December 23 – Portland Timbers have unveiled their $31 million (£19 million) plans to transform PGE Park into a top-class venue for when they join Major League Soccer (MLS) in 2011.
Spectators will line all four edges of the field, rather than two, and passersby still will glimpse games through the fence along Southwest 18th Avenue.
The result of the renovation, scheduled to start in January and finish by spring 2011, will be “as unique as they come in the soccer world,” Timbers owner Merritt Paulson said.
The biggest transformation will be the stadium’s east side.
A public plaza at the corner of 18th Avenue and Morrison Street will form the main entrance, extend toward the field and include a team store open even on non-match days.
A sit-down restaurant will serve 1,444 midfield seats, a community meeting room will be built next to the restaurant and three group and family decks will be built for events and extra seating.
A cover will jut over most of the roughly 4,000 east-section seats, echoing the existing wooden overhangs in the 83–year-old stadium.
Additional restrooms and concession stands will serve the new seating areas.
Also, a privately funded, 12,000-square-foot sports rehabilitation clinic will be built on the east side.
Stadium capacity will increase to about 20,000 – 24,000 including a north auxiliary area that will be closed for most games – from its current total of more than 16,000 currently for the USL (United States League) First Division, owner Merritt Paulson said.
The renovation details come with a concession: Though hard-core football fans wanted the Timbers’ re-vamped home to include grass, the playing surface almost certainly will be artificial turf, Paulson said.
The stadium’s reality is rainy springs and falls, and the need to accommodate the Portland State football team, high school games and other events.
Crisscrossing field lines for football and soccer when those seasons overlap would be far more difficult to manage on grass, Paulson said.
He said: ”We’re going to have days where we play soccer right after football games, and on a rainy day, the field would be utterly destroyed.”
The new surface will be a FieldTurf product being designed for football that is being billed as more forgiving than grass, Paulson said.
He added that the team will practice on grass fields when necessary, and that for special events the team will install temporary grass trays on the field.
PGE Park – which also has been called Multnomah Stadium and Civic Stadium – has undergone two previous major renovations, in 1983 and in 2001.
The last and most ambitious, a $40 million (£25 million) makeover the city is still paying off, was tailored for Triple-A baseball’s Beavers.
That team will play in PGE Park through 2010 but then faces an uncertain fate.
The upcoming renovation focuses on the Timbers, in part because MLS strongly encourages teams to play in football-specific venues.
The City of Portland and a group headed by Paulson are paying for the renovation, though financing details have yet to be finalised.
Bill Crockett, Principal and National Director of Sports for design firm AECOM Ellerbe Becket, is working on the redesign.
The idea, for Portland and the MLS, is to keep venues modestly sized as professional football in the US grows.
PGE Park promises more leg room and room to move, but with a closer view of the action.
Paulston said: ”It’s going to be very intimate.”
MLS Commissioner Don Garber said: ”The City Council agreement was a tremendous achievement for Merritt Paulson.
“There’s a lot of consideration and flexibility in that deal which says a lot about his enthusiasm for getting something done with the city. Mayor Sam Adams and commissioner Randy Leonard are both very committed to the Major League Soccer project.”