What’s so bad about Moda Center anyway?
After all, to many of us, it’s still the new building. Sitting next to the neolithic and utilitarian Memorial Coliseum, the Rose Garden, if I may, is practically a space-age wonder.
A curved roof! Escalators! Luxury suites! Dippin’ Dots!
But the home of the Portland Trail Blazers has eased gently into its fourth decade of life and we are being told not only that the arena needs $600 million in updates, but that those updates need to be paid by public funds.
Oh, and if we do not pay, the Blazers will not play. Not in Portland, anyway. They’ll hightail it out of here faster than you can say, “Rooted in Rip City.”
And for some of Oregon’s fiercest clutchers of pearls, the funding push is as odious as the notion of sticking your nose under the tail of a common striped skunk.
Because, critics will say, Moda Center is… fine.
It’s far from a dump like other aging venues.
And in that sense, the building that advocates have started calling “Oregon’s arena” is a victim of its own functionality. You can go to a game and have an experience that is… fine.
As a place to take in a concert? Fine.
The rodeo? Fine.
Fine, fine, fine.
“I love that people feel like it doesn’t need a lot of changes,” Dewayne Hankins, president of the Trail Blazers and the Rose Quarter told me last week, “but it’s going to need them for the next 20 years. We take pride in it being a first-class facility the way it sits right now, but we want to be a first-class facility for the next 20 years.”
But as the Oregon Legislature considers a bill that would get things moving toward a new long-term lease for the Blazers at the city-owned Moda Center — and subvert any intentions incoming owner Tom Dundon might have about relocating the team — taxpayers are going to want to know just what they are getting for their buck.
The state is being asked to pony up $360 million in bonding. Over objection, city is looking to dip into its coveted clean-energy fund. The county has pledged $88 million of motor vehicle and business income tax revenue.
For what?
Hankins has gotten good at patiently answering this question. It’s what people want to know, after all.
Because if the Blazers just want to sex up the place with cosmetic changes that will drive up ticket prices, then aren’t us regular folks being asked to foot the bill just for the privilege of paying even more to attend events?
Well, maybe.
But it’s more complex than that.
“This is truly just a 30-year-old building,” Hankins said.
He highlights the boring stuff: Elevators and escalators need to be replaced. There needs to be more of what is known as “vertical transportation,” meaning ways to get to the 200 and 300 levels. Kitchens were designed for ‘90s food and ‘90s food expectations.
“We need to have way higher-end expectations for fans,” Hankins said, “and not just premium fans, but our fans who sit in any section.”
In the 30 years since Moda Center was designed, fan habits and behaviors have changed. Game rituals have changed.
“People don’t go to a game, walk through the door, sit in their seat and stay there,” Hankins said. “That’s not just how people experience events any more.”
A rendering posted on the website advocating for the funding package, NewModaCenter.com, shows what an HGTV host might call an open concept for the concourse. Lines of sight from the concourse to whatever is happening in the bowl.
As it is, the only place you can watch a Blazers game inside Moda Center is from your seat.
There are necessary upgrades to the premium experience that will help drive revenue, of course. And that is important. Dundon is buying the team for $4.25 billion, he needs to make money. Ours is a city with a humble corporation base and a scarcity of sponsorship dollars. Relatively, the population is small.
Nonetheless, the NBA operates on revenue-share, and other owners expect small market teams like the Blazers to be doing what they can to contribute to the kitty.
Moda Center needs to drive revenue, not merely exist to be a vessel for events. That’s not just to line Dundon’s pockets but to keep us in the game.
So yes, that will mean elevated luxury experiences, more club spaces for top spenders.
But also, a thoughtfulness about the nosebleeds. The majority of the Moda Center’s seats are in the 300 levels.
You been up there?
“It’s just a bunch of seats,” Hankins said, “and we have to differentiate that and create different kinds of spaces and environments.”
Portland Trail Blazers president of business operations Dewayne Hankins
Portland Trail Blazers president of business operations Dewayne Hankins speaks during media day at the Rose Quarter in Portland, Oregon on Monday, Oct. 2, 2023.Sean Meagher/The Oregonian
Hankins talks about the “digital backbone” of a building that opened when dial-up was novel. The team upgraded the in-arena video system this season, modernizing what had been a badly antiquated in-game experience. Hankins envisions expanding that throughout the arena and to the exterior with a “party zone” where “you can come down and get the experience of the game even if you don’t have a ticket.”
What else?
“The things that drive me nuts are when fans have to wait outside in the rain and they have through all these different areas, like the security area,” Hankins said. “They have to wait in these long lines for food and beverage.”
Without being able to see the game.
“I just want our fan experience to be completely seamless,” Hankins said, “and we require a renovation to get there.”
What goes unsaid is that Portland is in a competitive environment. Competing not just to keep the Trail Blazers, but to continue landing major concerts. The behind-the-scenes spaces of the arena were designed for ‘90s events.
Everything has grown since then.
NBA teams travel with two or three times as many staffers as they did even a decade ago. The hallway behind the visiting locker room is barely navigable due to massage tables, weights and travel bags that have spilled out of the dedicated team space.
The reality is that what the Trail Blazers are asking for would merely get the Blazers up to speed with current standards, rather than jump ahead a decade or two. The things Hankins is describing strike me more as the bare minimum than they do a genuine effort to stand apart in the world of big-time entertainment venues.
This already feels like a dressed-down compromise, rather than a swing-for-the-fences bid for a state-of-the art. And keep in mind, this is seen only as a 20-year solution. What happens when that time comes and whoever sits in Hankins’ seat then says Portland needs a new arena?
Can you look ahead to 2046 and imagine how that conversation will go?
As a mid-sized market, Portland must constantly be selling itself and driving forward to make itself matter in the areas that matter. That is as true in arts and entertainment as it is in public transportation and social services.
And when it comes to sports and events, what is the city’s differentiator? It certainly isn’t Moda Center.
The building is tired.
The nicest thing anybody seems to be able to say about it is that it’s… fine.
As always, our city’s aspiration is what is on trial here. Nobody believes that Intuit Dome, the LA Clippers’ techy home arena that has been on display this hosting this weekend’s NBA’s All-Star festivities, is what is needed here. But what does an arena that fits Portland look like?
I asked Gov. Tina Kotek last week if her recent conversations with NBA Commissioner Adam Silver had included any guarantees about Portland getting its first All-Star Game if taxpayers fund a renovation.
They had not.
But, she said, “I do know that if we don’t have a modernized Moda Center, we don’t get an All-Star (game).”
I’m with Hankins. It’s great that fans are content with Moda Center as it is. It’s aged so well because Paul Allen knew what he was doing when his people broke ground.
Somehow, that doesn’t feel all that long ago to folks who remember. And a building that many of us still see as new has somehow become the NBA’s oldest arena without a major renovation. And it shows.
Maybe you shake your fist or scream at a cloud and call that character. Portland loves a good dive, after all.
But you’ll have to excuse Bad Bunny, Kendrick Lamar and, yes, the Trail Blazers for wanting something more.