November 06, 2003
Plan For Amateur Sports Complex At Memorial Coliseum Rises Again
According to this week's edition of Willamette Week, the proposal to turn Memorial Coliseum into the Memorial Athletic & Recreation Complex (pdf) might be getting a boost from a new party:
Oregon Health & Science University benefactor Mary Wilcox told Mayor Vera Katz that if such a complex were built, the university might be interested in leasing 40,000 square feet of space to set up a state-of-the-art fitness-medicine facility.
It's not clear whether Wilcox, the wife of aluminum tycoon Brett Wilcox and co-chair of OHSU's Center for Women's Health, has the blessing of university administrators. But even her tentative interest gave hope to those who want to convert the Coliseum into the Mother of All Gyms.
The complex would "house a competition-quality Olympic-size swimming pool, an NHL regulation-sized ice rink, several soccer fields, multiple basketball and volleyball courts, ... a 50-foot climbing wall" and, possibly, "a rapids simulator for kayaking and rafting."
One of the prime obstacles in the MARC proposal has been its sheer cost, the most expensive of the various options that have been proposed for adaptive reuse of Memorial Coliseum.
One possible solution to this being floated is the idea of using tax-increment financing for the area around the Coliseum
"There are not enough public funds these days for a project like this, and the voters can't afford it," the paper quotes Commissioner Erik Sten. "But if you do it with a tax increment district with no impact on the voters, then I think most people would be for it."
Of course, this also comes at the same time that everyone seems to be examining tax-increment financing as a tool for development, although mainly due to concerns that areas so designated may be remaining in their urban renewal bubbles -- and therefore free of cotnributing to the City's general fund through taxes -- for too long.