Consulting Team Lays Out Options for Removing Thorns from Rose Quarter

PORTLAND-Plans are once again being bandied about for more extensive redevelopment of the 37-acre Rose Quarter area, a would-be thriving entertainment district between this city’s 24-hour downtown and its eastside office and retail center, the Lloyd District. The Rose Quarter has been dormant since billionaire Paul Allen’s initial round of construction built the Rose Garden Arena for Allen’s NBA team and One Center Court, the office building that holds Allen’s Portland-based companies. As a result, when there’s no concert or basketball game on the property, the area is a ghost town that has outlasted several restaurant and retail operations.

Now, however–though it has happened before without results–a team of consultants from around the nation is working on a plan to complete the development, one way or another. The grandest plans call for the razing of Memorial Coliseum, the Portland Trailblazers’ old facility, as well the addition of a baseball stadium on city school district property just north of the Quarter. Tearing down the Coliseum would open up the equivalent of four city blocks, planners say. The other option being presented at public hearings recently is one that retains all existing buildings, but possibly renovates them for other uses.

Both scenarios talk about better pedestrian access, a remodeled light rail transit station, more park space and better access to the nearby Willamette riverfront. One possibility spoken of in both plans includes hiding the nearby riverfront railroad tracks in a tunnel topped with buildings and more park space. How much it would cost to implement either plan or where the money would come from are not addressed in the current proposal. Another round of public and private meetings will be scheduled when the planning team gets back together in Portland in March with a proposed final version, which ultimately will have to be approved by the Portland Development Commission, owner of some of the potential redevelopment parcels, as well as the City Council.