Pro baseball team contemplates new home in Lents

By David F. Ashton

The Gresham Outlook, Aug 9, 2008, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (1 Reader comment)

David F. Ashton

Greg Peden tells Lents neighbors why the plans of Portland Timbers owner, Merritt Paulson, to gain a Major League Soccer franchise here could result in his AAA baseball team, the Portland Beavers, moving to a new baseball stadium in Lents.

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In the not-too-distant future, when you hear the umpire cry, “Play ball!” followed by the crack of a bat – it may not be city league teams playing at Charles Walker Stadium in Lents Park on S.E. 92nd Ave. at Holgate Boulevard – it could be Portland’s AAA minor-league Portland Beavers.

That’s the picture painted by Greg Peden, of Gallatin Public Affairs, who represents Henry Merritt Paulson III – owner of the Portland Timbers professional soccer team and the Portland Beavers minor league baseball team. Peden has been talking up the idea both at civic group luncheons and among Lents residents and business people at two meetings in the past three weeks.

Paulson is the son of Henry Paulson, the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury. He moved here in 2006 to buy and operate the Beavers and the Portland Timbers minor league teams.

Pro soccer franchise sought

Paulson plans to bring Major League Soccer to Portland within the next two years, Peden said.

If Paulson gets the franchise, MLS would require upgrades to PGE Park by 2012; changes that would require the Beavers baseball team to find a new home.

Top choice: Lents Park

“We have identified two locations in the city that would work for a new minor league baseball stadium with about 8,000 seats,” Peden said.

Port of Portland’s “Terminal 1,” off Naito Parkway on the west side of the Willamette River, is one proposed location for the new ballpark.

The ball club’s ideal location for a new stadium would be the northeast corner of Lents Park, Peden told to a group of neighbors who gathered at the Lents Park gazebo on July 31.

“To put it into perspective, Charles Walker Stadium (now on the site) has a capacity of 1,000 fans,” Peden said. “We propose building a stadium with seating for 8,000 to 9,000 people. It may seem large, but it’s much smaller than Seattle’s Safeco Field, where the Mariners offer 40,000 seats.”

The ballclub’s spokesman said there are challenges of locating the facility at Lents Park – namely, finding 1,500 nearby parking spaces.

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