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The Oregon Legislature is rocketing toward the passage of a $365 million public subsidy to renovate Moda Center, a funding package that leading Democrats say will guarantee the Trail Blazers remain in Portland for decades, and which critics warn is an unprecedented giveaway of taxpayer dollars without private investment.
Senate Bill 1501 moved from the Senate Rules Committee last week after an amendment that went at least part of the way to satisfying the previously expressed concerns from Senate Minority Leader Bruce Starr (R-McMinnville) and his caucus about whether the Blazers were committed to staying in Portland if public funding comes together. The bill is now in the hands of the budget-writing Joint Ways and Means Committee, whose Senate co-chair, Sen. Kate Lieber (D-Portland), is a strong supporter.
The Rules Committee acknowledged but did not consider an amendment from state Sen. Khanh Pham (D-Portland), who wanted to make the deal more fair to state taxpayers by requiring Blazers’ ownership to contribute to the cost of arena renovations and to sharing a portion of arena operating revenues with the state.
Those two amendments, whose fate will likely be cemented in Ways and Means over the next 48 hours, will go a long way to determining whether Oregonians will share profits from an overhaul of the Rose Quarter with the Blazers’ presumptive owner, Texas subprime auto loan billionaire Tom Dundon.
The total taxpayer bill for an arena overhaul is expected to top $600 million, with Multnomah County ($88 million) and the City of Portland ($120 million initially) pledging to cover the remainder. Dundon’s ownership group would not pay anything.
The Blazers say Oregonians are getting a good deal. “The Blazers have always, and with a new long-term deal will, continue its private contribution and revenue sharing investments into the Moda Center and surrounding communities,” senior vice president of communications Natalie King tells WW in a statement. “We have been clear and consistent in seeking a market-rate lease that takes into consideration all relevant factors, including original arena funding, ongoing responsibility for operating expenses and capital investment, and revenue sharing, among others.”
Related: Architects and NBA Insiders Tell Us What We Would Get With a Moda Center Facelift.
Few arena deals in the nation have been wholly publicly financed. The exceptions over the past decade are in Salt Lake City, for a renovation of the arena where the Utah Jazz play, in Charlotte for a similar deal for the Hornets’ arena, and Raleigh, N.C.—where Dundon himself cut a deal for the Carolina Hurricanes hockey team where he would foot the bill for development in the surrounding neighborhood.
The Raleigh deal was negotiated by Dundon and Dan Barrett of the sports business consultancy CAA Icon, who is currently leading the negotiations with legislators in Salem. The Raleigh deal, which provides a useful corollary, closed with an agreement in 2023. In 2025, the North Carolina legislature allocated an additional $35 million.
All three deals feature no private money for the arenas themselves, but massive promised investments to develop the land adjacent to them. (In the case of Charlotte the actual figure has never been disclosed.)
To be sure, those arena overhauls differed from Portland because the late Paul Allen paid for the original construction of Moda Center largely out of pocket. (Allen paid $70 million for the team in 1988; his estate sold the team last summer to Dundon for $4.25 billion.) Still, in recent weeks a vocal group of critics have called for lawmakers to slow down and negotiate for more concessions from Dundon.
On Thursday, the Rules Committee passed amendments from Senate President Rob Wagner (D-Lake Oswego) that included protections missing from the initial bill—including a clause requiring the Blazers to commit to a 20-year lease of Moda Center, financial penalties if the team relocates, and a requirement that the team cover any cost overruns.
But one leading critic of the bill, Edan Krolewicz, says Wagner’s amendment actually sweetens the deal for Dundon by adding language that creates a “sports and entertainment district” in the Rose Quarter and directs tax revenues from inside that district to paying off Moda Center’s construction bonds.
“The amendment that was sold as protecting taxpayers quietly turned this from an arena deal into a district deal,” Krolewicz tells WW. “It created a ‘sports and entertainment district’ that didn’t exist in the original bill, expanded the tax capture to cover the entire district, and exempted the Blazers from contributing. None of that was discussed publicly.”
The scale of that district remains unclear. The definition of the surrounding area was changed in the amendment from the “plaza” outside Moda Center to a more general definition. The amendment references a map, but none has been added to the written legislative exhibits.
Krolewicz, a Blazers fan and New York resident who organized an opposition campaign called Rip City Not Ripoff, says the language creates a lucrative real estate opportunity for Dundon. In his telling, the tax dollars generated from developments surrounding the arena would be diverted to pay off the construction bonds that created the economic opportunity.
“Tom Dundon already ran this exact play in Raleigh,” Krolewicz says. “The public paid $300 million for the arena. Dundon paid nothing toward the building. Then his private company developed the land around it and kept all the revenue.”
WW reached out to Wagner’s office for comment but did not receive a response.
In a statement to WW, Trail Blazers vice president King says the team intends to work closely with the economic justice group Albina Vision Trust to build a district around Moda Center—and that local partners will benefit.
“We have an opportunity to build a future district that brings together business and community, and recognizes that sustained reinvestment in Lower Albina, including the Rose Quarter and Moda Center, can be foundational to revitalizing Portland’s central city,” she said. “That vision is centered around lifting up the economic and generational well-being of our neighbors, and is anchored in the renovation of Moda Center, which is one of the largest cultural and community institutions in the city and state. We are committed to working with the Albina Vision Trust in the restorative development efforts throughout Lower Albina, and excited to work toward creating a Rose Quarter that is thriving 365 days per year for the millions of Oregonians and tourists we welcome.”
(Phil Knight, who tried unsuccessfully over the course of several years to buy the team from the Allen estate before removing himself from consideration, has, with his wife Penny, donated $400 million to the 1803 Fund, which has contributed grant money to Albina Vision and similar organizations promoting development in the historically marginalized area surrounding the arena.)
Similar districts have been key to arena deals in Brooklyn, N.Y. and Sacramento. Results have been mixed. In Brooklyn, where Krolewicz lives, affordable housing pledges never materialized. In Sacramento, the hyped anchor tenant, PunchBowl Social, recently closed, and revenues from the district have twice failed to meet bond obligations, causing the city to access its general fund rather than risk damaging its credit. (Dan Barrett negotiated the development deal on behalf of the City of Sacramento.)
Meanwhile, Pham’s amendment didn’t receive a committee vote, but it could be revived in another committee or on the Senate floor. Pham’s amendment directs the state to negotiate a private contribution to the Moda Center overhaul and revenue sharing from the proceeds, though it doesn’t specify figures.
“Hundreds of constituents have reached out expressing support for investing in the Blazers and the Moda Center,” Pham told WW in a statement, “and they want to know that their tax dollars are protected in that investment. Other modern NBA arena deals have included some level of private contribution.”
King said the Blazers oppose Pham’s amendment. “These issues are nuanced and best handled in lease negotiations,” she said. “There are several factors that the amendment does not take into account, which would make it impossible to reach a market-rate deal for a long-term lease for Moda Center if all its proposals were implemented.”
King pointed to the Blazers’ previous revenue sharing deals with local governments, and suggested they had been sufficient. “The economic conditions in Portland have declined dramatically over the past several years,” she wrote. “Because of this, the team currently ranks as one of the lowest revenue teams in the league. Any additional revenue share added on top of what is already paid would impact the team’s future financial stability.”
Pham’s amendment could be discussed in the Joint Ways and Means Committee’s Joint Subcommittee on Capital Construction. That subcommittee’s chair, Sen. Jeff Golden (D-Ashland), who voted in favor of Sen. Wagner’s amendment, offered only a cryptic statement about further discussion.
“I would like it if there were additional conversations in Ways and Means,” Golden said. “That seems to be difficult, to have any kind of policy conversation in Ways and Means, which compounds the difficulty because so much ends up in Ways and Means that needs more conversation. On this bill, I hope there is an opportunity for that.”
While it never got to a vote, the discussion of Pham’s amendment in the Rules Committee reportedly focused the attention of some progressive House members on how one-sided the deal is. The net effect of that, at least so far, is to give Republicans greater leverage in the allocation of session-end pork. In other words, skepticism from some Democrats, including House Speaker Julie Fahey (D-Eugene), creates a bargaining chip for Republicans, whose votes are now crucial to passing the bill.
For weeks, lobbyists and leading Democrats have been courting rural Republicans by branding the revamped Moda Center as “Oregon’s Arena.”
Neil deMause, a veteran journalist who has spent 30+ years covering arena subsidies in the U.S., says lawmakers have a duty to look at the fine print on an arena deal.
“You’re allowed to ask questions. You’re allowed to hold a hard line on this,” says deMause, who coauthored the 1998 book Field of Schemes: How the Great Stadium Swindle Turns Public Money into Private Profit.
“You’re allowed to say ‘You’re asking us for $600 million, you need to give us a good reason.’ And you have leverage at the same time. Understand that you have the right and the responsibility to try and negotiate a good deal for your city and your constituents. You don’t have to just accept whatever the team is asking, because when you do that, cities tend to end up holding a very large bag.”
