PORTLAND, Ore. — The Metro Council is looking into a recommendation to redevelop the Portland Expo Center into a sports and cultural complex.
The recommendation was presented during Tuesday's joint work session between Metro and the Metropolitan Exposition recreation Commission (MERC).
The plan calls for prioritizing professional, amateur and recreational sports events at the expo center, including indoor track meets and team sports tournaments. The expo century has largely focused on housing festivals and trade events.
"Oregon is a sport and outdoor powerhouse," said Marissa Madrigal, the Metro chief operating officer. "This isn't just something that we love, it's something that we excel at."
"Competitions and tournaments are also big business, folks travel far and wide to participate," Madrigal went on to say. "With that brings stays in local hotels, dining in local restaurants and other tourism."
The redevelopment project stems from in a 2013 study that looked at the space's future. Phase one of the project got underway in January 2020. For the next step, Metro will conduct studies, assess costs and develop an investment plan.
Madrigal said the expo center would also memorialize the historical significance of the site, where thousands of Americans of Japanese descent were imprisoned during World War II before being sent to internment camps. The expo center would also recognize the site's precolonial history of Indigenous communities in the area, as well as the history of the nearby Vanport floods in 1948, which killed and displaced residents including those in the town's Black community.
"This one location is tied to many different histories — some going back thousands of years and others more recently — but it is time for the broader region, state and country to recognize the significance of this site, both its structures and its land," Madrigal said during the work session.
Madrigal added that she hopes that Metro will work with those communities connected to the Expo site to help determine how to memorialize the history.
“By keeping Expo as a destination for our region’s residents and beyond, we make a space to remember our past and how we got there while also redesigning the site to focus on what makes not just Portland great but Oregon great," Madrigal said.
