A little known fact about award-winning director Todd Field is that he got his start not in film, but baseball. Field—as a teenager coming of age in Portland, Oregon—was a batboy for the Portland Mavericks, a minor league men’s baseball team coached by Bing Russell, father of actor Kurt Russell. The story of the Mavericks takes center stage in the 2014 documentary, The Battered Bastards of Baseball.
The Portland Mavericks had a great run, albeit a short one; the team left town in 1977 after a three-year stint. PDX hasn’t had a professional ball club since 2010, when the Portland Beavers, a Pacific Coast League team, uplifted. This could soon change, however, pending a successful bid for a MLB team by Portland Diamond Project, a coalition that’s been trying to bring professional baseball back to PDX since 2017.
Portland Diamond Project shared renderings this week with the Portland House Committee on Economic Development, Small Business and Trade of a new ball park capable of hosting a professional baseball team, sited in the city’s South Waterfront. The venue’s proposed title is Zidell Yards. It calls for a 32,000-seat stadium with a retractable roof for dealing with the pesky Pacific Northwest rains. The design is by TVA Architects and Populous.
Zidell Yards would be built atop a former shipyard due south of Downtown Portland on a 33-acre site overlooking the Willamette River. It would be tucked between Tilikum Crossing and the Ross Island Bridge.
Portland Diamond Project said it reached an agreement to buy the land last September. Renderings show the stadium surrounded by a mixed-use entertainment district, stocked with amenities and open space.
The estimated construction cost for Zidell Yards is $2 billion. To assuage concerns for tax payers, Portland Diamond Project founder and president Craig Cheek said he’s asked legislators to look into a mechanism outlined in Senate Bill (SB) 5, which would finance the stadium’s construction without support from the state.
SB 5 would enable the stadium to be financed using state income taxes generated by the future team’s payroll. This means that the taxes players pay on their salaries could unlock $150 million for the stadium’s construction.
Upfront stadium costs would be paid for using bonds paid back by tax revenue generated from the income of home and visiting MLB personnel that make more than $50,000 a year. After the bond is paid off, new tax revenue would go to a general fund.
“This would not be a new tax on Oregonians,” Cheek told local reporters. “We look forward to working with the legislature to make Oregon Better with Baseball.”
Portland Mayor Keith Wilson shares Portland Diamond Project’s dream of bring baseball back home. He’s also assured in his administration’s ability to do so—Wilson said in November: “We feel confident it’s down to us and one other city. And we’re making a solid play.”
MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred said he hopes to start the process of upping the number of teams in the league before he retires in 2029. Other cities tossed around in the expansion rumors include Austin, Salt Lake City, and Raleigh.
If the city secures an MLB team, Portland Diamond Project hopes to start construction by 2027.
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