previously reported by the Mercury<\/a>, the city also wants to see labor peace agreements in place for the Moda Center\u2019s workforce. Peace agreements, or neutrality agreements, are contracts between employers and workers that ensure there won\u2019t be disruptions or interference if employees unionize. Most employees at the Moda Center aren\u2019t unionized.<\/p>\nAmong the terms the city is hoping to include in a 20-year lease agreement is a stipulation that the team management will be responsible for footing the cost of any overruns on renovations to the Moda Center that Dundon has insisted be paid for entirely by the public. <\/p>\n
The scale and scope of that renovation\u2014previously estimated to cost nearly $600 million initially, but likely much more after years of interest payments from financing\u2014has yet to be ironed out.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe current term sheet seems to imply that the City will be happy if the only financial commitment the Blazers make is to pay that $3 million a year\u2014of which the city would only get a fraction. That\u2019s not a fair deal.\u201d<\/p>\n
City Councilor Steve Novick, District 3<\/p>\n
It\u2019s unclear exactly how much the city will contribute toward the renovation, but the prevailing expectation is that the city should expect to chip in about $120 million, as listed in the draft terms. The Oregon State Legislature has already committed $365 million and Multnomah County has already pledged $88 million.<\/p>\n
Not all city councilors are happy about that figure, though. Some said Thursday they felt the mayor and state officials had jumped the gun by pre-committing the city without consulting the full Council.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe mayor had no authority to authorize any kind of amount. We still don\u2019t know where that amount even came from,\u201d District 1 Councilor Candace Avalos told the Mercury Thursday. \u201cThat\u2019s the issue, why councilors are feeling frustrated is because we\u2019re the budget authority and we\u2019re the ones that are supposed to make the ultimate decision, but we\u2019re brought in at the last minute and expected to go along with things that were predetermined that the mayor decided.\u201d<\/p>\n
Avalos said she\u2019s unclear how the mayor or other negotiators working for the city arrived at the $120 million figure.<\/p>\n
In District 3, Councilor Steve Novick isn\u2019t thrilled about the draft terms the city shared, either. Novick said he wants to see the city recoup any investments it makes into the Moda Center, which the city took ownership of in 2024.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe draft term sheet doesn\u2019t reflect my preferred deal, which would be one that mimics what the state is getting. The amount they\u2019re giving is equal to the amount they expect to get back through the income taxes on player salaries, which they wouldn\u2019t get if the Blazers left. They\u2019ll come out even,\u201d Novick told the Mercury. \u201cThe current term sheet seems to imply that the City will be happy if the only financial commitment the Blazers make is to pay that $3 million a year\u2014of which the city would only get a fraction. That\u2019s not a fair deal.\u201d<\/p>\n
Novick said he fears the Blazers will interpret the draft term sheet as the city\u2019s opening offer, even though it\u2019s a draft that wasn\u2019t approved by Council. He said he\u2019d like to see the city take a bigger percentage of revenue from things like parking fees and ticket sales at the Moda Center, or at the very least, see in concrete terms, what the team\u2019s community investments are.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the Blazers are likely to think that this is the most we will ever ask for, and they can negotiate us down from there,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
In District 4, Green is lobbying for more time to make funding decisions about the Moda Center renovations on behalf of taxpayers. Currently, the city is expected to have its terms finalized by August 12.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy biggest takeaway is everything seems to be about this timeline, that we\u2019re up against the clock\u2026 and I just want to challenge that, because we have four years left in a lease and pretty strong contract protections, and just because the mayor and other parties put us into a situation where we\u2019re on this short timeline on numbers that are plucked out of nowhere, that\u2019s not my problem,\u201d Green told the Mercury.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Like most of his colleagues, the councilor said he\u2019s determined to \u201cfight for a deal that Portlanders can feel good about.\u201d<\/p>\n
Right now, that fight might be against top officials at City Hall, who\u2019ve all but backed the city into a corner to cough up $120 million toward arena improvements.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI think I\u2019m open to some level of public investment, no question,\u201d Green clarified. \u201cI just want that number to be grounded in what we actually need to do to have that asset to be maintained where we do get back the kind of Novick-style \u2018pay ourselves back over time\u2019 concept that makes sense to me, but it could be at a much lower project cost.\u201d<\/p>\n
Green said if the project cost comes down, then it leaves room for the team\u2019s owner, Dundon, to consider investing in other things nearby.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The council is expected to hold another executive session to discuss Moda Center terms next week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Updated: 4:48 pm July 17 The city of Portland delivered the first draft of a term sheet to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":789996,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3784],"tags":[2214,7,601,95583,95584,85859,28814,6,2470,687,95426,471,3967,95585,10322,95586,39242,1617],"class_list":["post-789995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-portland-trail-blazers","tag-adam-silver","tag-basketball","tag-blazers","tag-candace-avalos","tag-executive-session","tag-mitch-green","tag-moda-center","tag-nba","tag-oregon","tag-portland","tag-portland-city-council","tag-portland-trail-blazers","tag-portlandtrailblazers","tag-remodel","tag-rip-city","tag-steve-novick","tag-tom-dundon","tag-trail-blazers"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116942729629893591","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=789995"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789995\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/789996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=789995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=789995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=789995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}