$50M Expansion Planned For Providence Park
The Portland Timbers, the Major League Soccer team that has played its games at Providence Park in Portland since 2011, is planning a major expansion of its venue.
The club has proposed a privately financed project that would add about 4,000 new seats, a new street-level colonnade and other modernizations of the 1926-vintage stadium.
The proposed design by Portland-based architecture firm Allied Works would add a 93-foot-high covered structure on the east side of the stadium, taking a vertical approach to a relatively small footprint while integrating with the existing stadium.
The project would include four new levels on the expanded east side, with three of the four levels created for reserved and group seating sections to help meet demand, while including a pedestrian-oriented public arcade along SW 18th Avenue, according to the Timbers.
The team said the new design was inspired in part by the Globe Theatre in London and the La Bombonera stadium in Buenos Aires, both of which feature upright vertical seating areas. The Timbers also said the Providence Park expansion would complete the full U-shape stadium design as was envisioned by the original then-Multnomah Stadium architects of A.E. Doyle and Morris Whitehouse in 1925.
An exact timeline for the expansion has not been finalized as the initial design-review process commences. It is possible the construction timeline would stretch over two offseasons, beginning either at the conclusion of the 2017 or 2018 season and concluding in time for either the beginning of the 2019 or 2020 MLS season.
Besides the Timbers, Portland Thorns FC and the National Women’s Soccer League also play at the stadium. The Timbers have an agreement to play at the stadium until 2035.
