A big deadline is on tap for the effort to bring pro baseball back to Portland: On May 15 the Milwaukie City Council will decide whether to move forward with a $300,000 ballpark feasibility study.
Milwaukie and Hillsboro, two Portland (Ore.) suburbs, are both seeking to build a new ballpark for a short-season-A Northwest League team. Hillsboro officials say they’re set to decide on the fate of a $14-million, publicly financed ballpark at the Gordon Faber Recreation Complex. Milwaukie is behind Hillsboro and is planning a feasibility study to see if a 4,000-seat ballpark to be built on the Portland-Milwaukie light-rail corridor at a a state-owned maintenance yard, is viable. The site also includes a 1938 historic structure that could be converted to a brewpub.
As we noted in Monday’s coverage of Hillsboro, a big question will be whether both cities could host a Northwest League team. MiLB territorial rule would prohibit this, but this isn’t a normal situation: greater Portland is a top-25 MSA that surely could support two minor-league teams.
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