PORTLAND, Ore. — The effort to bring Major League Baseball to Portland has reportedly narrowed its focus down to two sites for a possible ballpark: the Lloyd Center and the RedTail Golf Center in Beaverton — and the city appears eager to make it happen.
Sports columnist John Canzano broke the news this week, detailing emails between the Portland Diamond Project and city officials, including Mayor Ted Wheeler's office, plus renderings of the proposed Lloyd Center site.
The emails show that project officials are working to establish a formal agreement that could turn one of the properties over to MLB, Canzano reported, and the city has been discussing sweeteners like tax incentives and infrastructure commitments.
The emails suggest Portland Diamond Project officials are aiming to reach a deal by the end of the year, according to Canzano.
"The city of Portland looks unusually motivated to get something done," Canzano told KGW. "It's cautious optimism from anyone who's seen baseball and talked about baseball to Portland, but this looks real to me. It feels like this is different than leadership in prior years just talking about wanting baseball. They need baseball, Portland needs a win."
Renderings from Portland Diamond Project show a mixed-use development on the Lloyd Center property, with a stadium in the center and a lineup of mid- and high-rise buildings along the eastern and western sides, along with what appears to be a full remodel of Holladay Park to the south of the mall.
The Lloyd Center is one of several ballpark site ideas that have been floated over the years, including a lengthy evaluation of the Port of Portland's Terminal 2 in Northwest Portland, but the RedTail site is a new one. Despite being located in Beaverton, the golf course is owned by the city of Portland.
The RedTail site would offer far more land for redevelopment — about 160 acres versus about 40, according to city property records — but the tradeoff would be a much more suburban location, without the Lloyd Center's easy access to the region's light rail system.
The once-mighty Lloyd Center mall has fallen on hard times in recent years, losing many of its big retailers and at one point facing foreclosure. Shuttered storefronts line large sections of the interior, sparking frequent speculation about how much longer the mall can hold on and what could take its place.