News Well, the final two City Council voices are now in on this resolution (PDF) that proposes moving forward on negotiations to revamp PGE Park by 2011 for a Major League Soccer team separately from plans to find a new home to build a minor-league baseball stadium for the Portland Beavers. Commissioner Amanda Fritz said this evening that she stands by her original objections to tapping urban renewal ...   More

News Commissioner Randy Leonard pledged last week to vote no on his resolution [PDF] committing the city to go forward with Merritt Paulson, owner of the Portland Timbers soccer team and Beavers baseball team, following Paulson's decision to withdraw his proposal for building a new minor league baseball stadium in Lents. The deal, which officially divorces the revamping of PGE Park for Major League ...   More

News Portland City Council has waded through a number of topics this morning and afternoon, after its marathon session last night on the topic of renaming 39th Avenue for Cesar E. Chavez. Mayor Sam Adams referred a proposal to give a 10-year tax break to a new housing complex back to his office Commissioner Nick Fish's office. A handful of neighbors from North Portland had testified against the proposal ...   More

News Merritt Paulson was at PGE Park bright and early at 8 am this morning, following a very hostile meeting in Southeast Portland Thursday night. This morning, he also sent the following letter to Mayor Sam Adams and City Commissioners: June 19, 2009 Dear Mayor Adams and Commissioners: Nearly one year ago when we announced our desire to bring Major League Soccer to Portland at PGE Park ...   More

News Commissioner Dan Saltzman said this afternoon that he still plans to vote for the Major League Soccer deal going forward in a revamped PGE Park, despite Beavers/Timbers owner Merritt Paulson's announcement that he's pulling out of the deal's other piece — moving the minor-league baseball Beavers to a proposed stadium in Lents. Saltzman says he's not a soccer fan but thinks there's a buzz ...   More

News While Commissioner Randy Leonard has committed to voting against the Major League Soccer deal going forward now that Beavers/Timbers owner Merritt Paulson announced he's done with the baseball stadium proposal in Lents, Mayor Sam Adams announced this afternoon that "the City's mission is clear: focus our energies on guaranteeing that Portland is the new home of a Major League Soccer team." While ...   More

News The $31 million revamp of PGE Park, which will allow Major League Soccer to begin play there in 2011 and force the Portland Beavers to find a new baseball home, was approved Thursday by the City Council. The vote on the resolution (PDF) authorizing the city's term sheet (or as Mayor Sam Adams put it, the "basic concepts and shape" of the deal with more definitive details to come) with Merritt ...   More

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News Portland's tentative deal with Merritt Paulson to bring Major League Soccer to PGE Park, a deal City Council approved July 23, expires today. The deadline —which had moved from Sept. 1 initially to Oct. 1— to negotiate all the details of the final financial agreement has now been extended until December or January, when construction was to begin on the renovation project, according ...   More

News A preliminary design for a remodeled PGE Park went before the City of Portland's Design Commission on Sept. 17, even as financial negotiations between Portland and Merritt Paulson stalled. That design (pictured above) calls for a Providence Health & Services rehabilitation center at the stadium's southeast corner on Southwest 18th Avenue. The Design Commission expects new drawings Nov. ...   More