The Memorial Coliseum saga: money, bureaucracy and confusion [updated]

Photo by Brian Libby 

In today's Oregonian, art critic D.K. Row looks at the Memorial Coliseum and Rose Quarter process currently being undertaken by the City via the Mayor's office and the Portland Development Commission.

The piece is called "Openness, with an asterisk" and the sub-headline reads, "A clause neutralizing Memorial Coliseum as a threat to the Blazers' Rose Garden makes for a flawed design process."

This article has a lot of good information and Row (who, in full disclosure, is my former editor at the paper) is a smart, perceptive critic. At the same time, there are a few points raised in the article that I want to clarify or expand upon.

First of all, the article - just like Janie Har's article in the paper a few weeks ago - incorrectly uses a rendering of the Blazers' proposed Jumptown development instead of an image of their plan for Memorial Coliseum. Jumptown is all but irrelevant right now. Jumptown hasn't been designed yet, and the rendering is just an artist's impression of some vague ideas about the overall Rose Quarter. Many people have concerns about Jumptown and justifiably so, but that rendering tells us little; it's the cart before the horse.

The issue right now is Memorial Coliseum, and the Blazers are the only one of the three finalists chosen by the Mayor's Stakeholder Advisory Committee who propose to preserve the landmark Coliseum as an arena with its seating bowl intact. Yet their plan, if people go by The Oregonian, is being judged on that meaningless rendering. I think the mistake was made not by DK Row, but is a result of the Coliseum story being parceled out to numerous reporters and sections over time, so a different Metro, Business or How We Live editor makes the same mistake each time..

 

 

Coliseum proposal renderings by Rick Potestio, courtesy Portland Trail Blazers/Winter Hawks

Second, while DK Row's reporting is sound, I'd argue the sub-headline ("A clause neutralizing Memorial Coliseum as a threat to the Blazers' Rose Garden makes for a flawed design process"), which editors usually write instead, is misleading.

The Blazers do indeed hold the cards when it comes to the right of refusal with other projects and the RFP. But the Blazers' contract is expiring in November, and the structure of the deal could be completely rewritten. More importantly, it's not the clause that "makes for a flawed design process". It's the flawed design process that makes for the flawed design process. It's the structure of the competition, which had no provisions about budget, stocked the Advisory Committee with people protecting their demographic turf, and discouraged any kind of design expertise or inviting of talented designers.

Photo by Brian Libby 

That said, there are several passages in Row's piece that are worth passing on. Row writes:

It's a narrative rife with so many tactical layers that instead of common-sense clarity, it's as cloudy as an Oregon winter. Even two city commissioners of often intensely contrasting opinions agree that this latest design episode is a murky affair that might even prompt reconsideration of how the city conducts public design processes.

"This began as a community-wide effort to save the Memorial Coliseum from the wrecking ball," says City Commissioner Nick Fish. "I celebrate that, as we now debate how much public investment we want to make into that building and area. But I fear we've structured this process to ensure an unsatisfactory outcome."

By changing his position from wanting to raze the Coliseum to rescuing it for future development, Mayor Sam Adams showed he can respond to the public - but he also doesn't have a sharp vision of his own for the building and area.

Fish and Row both make a good point: That it was great that the Coliseum was saved from demolition for a baseball stadium, a ludicrous plan. And Adams deserves credit for backing away from the baseball plan. At the same time, the ensuing process has been disastrous. Memorial Coliseum never needed some new programmatic idea. It's already a functioning arena that compliments the Rose Garden from a business perspective - actually drawing a comparable number of events to the Rose Garden in 2009 with over 150 events and over 450,000 visitors. 

So for the past several months, we've encouraged people to submit ideas in a way that for all the admirable symbolism of openness and populism is totally unrealistic about the goal. And that's the problem I think has marred PDC process time and time again: process for the sake of process rather than process for the sake of product. The Coliseum process culled together a huge Advisory Committee not of creative thinkers, but of members from the community representing particular interests: a bicycle person representing bicycle interests, a neighborhood organization person representing neighborhoods, and so on. Here the appearance of inclusiveness trumped the need to figure out the dynamics of the Rose Quarter and find a way for the Coliseum and Rose Garden to work collaboratively with a variety of new functions to enliven the district. It trumped the invitation of design expertise and vision.

Looking ahead, one can already see City Council grappling to find a way out of this three-finalist process. Two of the proposals, the MARC (Memorial Athletic Recreation Complex) and the VMAAC (Veterans Memorial Arts & Athletic Center), would be exponentially more expensive than what the City has funds for, at a time when floating a public bond measure is extremely untenable.

"We've launched a process at the front end without an agreement of what we, the city, are willing to spend," Fish told Row. "We've deferred on the money issues."

Photo by Brian Libby 

As it happens, the design side is no better than the money side.

Worse, two of the finalists gut the building: the MARC on the inside (by gutting the interior) and the VMAAC outside (by adding a scaffolding-like exoskeleton and tacking on more program). This is a building on the National Register of Historic Places that is matchless in the world: the only major arena on Planet Earth that boasts a 360-degree glass view out every direction. We should be talking about anywhere else to put these functions in the Rose Quarter except for the Coliseum. So we're looking at a process where two of three options not only are vastly more expensive than the City can afford, but also spit in the face of the building's National Register listing, which protects the seating bowl inside as well as the glass exterior outside.

The Blazers are not blameless either. Their insistence on working with an out-of-town developer known for suburban, antiseptic, corporate-feeling entertainment zones has made the local public skeptical on the design front. What's more, by releasing an image of Jumptown without doing any design work first, the team has put its worst foot forward. We should be talking about the Blazers' Coliseum design plans, yet all one ever hears about is Jumptown, Cordish and a Kafka-esque operating agreement. And while the Blazer plan for Memorial Coliseum is vastly more preservation oriented than either of the other two options, it does call for the removal of the Coliseum's iconic entry canopy. And that's saying nothing of the potentially crass, neo-historic design work that seems to be the operating principal of the Jumptown district. I think the Blazer plan would look so much more attractive if they'd hold off on talking about Jumptown, commit to Rick Potestio as their lead architect (he's currently a paid consultant) and rethink what the Rose Quarter needs to be for the city: not just an entertainment feeder to the arenas, but a vibrant mixed use neighborhood.

Luckily the City Council is taking a hard look at the 'Base Case', which is, depending on whom you talk to, a kind of fourth option  along with the other three, or a Plan B alternative to the three finalists. Base Case is the idea of restoring Memorial Coliseum as an arena, but even that is subject to debate.

The City is looking to create a Base Case restoration option that does the minimum amount of deferred maintenance; it's being dubbed the "status quo" option. The group that I'm part of, the Friends of Memorial Coliseum, would like to see a Base Case that goes further and tries to enliven the building with new design concepts, such as enhancements to make the Veterans Memorial wall more accessible, remodel the massive exhibit hall underground, and reconfigure the Coliseum's concourse stairways to create more of a winter garden-like public space.

Think of it this way: Imagine Portland owns a classic 1960 Corvette. We could either (A) tear apart the whole thing, (B) only tear out the engine and interior but leave the body, (C) leave the car but try to buff out some of the scratches and dents with a rag, or (D) restore the car. Oh, and we only have a few dollars for the whole thing.

Photo by Matthew Ginn, courtesy Homestead Images 

I'd obviously pick "D", but maybe that's just me. Then again, though, it's not just me. It's the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the US Green Building Council, and the American Institute of Architects, all of which have called for Memorial Coliseum's preservation as an arena. And it's the silent majority of Portlanders who don't want to vote for a bond measure to gut the building when schools and parks and social services are woefully underfunded. It's the veterans who fought in World War II and to whom the entire building is dedicated, such as my grandfathers. It's the kids at Jefferson High who want their school to be a school again, or the homeless street people who'd rather have a homeless day center than be harassed for sleeping on the sidewalk. It's Blazer fans who saw the team win its only championship there. And it's the world architecture community, who doesn't want to see Portland throw away its Glass Palace.

The more I observe the Memorial Coliseum process, the more I go back to the original flaw that began this whole thing. There was a proposal by the Beavers/Timbers owner to raze the Coliseum and build a baseball stadium on the site, which was defeated. But then that issue set in motion a public process to generate ideas for the building and, from the City's perspective, find a private entity willing to buy their way into a public-private partnership. Whether you blame the Mayor or PDC, the City wound up rushing into a process to generate ideas for the building. I keep hearing from people at the City, "There were so many ideas for the building and the public wanted change." But I disagree with that premise. There were a lot of people against the baseball stadium replacing and destroying the Coliseum. Sam Adams did a great job of recognizing that. But instead of staging a giant parade of process to solicit ideas from everyone and their mother, we should have just stopped, recognized that the Coliseum has financial and cultural value as it is, and start working toward making overdue maintenance upgrades to the building. But instead, we've opened the floodgates to a spectrum of interest groups with their own programmatic agendas for the building and the allure of getting their hands on public dollars to make it happen. A private developer resurrected his old plan for a recreation center. Arts and community groups threw together proposals that would entitle them to all that space. But that wasn't the right question to ask in the first place. We didn't need a new program. And so now we're choosing from three plans that answer a question we shouldn't have asked.

Luckily this is dawning on City Council because these official yet erroneous finalists all have programs that would be prohibitively expensive. It's ironic to me that budget is what could kill the VMAAC or the MARC, and not the fact that that they're wrong for the Coliseum. But if that's what saves the building, from demolition and from the ass-backwards, wide-eyed process that's gotten us here, that's fine by me.

Comments

[Double J]

Another textbook example of how we could really use a real architecture critic at the Oregonian.

David tries his best but a true architecture critic has a weekly bully pulpit for advancing and provoking clearer civic agendas and critiques. Reportage isn't enough in this case, glad you unpacked the process a bit more.

Overall, Portland needs to rethink its process vs. results schema for civic discourse.

[Linder]

It was a mistake to think that an acceptable plan would emerge from such a simple process with no constrains. However, if viewed as a first idea generation phase of a multiphase process, then the wide scope and lack of constrains make sense. Engaging the broader community generated some interesting ideas that could help enhance a “Base Case” scenario to be more than a just the status quo. The process also helped reconnect Portlanders with their Coliseum.

The initial demolition plan seemed to be a back-room deal based on no public process. The latest Memorial Coliseum process was a knee jerk overcorrection to the initial no process plan to tear down the Coliseum. Despite these flawed first steps, if the city can agree upon a reasonable cost target and make clear the preservation constrains, then I would like to see what Rick Potestio could design within those Base Case constrains.

In addition to the winter garden-like public space and exhibit hall remodel, the idea of connecting this space to a riverfront park across Interstate and the esplanade, even if just simple foot and bike paths around the silos, would help enliven and reconnect this area with the rest of the city.

[Brian Libby]

Very well said, Mr. Linder!

[Chicago Duck]

As a former Portlander who now lives in Chicago, I would love to see the rose quarter evolve into a Wrigleyville-esque area. A neighborhood with bars and restaurants where people want to be even when games aren't scheduled, and more so when the are!

I'm not too keen on the zoning of the area, but wouldn't multiple rows of 4-story walk ups in the area add some character to the area and provide it with patrons?

How about building another brewery in the area?

I like Linder's idea above about connection the space across the river via a foot/bike bridge to bring the east and west sides of Portland together.

I also believe Brian posted photos of an empty parking lots on the waterfront where Rose Quarter employees park - this is a HUGE opportunity to liven up the area - let's develop it.

[Greg]

Brian wrote: "it was great that the Coliseum was saved from demolition for a baseball stadium, a ludicrous plan."

Hey Brian - you won - congratulations - you can stop being such a jerk about it now.

[Brian Libby]

Wow, Greg. That's either the most insulting nice compliment I ever received, or it's the nicest diss.

Seriously, though, I wish I could believe we've won. But two of the three finalists for the Coliseum renovation would gut the building and ruin it. If that happens, saving the Coliseum for a baseball stadium will have been more or less in vain.

Once the City Council chooses either the Blazer plan or the Base Case, though, I will grant you all the favor of easing off the Coliseum crusade - and happily so.

[Angel Morse]

All athletic building design processes tend to be flawed. Too many customers with different agendas tends to be the ultimate culprit.

[g.t.]

finally brian, a column with teeth! nice work on that.

the one issue i have with your argument is the damning of the 'process' and the encouragement of top-down thinking. the messiness of the 'process' is the messiness of democracy--and i don't think that's such a bad thing, in light of what came immediately before (the ball-park fiasco).

the big problem seems to be the promise that this process would lead to an actual project and contract with a development team. what it should have promised is more a catalog of ideas--a sort of democratic think-tank--that would give the mayor and council members the direction that they need to THEN solicit a real project. if you can't feed them the carrot, then don't dangle it.

[Brian Libby]

Thanks, G.T.

Interesting comment/idea about the messy democratic process in this case for the Rose Quarter/Coliseum as creator of a catalog of ideas. It might have worked better that way.

[marc]

I have to laugh. I have repeatedly pointed out that this entire process was flawed because the cost of these various proposals was not being considered. I was repeatedly advised by folks on this board that such limitations on the creative process were unwanted/unnecessary. Now, there is finally a realization that without money, we can't really do anything. The Blazers are the only entity that has money. Their plan will "win" this contest for that reason alone. If they choose not to pursue their vision for the MC, you will absolutely have the same old building with the same old problems.

[Brian Libby]

I have to laugh too, Marc.

Although it's always been about the historic architecture for me and not cost, I also was carping about cost from the get-go, saying that gutting Memorial Coliseum was prohibitively expensive.

But let me be perfectly clear in response to your last point:

Just because a historic building gets saved doesn't mean it has to have problems. If the City decides to preserve the building, with or without the Blazers, but fails to restore the Coliseum in a way that restores it to its original integrity, that will be a huge mistake. But there are countless examples of historic architecture all over the world that has been made profitable.

Indeed, this debate is ending up being about money. But money shouldn't be the only factor. Even if preserving the MC takes extra funds, it's worth it to retain such a landmark. But as it happens, saving the MC is the best financial option.

[Rebecca Horsenet M.D.]

Very well said Brian Libby. Bravo.