Gov. Tina Kotek’s bill signing ceremony at the Moda Center late last month had all the trappings of a victory celebration.
A drumbeat of laudatory speeches praised state lawmakers’ bipartisan sprint this spring to pledge $365 million toward a revamp of the now publicly owned arena and keep the Trail Blazers in Portland, after a group led by Texas billionaire Tom Dundon purchased the team for $4.25 billion.
A phalanx of business and elected leaders, including Mayor Keith Wilson and Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson, touted the civic and economic benefits that the estimated $600 million project — to be funded exclusively by taxpayers — would bring.
Notably absent: Most of the local politicians who must carry the massive and complex undertaking, which requires not just public dollars from the city and county but a renegotiated lease with the Blazers, through the home stretch.
Despite the insistence by Kotek, Wilson and other major boosters that a final arena deal will come together quickly — the governor has said she wants the Portland City Council to lock in its financial contribution within a matter of weeks — it appears months away and faces numerous legal, logistical and political hurdles.
City and county lawmakers are pumping the brakes, saying it’s better to take the time to get it right than to sign away huge sums of public money under pressure from Portland’s professional basketball franchise, which has called the Rose City home since 1970.
“We’re not going to be held hostage, we’re not going to sign a bad deal,” Portland Council President Jamie Dunphy told The Oregonian/OregonLive, echoing a position expressed by many of his colleagues. “We’re not going to be a blank check for an-out-of town billionaire. We are going to support our team and our local economy in the way that needs to get done. But we’re not doing it at all costs.”
Another Portland councilor recently called the idea that the Blazers would relocate to another city “a massive bluff,” a sentiment that some on the county commission privately share. Local leaders also have a list of desires they hope to extract from the dealmaking, at least one of which doesn’t even involve the Moda Center but rather the Veterans Memorial Coliseum next door.
That posturing leaves some city and county lawmakers in a starkly different position than state and local leaders and Blazers executives, who are unified in pushing for a rapid resolution.
It raises not only doubts about whether the gap can be bridged, but whether local leaders can achieve all of the intricate milestones they would seemingly have to hit to begin arena renovations in 2027.
Failure to do so, some worry, could throw the Blazers’ future in Portland into question.
“The Trail Blazers have been deeply connected to Portland for more than 50 years and remain committed to this community,” Dewayne Hankins, the team’s president, said in a statement. “The fact remains: if city and county leaders can’t get a deal done, the Blazers’ lease at Moda Center will expire in 2030.”
‘Work is only just beginning’
With Oregon’s portion of the financial plan in place, a tangled web of contracts between the state, city of Portland and Multnomah County is required before any formal negotiations with the Blazers can start.
State and city officials must establish a new entity known as the Oregon Arena Fund that will allow the two governments to co-own and oversee operations at the Moda Center.
Portland and Multnomah County must also enter into their own separate agreement on the arena deal, which is expected to include a list of project terms the county will require in exchange for its financial support.
Work has begun but neither agreement has been finalized and Portland officials would not say how long that might take.
“Our shared goal is to move quickly while ensuring the agreements support Portland’s long‑term economic and community objectives,” Cody Bowman, a city spokesperson, told The Oregonian/OregonLive.
Meanwhile, a majority of the five-member Multnomah County Board of Commissioners and the 12-member Portland City Council will each have to approve a funding package that locks in their government’s financial commitment, currently pegged at about $100 million and $400 million, respectively.
Neither of those votes is likely to occur prior to the county finalizing its project requirements and the city negotiating a long-term lease agreement with the Blazers, which will also need City Council authorization.
“This is nowhere near a done deal,” said Multnomah County Commissioner Julia Brim-Edwards. “The city and county’s work is only just beginning.”
A long-term lease agreement by December?
That reality is giving heartburn to some project boosters and could imperil the ambitious timeline that political leaders and the team have set for completing renovations.
Hankins has said the team is targeting the remodel over three summers from 2027 through 2029, with the aim of finishing ahead of the 2030 NCAA Women’s Final Four, which was awarded to the city four years ago.
To line up public financing in time for a summer 2027 groundbreaking, officials with Oregon’s Department of Administrative Services have said the state would need to green light a bond sale by the end of this year.
However, the state arena funding law explicitly prohibits Oregon’s treasurer from issuing debt to finance the project until a new lease agreement is reached with the team and Portland and Multnomah County lock in their financial contributions.
That, in effect, gives the two local governments up to seven months to authorize their spending plans and for the city to negotiate and approve a long-term lease with the Blazers.
History suggests that will be a tight timeframe. It took the city nearly two years to strike a deal with Portland Timbers owner Merritt Paulson to revamp what was then PGE Park for the Major League Soccer team in 2011, an effort that was far less costly and complex.
Staying on the targeted timeline, observers say, could be further complicated by the fact that half the Portland City Council is seeking reelection this fall while Brim-Edwards and Multnomah County Commissioner Shannon Singleton are running for county chair.
Denis Theriault, a county spokesperson, said commissioners will spend “the next several months” working through Moda Center plans, a process that will also allow residents the chance to have a say in the final outcome.
Dunphy, the city council president, said he and a number of his colleagues are also committed to having the public help shape the city’s position on what a final deal could look like. Dunphy also made no firm commitment on when critical votes might come to council, though he recently indicated that he’d like to have a lease agreement approved by early next year.
“The City Council is going to take as much time as it needs because getting this right matters,” he said.
Questions persist about the actual cost of the project
Another sticking point that’s emerged has been the projected $600 million price tag for the Moda Center remodel. That figure is based on what the Blazers say are studies commissioned over the past several years, though the team has yet to publicly disclose those findings.
Additionally, Blazers officials and the team’s new controlling owner, Dundon, have made it clear that they expect public dollars to cover the entire cost of the arena’s renovations, something that Kotek, Wilson and Vega Pederson have essentially agreed to.
On top of the state’s $365 million contribution, Wilson has pledged $120 million up front with $14 million in annual operating costs over a 20-year lease. Vega Pederson, meanwhile, has proposed the county put $88 million toward the renovation and another $13 million toward maintenance.
Dundon told The Oregonian/OregonLive in March that a full funding package would “of course” take the question of relocation off the table for him. He has otherwise been noncommittal about the team’s future in the city, saying on multiple occasions that he had “spent no time” on the matter.
The Texas billionaire may not have local ties, but another visible member of his ownership group does. Venture capitalist Sheel Tyle has lived in the Portland area since 2023 when his wife, Sejal Hathi, became director of the Oregon Health Authority.
Numerous skeptics, however, have cried foul on the prospective deal as it currently stands, questioning the estimated cost of the project and the fact that the team has committed no money toward the arena rehab.
Edan Krolewicz, a Trail Blazers fan and New York resident who launched the website Rip City Not Rip Off, has urged political leaders to seek an independent cost evaluation of the Moda renovation and private investment in the work. Portland For All, a progressive advocacy group that wields influence in City Hall, has had more than 5,000 people send letters to elected officials making similar demands.
Dunphy said he and some of his elected colleagues at the city want greater clarity on the renovation’s underlying costs and will ultimately expect the Blazers to “chip in” for some of the arena upgrades.
“I don’t think the city is going to pay for their executive suites or their locker rooms,” Dunphy said.
Though the city put forward $34.5 million when construction on Moda Center first broke ground in 1993, the $262 million project was otherwise privately financed by then-owner Paul Allen, the Microsoft co-founder. However, the city purchased the arena from the late owner’s estate in 2024 for $1 as part of a five-year lease extension with the team. The building’s transfer was designed to make “future public investment into the building easier,” according to the city’s ordinance.
Blazers leaders have argued that 30 years of private ownership and maintenance of Moda Center more than offsets a financial contribution from ownership. Meanwhile, the team has contributed cash to other city-owned facilities, including Providence Park, via the city’s spectator facilities fund, which collects fees on tickets and revenue from event parking.
While the Blazers are Moda Center’s primary tenant, they are not the only tenant, with the WNBA’s Fire debuting this weekend. The basketball teams will account for 63 home games per year, roughly one quarter of all the events held at the 19,000-seat arena.
Kotek and local leaders say they want to see the arena hold up to 300 sports games, music concerts and other events annually, which they say will turbocharge economic activity in Oregon’s most populous city.
Key city funding source remains in limbo
But before Portland makes any level of financial commitment toward the project, its leaders will first have to agree on where the money will come from.
Wilson has pushed to access a significant chunk of the city’s upfront pledge from the voter-approved Portland Clean Energy Community Benefits Fund, which finances projects aimed to reduce carbon emissions, create jobs and promote workforce training in the clean energy sector. The move has drawn opposition by some city councilors and community advocacy groups.
However, other councilors — including Dunphy, Elana Pirtle-Guiney and Sameer Kanal — have indicated that they could support using money from the clean energy fund for Moda, on the condition that the program’s citizen-led advisory committee recommends doing so.
No clean energy funding proposal is expected to go to that advisory committee, however, until the city and the Blazers finalize a design plan and project scope for the renovations. That can’t happen until the city and the team bring on an architect and general contractor.
The Blazers are poised to land an architecture firm this week, according to the team. It could be another two months before a general contractor is chosen and early December by the time design plans are finalized, according to a copy of the project timeline reviewed by The Oregonian/OregonLive.
Terms and conditions
Perhaps even more contentious than the money question will be what terms in a lease agreement Portland — which is also negotiating on behalf of the state and county — and the team will actually agree to.
Oregon leaders, through Senate Bill 1501, have made state funding for the Moda Center contingent on a 20-year arena lease agreement with the Blazers that gives the yet-to-be-established joint authority final say over the scope and budget of the project and protects the city and state from covering cost overruns.
Multnomah County leaders have also detailed a list of proposed project requirements in exchange for their dollars, according to records reviewed by The Oregonian/OregonLive.
Those include using union labor during both the construction phase of the renovation and later for operations and maintenance work at Moda Center and the Veterans Memorial Coliseum.
County leaders are also seeking a community benefits agreement with local organizations, including the 1803 Fund and Albina Vision Trust, and that the city not expand any urban renewal districts into the Rose Quarter or offer new property tax exemptions in the area.
Portland leaders, meanwhile, have yet to produce a formal list of lease terms or desired public benefits, though those could also include everything from the city having naming rights to street pricing for arena concessions.
Hankins, the Blazers president, said the proposed project will encompass a vast spectrum of improvements, from basic infrastructure such as technology and accessibility to modern upgrades such as an open concourse and gathering spaces.
Call their bluff?
The driving force behind the negotiations is the underlying question of whether the Trail Blazers relocating is actually in play or if that threat is simply a fierce bargaining chip by a multi-billion dollar organization to secure the best deal from Oregon taxpayers.
It is setting up what appears to be an extremely tense game of chicken, with many in Portland business circles sounding the alarm that the Blazers leaving town is a genuine risk. Other leaders are less convinced.
“We are in a very, very, very strong negotiating position with them,” Councilor Angelita Morillo said during a town hall last month sponsored by the Portland chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, of which Morillo and three other city councilors are members.
“They are not going to be moving the Blazers out of the city,” Morillo continued. “I think that is a massive bluff, and I think that we need to call them on that bluff.”
The week before Dundon assumed ownership of the Trail Blazers, the NBA announced plans to explore expansion to Seattle and Las Vegas. Though those plans have not been finalized, the belief that those desirable cities are off the table might seem to take away some of Dundon’s leverage to move the team.
However, expansion to those two cities would leave other major markets like Nashville, Austin, Kansas City, Vancouver, B.C., and Mexico City without a team and no path to landing a franchise other than relocation of an existing team.
There’s also this not so subtle reality: Seattle is seeking a new franchise only because the owners who bought the SuperSonics in 2006 moved the team to Oklahoma City two years later.
Bill Oram contributed to this report.
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