Portland City Council voted 8-4 on Wednesday to approve a nonbinding term sheet committing up to $120 million in city funds toward renovating the Moda Center, home of the Trail Blazers, according to Front Office Sports. Combined with $101 million approved by Multnomah County the week before and $365 million in state bonds authorized under Senate Bill 1501, which Governor Tina Kotek signed in April, the three governments have now pledged roughly $586 million toward the arena’s renovation. It’s worth being precise about what that vote actually did: this is a term sheet, not a signed agreement, and it kicks off formal lease negotiations with the team rather than finalizing the funding. A final deal isn’t expected to come before the council for a vote until mid-December.
That $586 million figure also doesn’t capture the full scope of what the city is offering. Separate from its $120 million toward the renovation itself, Portland’s term sheet pledges up to $275 million more over the 20-year lease specifically for ongoing arena maintenance, according to the Portland Mercury. Counting that maintenance commitment, the city’s own total potential contribution over the life of the deal runs closer to $395 million, and the combined public commitment across all three levels of government, if the maintenance money is included alongside the upfront renovation funding, is considerably higher than the $586 million figure being most widely cited.
None of this money comes without conditions, and the conditions are where the real negotiation now begins. The city’s term sheet asks for roughly $3 million a year from the team in lieu of the property taxes it won’t pay on the public building, plus more than $3.1 million in annual rent carrying an inflation-linked escalator, according to OPB. It also seeks a labor-harmony agreement that could open the door to unionized jobs at the arena, limits on which expenses qualify for the public funding, community benefit commitments tied to the surrounding Albina neighborhood, and a requirement that the Blazers play every home game at the Moda Center for the full 20-year term. Before Wednesday’s vote, the Trail Blazers had said most of these provisions were “non-starters.”…