Posted by Bill McDonald | December 1, 2009 8:16 PM
Has anyone ever thought about putting the soccer team out at Hillsboro Stadium? Portland State played D1-AA football there for a season, for crying out loud.
Throw a few more bucks at that thing to make it a "MLS quality" arena and be done with it.
Then we could have the same mixed-use stadium downtown (that will be used more often than simply MLS and Viking football). The traffic will be easier and the cost will be significantly less.
Posted by Brian | December 2, 2009 5:34 PM
Bill -
You must be finished with Tiger Woods material for Leno tonight. I must say, the blog entries re: T. Woods a couple of days ago had a much higher proportion of laughs than the usual Randy/Sam/Tram/MLS/Water reservoir/police beatings topics.
Posted by umpire | December 2, 2009 6:08 PM
Brian, PGE is right in Portland, and Hillsboro is in the suburbs. MLS fans have made it a point into never building another suburban stadium again.
Posted by T-Pat | December 3, 2009 5:11 PM