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City of Portland negotiators overseeing the Moda Center deal with the Portland Trail Blazers on Tuesday afternoon offered their recommended starting term sheet to the Portland City Council.
In exchange for $120 million in funding from the city for an arena renovation, city negotiators have agreed that the council should ask for $2 million in annual rent from the Trail Blazers for the use of Moda Center, among other smaller provisions, including the city retaining development rights for the arena and adjacent city-owned land.
The Portland City Council is set to vote on the term sheet on Wednesday. The term sheet is nonbinding, and negotiators have emphasized that it is just a starting point for the city to get its foot in the door with the Blazers to begin negotiations—not the city’s final offer. The city must approve a new long-term lease with the Blazers by Dec. 31, 2026, which means if the City Council passes a term sheet tomorrow, the city will have four months to negotiate with the team.
City Council President Jamie Dunphy’s office spent the past week considering various demands from city councilors and Multnomah County officials, and running those ideas past the negotiators who will sit across the table from the Blazers.
The negotiators’ recommendations come in the form of amendments to the underlying term sheet that council last week moved to a final vote this week. The initial term sheet, proposed by Mayor Keith Wilson’s office and negotiators hired by the city to strike a deal, was poorly received by both the Trail Blazers’ owners and leftist councilors last month, who said it put the city in a weak negotiating position. Despite unhappiness all around, the council last week opted not to alter it at all, killing 12 amendments mostly by 7–5 votes.
Wednesday’s council meeting is the last opportunity—for now—for the council to determine the city’s starting demands for negotiations with the Blazers.
Blazers sources previously told several media outlets that a provision in the city’s underlying term sheet that would require the Blazers to pay an annual property tax offset, starting at $3 million and escalating in subsequent years, was a no-go for the team’s owners.
That makes it likely that the Blazers would also dislike a $2 million annual rent demand from the city, should the City Council vote to include that provision in its term sheet on Wednesday.
