June 23, 2003
'Recreation Versus Retail' In Memorial Coliseum Plans
Today's Oregonian reported (via a headline which is not the same in the online version) that the potential options for Memorial Coliseum may have essentially narrowed to either the MARC proposal or the Oregon Arena Corporation retail plan:
Would you rather go to Memorial Coliseum to shop or to sweat?
Portland politicians get to ponder that unlikely question this summer as they weigh night-and-day proposals floated by some of the city's heaviest hitters. And, as details of the proposals emerge, they face choices of how much financial risk to take and whether to maintain public ownership of Memorial Coliseum.
The article -- headlined "Coliseum options fall to 2 -- maybe" in the paper but "Coliseum's future faces scrutiny" online -- reports that the City Council could either "pursue one of those options later this summer, or further defer the long-awaited decision." Any such delay might give MARC proponents time to "line up private cash from a list of likely local suspects."
Since the article gives a fairly decent overview of both proposals, it's worth a full read-through.
For my part (no surprise here), I continue to believe that the MARC proposal -- and it's focus on participation -- is more properly Portland than big box retail smack in the middle of the Rose Quarter. Not to mention that, regardless of Oregon Arena assurances, bringing big box retail to that area can't possibly be good for the traffic situation. Bringing serious new automobile traffic into an area which is essentially one of our public transportation system hubs just doesn't sound very, well, Portland.
Yes, I understand that the MARC is, in many ways riskier, and certainly requires a rather substantial chunk of public money. Which is why I think it's not going to fly, in the end. But it's indisputably better, from the standpoint of livability and urban character, than big box retail.