Cheek on new stadium site: ‘We think we have found the perfect location’

Portland Diamond Project founder/president Craig Cheek, with investors Ciara and Russell Wilson (courtesy PDP)

Updated 10/13/2024 6:40 PM

The Portland Diamond Project didn’t die, or go away. It did disappear from the public eye for awhile. But now it is back, with a splash.

PDP isn’t crossing home plate in its bid to land a Major League Baseball franchise for the City of Roses. You might say the organization is rounding first and looking for extra bases.

The organization recently announced it has reached agreement to purchase the Zidell Yards property, a 33-acre plot of land in the south waterfront. PDP has signed a letter of intent and terms of agreement with the Zidell Family Trust. The next order of business is a purchase sales agreement (PSA).

“That is crafted, and we expect it to be consummated in less than three weeks,” Craig Cheek, PDP’s founder and president, told me on Monday.

Building a stadium and procuring an MLB franchise is going to take truck loads of money — billions of dollars. With a sizable expansion fee added to stadium and land costs, the total bill is destined to be more than $3 billion.

Cheek believes PDP will have the capital to get it done. He says two major investors — general partners, or GPs — have been committed since the inception of the organization in 2017. A number of limited partners (LPs) are also on board. Cheek, managing director Mike Barrett and their staff are in the process of looking for a few more.

Cheek and managing director Mike Barrett are in the process of adding limited partners to their group of investors (courtesy PDP)

MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred has made it clear the league would like to expand from 30 to 32 teams, but has offered no timeline. Several cities have indicated an interest in acquiring a franchise, including Salt Lake City, which has lined up public funding, a stadium site and a group committed to contributing $3 billion. Portland mayor Ted Wheeler and the city commissioners have pledged their support for PDP’s efforts, though without committing any specific financing.

During an interview that stretches longer than an hour, Cheek is forthcoming on many subjects and guarded on a few others. He says he isn’t ready to identify the two GPs.

“We have kept (their identities) pretty insulated until it’s the right time to bring them out,” he says. Why? “Strategic reasons,” he says, declining to be more specific.

He is a bit coy when I ask him the billion-dollar question: Will you build a stadium even without a commitment from MLB about giving Portland a team?

“We have asked ourselves that very question,” Cheek says. “I don’t know that we have wrestled to the ground an answer. … being so bold and so confident, why wouldn’t we begin to put shovels to the ground and will this to happen?

“Our hope is we (PDP and MLB) can land the planes in the tarmac roughly at the same time. Let’s get the ballpark ready to go, have the tacit designs and all the public/private financing worked out. And (the hope is) right when we’re doing a ground-breaking is around the same time the league says, ‘We’re ready to go with expansion.’ ”

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Cheek is 62 but still carries a boyish look, sort of George Clooney-esque. He is married and lives in Lake Oswego with wife Susan. They have three sons and three grandchildren. Craig retired in 2016 after working at Nike for 26 years, his most recent position as vice president/general manager of Team and Licensed Sports. In that job, he worked with representatives of MLB as well as the NFL and NCAA college programs.

Craig Cheek believes Portland is the best bet in the western U.S. to land an MLB expansion franchise

A former quarterback and pitcher/outfielder at Fort Vancouver High, Cheek  majored in broadcasting at Washington State. Upon graduation, he says he turned down an internship at KGW-TV to take a job in the sales training program with Hilton Hotels in Los Angeles. After 16 months, he moved to a job as a shoe buyer and merchandiser for Nordstrom, where he learned the shoe business and wound up at South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa, Calif., the biggest store in Nordstrom’s chain.

“We were selling all kinds of dress shoes and casual shoes but had no athletic shoes,” Cheek says. “I put a proposal together and they let me build an additional pad to sell athletic shoes.”

Nike was Cheek’s biggest vendor. The company’s sales representative for Orange County was Charlie Denson, who would ascend to the position of Nike Brand president years later. They developed a relationship and in 1990, Denson hired Cheek as the company’s sales rep for the same area he had worked.

Cheek was elevated to a corporate position, moved to Portland in 1995 and, over the next two decades, worked his way up to several positions, including the final post that had him spending significant time with MLB officials.

When Cheeks assumed his VP/GM post in 2014, Bud Selig was handing the baton as commissioner over to Manfred. In developing a relationship with Manfred and his staffers, “I kept hearing this notion that Portland was kind of on the list as one of the cities that could be headed for MLB in the future,” Cheek said. He became familiar with Portland’s run at landing the Montreal Expos franchise in 2003, which proved futile when the team moved to Washington D.C.

“Truth be told, (Portland was) more of a stalking horse,” said Cheek, meaning that the Expos’ owners used the city for leverage while brokering a better deal elsewhere. “We had a charismatic mayor (Vera Katz), but we didn’t have the billionaire whale (potential owner) and no connectivity to MLB.”

After he retired from Nike, Cheek said he spent six months researching what it would take to get an MLB franchise in Portland. In 2003, Lynn Lashbrook of the Portland Baseball Group had spearheaded a bid that resulted in Oregon Senate Bill 5, which set aside $150 million for construction of a stadium for an MLB team.

Said Cheek: “Lynn told me, ‘Craig, it couldn’t be a better fit with you taking this over. I have been a cheerleader from my vantage point, but we don’t have the necessary horsepower.’ ”

Cheek and Barrett — the former TV play-by-play announcer for the Trail Blazers — joined forces and got PDP off the ground. They got some momentum early, showcasing Russell Wilson and wife Ciara among a group of initial minority investors. They opened a retail shop across from Providence Park, put on statewide tours to promote the drive and gathered 75,000 signatures from fans in support (though with no financial commitments) of MLB to PDX. They caught the attention of Manfred, who listed Portland as one of six potential franchise sites.

In the summer of 2020, Cheek scheduled Manfred and his executive team for a trip to check out Portland, but wound up canceling the visit due primarily to disruption in the city’s downtown core by protesters following the murder by Minneapolis police of George Floyd. Cheek says the Oakland A’s were also considering Portland as a landing spot.

“What not a lot of people know is, the A’s were going to visit here as well,” Cheek says. “The league felt like they were exacerbating the contentious fight between them and the city of Oakland, with Las Vegas also involved. The A’s were putting cities in stalking positions and it was making their case worse. The league stepped in and said, ‘Having three cities in play is too much.’

“Given that and the 100 days of rioting (in downtown Portland) … the chaotic mess we were in wasn’t the best backdrop to be welcoming and putting our best foot forward. So all that got put on hold.”

With the pandemic in full swing in 2020 and ’21, “we dialed back and waited for the moment to strike again,” Cheek says.

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All the while, PDP’s team was seeking potential stadium sites. In November 2018, the company signed an agreement in principle with the Port of Portland to purchase a 45-acre spot at Terminal 2 in the Northwest industrial area. That eventually fell through due to difficulties dealing with the city on several issues.

Fast forward to 2023, when PDP revealed it was considering purchase of two sites — the Lloyd Center and Redtail Golf Course, a city of Portland-owned course located in Beaverton. In January, PDP announced it was in negotiations to obtain Redtail and its 164 acres of real estate.

“We had all but given up on downtown Portland, due to timing or cost or complicating factors,” Cheek says. “We kept butting heads with the city.”

But city officials supported the idea of a ballpark, and wanted to have it located in the city limits.

“We took one more turn of the dial, and it just so happened that the planets aligned,” Cheek says.

In 2019, PDP had checked out the Zidell Yards site, located beneath the Tilikum Crossing Bridge and the Ross Island Bridge.

“We loved it, but couldn’t figure out how to make it work,” Cheek says. “This time, we told the city there is not enough development area at Zidell Yards to sustain the economics that are needed in today’s world that’s not a drain on the league.”

Redtail provided more of an opportunity for the kind of revenue to make an MLB club viable. Cheek and associates suggested the city sell them Redtail, and with it PDP would purchase the Zidell property.

“MLB clubs today are making revenue with land development,” Cheek says. “If we could put the ballpark on the 33 acres (at Zidell) and develop RedTail with a master plan — an indoor training facility, youth fields, hotels, maybe an amphitheater, housing — we could create a district adjacent to the Washington Square mall that makes sense as an economic development driver.”

One report valued the Redtail property at $50 million. Cheek would not confirm, nor would he reveal the value of the Zidell location. He says he is convinced the package of the two would be a win-win for PDP and for the city.

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PDP execs have not eliminated the potential for relocation. They don’t believe it is a done deal that the A’s wind up in Las Vegas after what is expected to be three seasons — from 2025-27 — in a temporary home in Sacramento.

“We know there is no going back to Oakland,” Cheek says. As for Vegas, “What I have read and heard leads me to believe (the deal) is a little wobbly, a little iffy, but we are assuming it is still in place.”

If not, PDP would love to swoop in and be the new home for the A’s in 2028.

“The conversation has always been, we are open to both relocation and expansion,” Cheek says. “We are bracing for expansion. That’s what we’re getting ready for. If something happens (regarding relocation opportunities), we will be open to it.

“We are also watching the (Arizona) Diamondbacks situation carefully. Their lease comes up in ’28. It’s a huge market to abandon, but stranger things have happened if you can’t get support at the public and private level.”

In Portland, Cheek envisions a public-private partnership, “but we understand the big line share needs to be private,” he says.

In terms of the stadium, MLB wants local government to play a significant role.

“These ballparks start with a cost one ‘B’ ($1 billion),” Cheek says, “and MLB wants to know whatever city they are going to has skin in the game.”

Cheek says it would seem a third of the price tag (“$330 million-ish”) would be required from local sources.

“That would be the minimum threshold that, if your city, county and state aren’t supporting you at that level, then maybe you’re not a good fit,” he says.

The $150 million from SB 5 in 2003, which is tied to taxes applied to salaries of both home and visiting players, is still available but as yet unactivated. And the figure is outdated.

“(Legislators) arrived at that because, at the time, it was about half of what it took to build a stadium,” Cheek says. “The $150 million number would have allowed them to pay off the bond inside 30 years. But in the two decades since then, (MLB) salaries have quadrupled and construction costs have quadrupled.”

Ryan Deckert was a state senator who supported Senate Bill 5 when it was passed in 2003. I reached out for his thoughts on chances that PDP would have success in convincing legislators to up the ante.

“The political landscape has changed, but the argument hasn’t,” says Deckert, now working as vice president of Morrison Child and Family Services in Southwest Portland. “It should carry over. The basic idea was (the stadium project) gets nothing unless the team starts playing games.

“Since 2003, income taxes have gone up. The salaries have gone up. The figure should be adjusted. It’s a different landscape today, but the same argument applies that existed a couple of decades ago.”

PDP has hired the Portland lobbying group Oxley and Associates to work with the state legislature to “push the number up to today’s standard — a number like $500 million,” Cheek says. PDP reps have met twice with Gov. Tina Kotek and her staff and believe they have several allies in state government.

“We will lean into this at the (legislature’s) long session next summer,” Cheek says. “We have identified supporters who will work with us to carry the legislation.”

PDP will seek no additional tax help from the city or state. And, Cheek adds, “We are not going to pull anything from any general fund and take away from general programs.”

The city of Portland’s financial contributions would likely be tied to infrastructure in the area around the stadium, funding for roads, the grid, electrical and lighting needs and so on.

“That would be something where the whole south waterfront area benefits,” Cheek says.

Portland will have a new form of city government in place by January. In November’s election, voters will use a method called “ranked choice” to elect 12 new city councilors, a new mayor and city auditor. Wheeler will be gone and the current body of five commissioners changed.

“It’s something we’ve been planning for,” Cheek says. “It’s why we have been working with the city council as aggressively as we have the last year, and have heightened our efforts the last six months. We want to try to get whatever we need voted on or memorialized before they move to a new form of government. Whatever foundation we can lay now helps us to send the message to the new city council that this stuff was already flowing.”

Cheek says his group has had conversations with mayoral candidates Rene Gonzalez, Mingus Mapps and Carmen Rubio — all current city commissioners.

“All three are very enthusiastic in their support,” Cheek says.

MLB also requires some local ownership of a franchise.

“We originally asked the commissioner’s office, is there a magic number that needs to be assigned to the money that comes from local?” Cheek says. “They said no, we wouldn’t put a percentage on it, but it’s important that you do have local representation. What they don’t want is an owner who owns a team in another city and doesn’t connect that much with the community.”

While PDP’s projected majority owners reside in Northern California, Cheeks says they have lined up significant minority ownership from business people in Portland, including a couple of prominent former players, among them ex-Oregon State great and Chicago Cubs Gold Glover Darwin Barney. That is not including Jed Lowrie, a Salem native whose 14-year MLB career ended in 2022. He is now living with his family in Dunthorpe and currently serves as a special advisor.

“We have four or five other local people who are coming to the table,” Cheek says. “We will lay that out in the next several weeks.”

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Now some more specific information about costs of ownership, a stadium and an expansion team:

The cost of a franchise has risen considerably since PDP was formed in 2017. That year, the Miami Marlins sold for a reported $1.2 billion. The Kansas City Royals went for $1 billion in 2019, but earlier this year, the Baltimore Orioles were purchased for $1.725 billion. The Minnesota Twins are now for sale; though Forbes valued the franchise at $1.4 billion before the season, expectations are that the sale price could approach $2 billion.

“Everybody scratched their head when Steve Ballmer paid $2 billion for the (NBA L.A.) Clippers (in 2014),” Cheek says. “It is about supply and demand. (Franchise fees) are all going up.”

Baseball’s last two expansion teams were the Diamondbacks (1995) and the Tampa Bay Rays (1998).

“We don’t know if it is going to be another 2 1/2 decades before (MLB expands) again, but it could be,” Cheek says. “We are hearing the number (for the expansion from 30 to 32 teams) will be $2.2 billion. They are definitely going to want to command a ‘2’ in front of that number.”

PDP’s national attorney is Irwin Raij from Miami, the co-chair of the Sidley Austin Entertainment, Sports and Media Group and one of the nation’s foremost experts in sports law. He once served as a general counsel for MLB. “Irwin thinks you maybe have a little negotiation, but you are going to probably have to pay whatever fee the MLB asks,” Cheek says. “Where you get some help is you will be able to pay (amortize) that over five to seven years. You will be able to spread it out because they know you also have to build a ballpark.”

Pricetag for a new stadium now? Between $1.2 and $1.5 billion.

“You can take a lot of debt on a ballpark,” Cheek says. “You can’t take as much debt on the team.”

In 2017, PDP earmarked about $1.6 million for total cost of the land, team and ballpark.

“We are thinking now that number has more than doubled, to $3 billion-plus,” Cheek says. “The real estate is what we are laying out resources for now.”

Cheek says the two primary owners from Northern California “have never lost their enthusiasm or commitment. Should we lean on this hard, they will be there to come through with (financial) support.”

MLB requires one GP, who must contribute at least 15 percent of the expansion fee. (Cheek says one of the two primary investors would drop off to status as an LP). If that figure is $2.2 billion, the GP would have to be committed to about $330 million. MLB allows for as many as 24 LPs.

“A smaller number is easier to manage,” Cheek says. “I would like to keep it a tighter group. If you get 24, it is a lot of voices.”

Cheek says he has five commitments to be LPs from people with Portland and Oregon roots.

When will PDP make public those involved with its ownership group?

“I think that will begin to crystallize by the end of the calendar year,” he says. “Maybe we go to the (MLB) winter meetings in December in Dallas. Maybe we wait until we kick into early ’25. We are a few months away. Once we get the real estate fully under contract, the next piece is to start to identify the investors more completely.”

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PDP is currently in the midst of 120 days of “due diligence.” Part of that is finding out if the Zidell property is environmentally sound. The land was a shipyard on the Willamette River owned by the Zidell company for more than a century. The business closed in 2017 and had sat mostly dormant for years after the city and Zidell failed to pencil out a high-rise development project in 2018.

The Zidell Group has spent $20 million on remediation to clean up the land, which allowed it to hold Cirque de Soleil and other events on the property.

Developers “are going to want the ballpark to be at street level,” Cheek says. “We are going down further in the soil than what Jay’s team went down to. There will probably be some more work to do, but we won’t know what we will find until we get in there.

“We will partner with the environmental groups and the DEQ. Everybody is believing that the land is in good shape now and that we can be shovel ready pretty quickly.”

The Zidell property cuts almost perfectly in half under the Ross Island Bridge.

“We call the sections the ‘north’ and ‘south,’ ” Cheek says. “Our desire is to build the ballpark in the north, between the Tilikum Crossing and Ross Island bridges. There are about 13 usable acres, with another 15 to 16 acres on the south side to develop.”

The 33 acres isn’t as much land as PDP would prefer.

“But it is big enough to have a fantastic waterfront development stadium,” Cheek says. “We are beginning to try to figure out what the other (15 or 16) acres could mean to that whole south waterfront, how it could be complementary with hotels, restaurants, retail shops, etc. It is going to be a compelling capstone to the area.”

Back in 2018, PDP was working with Populous architectural group, headquartered in Kansas City, Mo. Populous has designed or renovated two dozen MLB parks. It now has an office in Portland, after purchasing an architectural group led by Jeff Yrazabal, who oversaw renovations of Hayward Field in Eugene, Reser Stadium in Corvallis and the OHSU Knight Cancer Institute on the south waterfront, among other facilities. PDP is also working with TDA Architecture, which designed Nike’s original campus in Beaverton and Matt Knight Arena in Eugene.

Representatives of Populous and TDA architectural firms are already at work designing and planning for a new ballpark on the Portland waterfront (courtesy PDP)

“TDA’s Bob Thompson will serve as senior advisor for us,” Cheek says. “He is world-renowned, as is Jeff.”

PDP is also working with Hoffman Construction of Portland, which handled the renovations of Hayward and Reser along with building of many other sports facilities in the Northwest.

A six-week design process for the stadium has begun, after which Cheek says renderings will be available “to the public eye.”

“Judging from some of the initial concepts, it is going to be unbelievable,” he says. “We should be able to hit home runs into the Willamette, which would be awesome. We would have our own little McCovey Cove, and would open up access to the waterfront area.”

Cheek envisions a capacity of 32,000, with standing-room only pushing it to more than 34,000 for big games and the postseason. There will be a retractable roof, though Portland’s weather is also ideal for the MLB season from April to October.

“We wouldn’t have had one rainout this season,” Cheek says. “We have plotted 40 years of weather patterns in Portland; we would average eight or nine (rainouts per season). This year would have been incredible.”

On the day we meet for the interview, the high temperature is 84 degrees — in early October.

“Can you imagine a postseason game in Portland tonight?” Cheek asks? “It would be insane.”

But Cheek emphasizes the stadium will be a “civic asset,” with year-round access for concerts and other events. He says a retractable roof is a necessity.

“We are working on a design on how to fold it back so we can enjoy the amazing views of (Mount Hood) and the river and the bridges,” he says.

There will be little on-site parking available. Cheek envisions heavy use of the Tilikum, the first major bridge in the U.S. designed for access by transit vehicles, cyclists and pedestrians but not by auto traffic. PDP is looking at acquiring land on the east side of the Willamette near OMSI to build a couple of parking garages.

“You could park there and migrate to the ballpark over the Tilikum, as they do walking over the bridge (at PNC Park in Pittsburgh) for Pirates games,” Cheek says. “On the west side, we are looking at parking partnerships with OHSU and other places.”

He envisions arriving at the stadium in many different ways, including walking and biking over the bridge, buses, streetcars, ferry rides and water taxis. Portlanders would certainly have to get used to such things.

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How fast could a stadium be completed?

“The fastest MLB park was built in 28 months,” Cheek says. “Most of them take 33 to 36 months. It is three years to build, and you have a year of prep work. Our goal would be that by the end of 2025 or early 2026, we are ready to start construction.”

When MLB expands from 30 to 32 teams, it will rebalance the leagues, perhaps with eight four-team divisions. Cheek believes MLB will choose to take one expansion team each from the West and East.

“That is what they have always said is a preference,” he says.

If that is the case, Nashville and Montreal seem the top contenders in the East. It would seem now to be between Portland and Salt Lake City in the West.

While in Seattle a few years ago, Manfred said he would like to see a team playing the Pacific time zone.

“We think we fit a perfect gap between Seattle and San Francisco,” Cheek says. “We are a bigger market, would be a better overall TV market for the league (than Salt Lake City).

“There are three iconic rivalries in baseball — Yankees vs. Red Sox, Cubs and Cardinals and Giants vs. Dodgers. To have another one with Portland and Seattle — as fierce and nasty as ours can become in other sports — would be great for the game.”

Does Cheek think Portland is in the pole position?

“With what we are envisioning and putting into place right now, I would take our chances all day long on earning that West Coast expansion franchise,” he says. “Our market has rabid fan bases. Look at the Blazers. Look at what has been built with the Timbers and Thorns. We call ourselves ‘Sportland,’ not Portland. We have an incredible amount of DNA with Nike, Adidas and Columbia, all these sports footwear, apparel and equipment brands.

“And we have a population of 2 1/2 million strong in Portland metro, the largest metropolitan marketplace with only one of the big four pro sports. We are underserved in our professional teams.”

Cheek is an organizer, for sure, and now he has become a salesman, turning back to his time working for Nordstrom’s footwear.

“Whether you are a true-blue baseball fan or not, having another entertainment value for the summer months in Portland would be fantastic,” he says. “Baseball is still the least expensive ticket of the big four. It’s much more affordable for a family of four.”

He pauses for a minute.

“Portland is not where big ideas go to die,” Cheek says. “This is an opportunity for us to think about what the city could be two, three decades from now. These baseball stadiums become landmarks for 50 years or more. “We have a great opportunity to nestle that ballpark up against the west hills on the water, looking into Mount Hood with all of our gorgeous bridges, the way they light up at night. … we think we have found the perfect location.”

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