semi-OT: What Should We Do With the Coliseum?

I don’t know about keeping the building, but putting something that realistically needs a lot more space than the Colesium’s footprint and surrounding infrastructure will allow makes no sense either.

Make of that what you will…I suppose it depends if you shop at Spartacus or not.

No longer useful.

Both from going to games there, and working there. But it’s far past its prime, and a suitable replacement is sitting next door.

Tear it down and put something useful in its place. I’m open on what that is.

1. Tear down the coliseum. It doesn’t have a real purpose now and is just too old to truly renovate anymore.

2. Build either that Triple-A Baseball park or another outdoor entertainment venue. Something smaller and outdoors would be pretty nice to have.

3. Blazers need to give the Winter Hawks a better lease agreement for the Rose Garden. I know that Paul Allen will never buy an NHL team, but if the city shows they will support hockey then maybe someone else will.

4. Build a Blazers museum somewhere on the property. I just think it would be cool to have something like this close by so that people can really learn about the team’s past. Some more interactive stuff would be nice too.

but in the short-term, especially for the playoffs, why not show Blazer games in there? Get some huge big screens in there and let people show up for away games and make admission and parking dirt cheap (or free), and then make money on concessions.

Has been in a sad state since the ’70’s. My dad was a WWII vet, and he always made it a point to get to the events by parking off Broadway so we would walk through it getting to events before ascending the stairs. The fountain was hardly ever had water in it even way back then.

As for the building/arena…I haven’t been in there since the early 90’s. As a kid I thought the place was cool. I knew most of the nooks n crannies. Great memories, but I suspect I would be disappointed seeing it now….

Move the memorial, and or build an improved one somewhere, and yes, raze the site. I don’t care if they put a minor league ballpark there or not, and I am neutral I. The paulson plan as a whole.

Oh, I do not think the exterior of the building (the Glass Palace), is ugly.

Sure wish we had a post edit function for comments…

But im am way into soccer and MLS would make it pretty sweet here. It would solidify this city as a soccer City.

It doesn’t serve a purpose anymore. Build a new Veterans’ Memorial somewhere in the Rose Quarter, there is lots of space.

PGE park MUST be redone to be a proper stadium for soccer and college football. So it can’t be a baseball stadium too.

The minor league baseball team only needs a small park, which will fit on the Coliseum site. I hated parking on the street to watch Beaver baseball games, it will be nice to have proper parking garages and lots nearby for the new baseball stadium.

There’s a lot of history involved with it. The Beatles played there. We won our only NBA Championship (to date) there. The Tournament of the Americas was held there.

However, it has not been maintained well enough to be considered a memorial to anything other than past glory. The seats are worn and torn. Concrete is cracked and poorly patched. The concourse is too small for anything other than a college team crowd or a minor league hockey team crowd (and even THEY abandoned the MC, moving the Winterhawks to the RG).

In short, as much as I love the Memorial Coliseum, it’s no longer fit for anything but a tomb for memories of greater times long past. The exterior is unmistakenly Portland, and if there is a way to incorporate that into a new minor league stadium, that would be amazing.

However, at this point in time I’d have to agree that the Coliseum needs to be taken down in favor of something that would be of better use to the public, and for a tribute to those who have lost their lives in service to our country that people will actually acknowledge.

PS – It wasn’t until this debate came up that I knew exactly what the Memorial Coliseum was a memorial for, so that should be yet another reason for it’s razing.

I think that if/when the Coliseum is demolished, that the Blazers should do what the 76ers did this year and play one last game there, complete with throwback jerseys and the old floor and everything. Sure the arena’s smaller, but just charge twice as much for tickets for one game only and call it good. The players can tough it out in the old facilities for one game for the sake of the long-time fans. Who wouldn’t like to watch this?

Perhaps this is something they could even do every year as long as the Coliseum is in existence—a heritage night, or something like that. That’s probably asking too much, though.

and then Paul Allen could spend a lot of money to build a really fancy museum with some unusual theme, say music for example, and it would have really exotic architecture that cost a lot so it wouldn’t look like a big garbage heap and then charge a lot to let people in so that they would have second thoughts even after driving a hundred miles to see it. Yeah, do that.

Lets drop some ordinance on it! …if fighter jets take part, it ties in with the veterans memorial.

Its not worth keeping. We don’t need two arenas right next to eachother. I might actually see the winterhawks if they play at the RG, but I’m not spending another dime on that old dump.

The best fical decision is to tear it down and build a whole new project, rather than refurbish the old building. There is parking right there, and hopefully more and more restraunts and entertainment will be developed around the Rose Quarter. But with that space I would like to see a open-air sports stadium built.

Make way for another multi-purpose sports stadium. I would like to see a 10-15K stadium that is built around Football and Soccer, not only could PSU and UofP have soccer matches there, but also PSU football who seems to be getting the boot from PGE as they renovate it into a Soccer specific field. Also, the Portland schools like Jefferson, Roosevelt, Cleveland, Marshall, and all the other Portland schools who have under-priviledged facilities a spot to play Football, Soccer, LaCrosse, etc. as well as OSAA playing playoff games there. Also, this venue could accomodate Concerts or other events that are supposed to be enjoyed outdoors.

I am not a fan of professional baseball, and not really a fan of AAA baseball either although I have gone. But with the renovations of PGE park going exclusively to make it a soccer stadium, a new Football focused stadium would be great for Portland State and local high schools.