Providence Park

Providence Park (formerly Jeld-Wen Field; PGE Park; Civic Stadium; originally Multnomah Stadium; and from 1893 until the stadium was built, Multnomah Field) is an outdoor sports venue located in the Goose Hollow neighborhood of Portland, Oregon, United States. The MLS Portland Timbers soccer team use the facility as their home pitch, as well as the NWSL Portland Thorns FC and the USL PDL Timbers U23s. The NCAA Division I Portland State Vikings football team uses the park during the Big Sky season. The stadium has been host to several major sporting events including Soccer Bowl '77, the 1999 and 2003 FIFA Women's World Cups, the 2009 Triple-A All-Star Game and the 2013 CONCACAF Gold Cup. It is scheduled to host the 2014 MLS All-Star Game.

Originally, the park was owned by the Multnomah Athletic Club and used by their amateur sports teams. In the 1950s, the PCL Portland Beavers baseball team moved out of Vaughn Street Park into what was then known as "Multnomah Stadium". In 1966, the city purchased the stadium and renamed it "Civic Stadium". It was renovated in 2001 to accommodate the Beavers, who had not played at the park since the early 1990s. The naming rights of the stadium were purchased by Portland General Electric and it was renamed "PGE Park". In 2010, the park underwent renovations again, this time so it could accommodate the Portland Timbers MLS franchise and a year later the rights to the stadiums name were sold, this time to Jeld-Wen. In 2014, the name was changed again to "Providence Park" after Providence Health & Services bought the naming rights. The stadium sits on a rectangular block bounded by Southwest Morrison Street, Southwest 18th Avenue, the Multnomah Athletic Club building and Southwest Salmon Street, and Southwest 20th Avenue.

Description
Providence Park is an outdoor stadium which houses the MLS Portland Timbers, NWSL Portland Thorns, and Portland State University Vikings football. The stadium underwent a $31 million renovation in late 2010 and early 2011. The stadium is owned by the City of Portland, and is managed by Peregrine Sports, LLC, the entity that owns the Timbers and Thorns.

Prior to the 2011 MLS season, the stadium was renamed Jeld-Wen Field from PGE Park, in a partnership with Klamath Falls, Oregon based company Jeld-Wen. Jeld-Wen is a manufacturer of windows and doors, leading to the stadium's nickname, "The House of Pane." In 2014, the stadium was renamed Providence Park after a partnership with Providence Health & Services was announced.

The Multnomah Athletic Club, an athletic club in downtown Portland, stands next door; the windows of the north side of the club's building overlook the field.

The Interstate 405 freeway in Portland is also known locally as the Stadium Freeway and travels near the stadium. In addition, the Providence Park MAX Light Rail station is across the street. The property slopes significantly downhill from the south end to the north end, with the result that the playing surface sits well below street level.

Tenants
The stadium is currently home to the Portland Timbers of MLS, Portland Thorns FC of NWSL, and the Portland State University Vikings football team.

Former tenants
The Portland Beavers minor league baseball of the Pacific Coast League (PCL) moved into the stadium in 1956 after playing several seasons at Vaughn Street Park, which has since been demolished.



From 1973 to 1977 the independent Portland Mavericks of the Northwest League played their home games at the stadium. Actor Kurt Russell was an infielder for the Mavericks. The Beavers returned to Portland in 1978 until 1993 when they were moved out of the city again. The Class A Portland Rockies were established in 1995 and played at the park until 2000 when they were moved and renamed the Tri-City Dust Devils. In 2001, the Albuquerque Dukes were moved to Portland and renamed the "Beavers" marking the third time the franchise would occupy the park for their home games.

After it was announced that Major League Soccer was moving a franchise to Providence Park (then known as PGE Park) the Beavers baseball team had to start looking for a new stadium. However, the plan never came to fruition and team owner Merritt Paulson put the Beavers up for sale. The club's major-league parent, the San Diego Padres, purchased the team, which moved to Tucson, Arizona as the Tucson Padres. The team played its final game at the stadium on September 6, 2010.

From 1973 to 1977, the stadium hosted the minor league baseball Portland Mavericks, and 1995 to 2000, the Portland Rockies. The stadium hosted the USFL's Portland Breakers, as well as the Portland Storm and Portland Thunder of the WFL.

Soccer has been hosted at Providence Park since the original Portland Timbers were founded in the original North American Soccer League in 1975. Various iterations of the team have called the stadium home, including the 1980s version in the Western Soccer Alliance and the 2000s version in the USL First Division before the MLS club was formed.

History


The stadium was built by the Multnomah Athletic Club in 1926, though Multnomah Field (sports fields with various grandstands) had stood on the site since 1893. Originally known as Multnomah Field, then, in 1926, Multnomah Stadium, the site was used for college football (including seven Civil War games between the University of Oregon and Oregon State University), cricket matches and greyhound racing. Until larger campus stadiums were built in the 1960s, most significant football games hosted by Oregon and Oregon State were held at this site because of its larger capacity. Oregon played in 107 games at Multnomah between 1894 and 1970. The University of Washington played all its road games against Oregon and Oregon State at Multnomah Field/Multnomah Stadium until 1966 (OSU) and 1967 (Oregon). The site also hosted the Portland Rose Festival coronation and a Fourth of July appearance by President Warren G. Harding.

Early renaming and renovations
In the 1950s, the Portland Beavers moved to the stadium after their original field, Vaughn Street Park, was condemned. In 1966, the Multnomah Athletic Club sold the stadium for $2.1 million to the city of Portland, which renamed it Civic Stadium.

A $38.5 million renovation took place in 2001, adding new luxury suites and club seats that replaced the seats behind home plate and upgrading the seating and concourse area. The renovation also improved the structural soundness of the facility, and included a state-of-the-art sound system. The renovation also includes some retro-features, such as a manually operated baseball scoreboard. At that point, PGE bought the naming rights and renamed the stadium PGE Park.

Renovation (2009–2011)


In July 2009, the Portland city council approved a $31 million renovation to make it ready for the 2011 Major League Soccer season, by reconfiguring the stadium primarily for soccer and football. The renovation was performed by Turner Construction who served as the General Contractor and also performed the 2001 renovation, and Ellerbe Becket as the primary architect. The renovation meant that the Portland Beavers needed to move to a new stadium, which was never built, forcing the team to leave Portland.

A presentation to the Portland Design Commission indicated that 5,000 seats would be added, bringing capacity to about 22,000, but with only about 18,000 available for use on a regular basis.

The renovation met Major League Soccer standards, introduced new amenities and a new playing surface, and shifted the playing surface west and north, and added space on the east and south sides, with new seating areas. The Lighthouse Impact 16 main video screen was designed by Anthony James Partners and features over 74 square meters of LED video. A Lighthouse B10 pitchside display runs the length of the east side plus portions of the north and south ends and is over 152 meters long. As the project was nearing completion, it was revealed to be $5 million over budget making the total cost of the renovation $36 million. The agreement between the city and Timbers owner Merritt Paulson meant that Paulson was responsible for any cost overruns larger than $1 million.

The newly renovated stadium made its debut on April 14, 2011 when Major League Soccer's Portland Timbers defeated the Chicago Fire, 4–2. The announced attendance at Timbers games in 2011 was 18,627, a sell-out.

Expansion
A few thousand seats were added for two games late in the 2011 season. About two thousand seats were opened up for the 2012 season, bringing capacity up to 20,438. Following the 2012 season in which the Timbers average attendance was 20,438, during the 2012–13 offseason the Timbers widened the pitch for the 2013 season, adding two yards on each side to achieve a width of 74 yd. The team further widened the pitch by another yard in 2014, for a total pitch size of 110 x.

Soccer


On August 28, 1977, the stadium was site of the North American Soccer League Soccer Bowl between the New York Cosmos and the Seattle Sounders, the last official game of the legendary Pelé. The Cosmos won the championship.

On September 7, 1997 the stadium hosted a World Cup soccer qualifying match between the United States men's national team and Costa Rica. A raucous capacity crowd of 27,396 saw the U.S. squad win, 1–0, on a goal by Tab Ramos in the 79th minute.

The stadium was the site of four group matches in the 1999 Women's World Cup. The stadium also hosted two group matches, two quarterfinals, and both semifinals in the 2003 Women's World Cup.

On July 1, 2009, the venue hosted the third-round match of the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup between the Portland Timbers and their rivals the Seattle Sounders FC.

Providence Park will host the 2014 MLS All-Star Game.

Baseball


During the 1970s, the Jantzen swim wear company had a 3D model of the Jantzen girl hovering overby cable over the left field wall in its baseball configuration. The Jantzen girl was in play because it was below the top of the wall and it was hit a couple of times over the years.

On May 27, 1991, the stadium received national attention when Vancouver Canadians outfielder Rodney McCray, while attempting to catch a fly ball, crashed through a wooden advertisement behind the warning track in right-center field; a real-life version of an incident in the fictional book and film, The Natural. While McCray failed to make the out, he only suffered scrapes and bruises and remained in the game. Highlight reels of that play ran for weeks on cable channels such as CNN and ESPN. On August 12, 2006, the Beavers commemorated the event with a Rodney McCray Bobblehead Night, passing out bobbleheads of McCray to fans and renaming right-center field "McCray Alley".

On July 15, 2009, the stadium hosted the Triple-A All-Star Game, with the International League stars defeating the Pacific Coast league, 6–5. 16,657 fans attended the game, the largest crowd for a Triple-A All-Star game since 1991, and the third largest ever.

Other sports and entertainment


On September 2, 1957, Elvis Presley performed one of the first outdoor stadium rock concerts in music history (Elvis held the first ever in Vancouver, BC, Canada just a few days earlier at Empire Stadium) here on his four-day tour of the Pacific Northwest. The concert created mass hysteria, and an estimated 14,000 people attended the concert.

On October 27, 2007, the stadium hosted the highest-scoring game in modern NCAA football history, when the Weber State University Wildcats defeated the PSU Vikings, 73–68, a combined point total of 141 points. This point total eclipsed the previous NCAA record of 136 points, set in a 1968 Division III game, and the previous Division I record of 133 points, set in 2004. While this record lasted only two weeks, and has been surpassed three times in all, it remains the highest-scoring game involving NCAA Division I teams.

In a November 8, 2013 interview with the Portland Business Journal, Portland Timbers owner Merritt Paulson expressed his desire to host summer concerts at the stadium.

Feral cat colony
The field has been home to a feral cat colony since approximately 1985, which may have been at the park before the current stadium opened in 1926. There are an estimated 12–19 cats in the colony, referred to as "living rat traps". After a construction worker killed a feral cat in 2000, the park enlisted the Feral Cat Coalition of Oregon to assist the animals during construction efforts and to run a trap-neuter-return program. The cats are discussed in Chuck Palahniuk's travelogue of Portland, Fugitives and Refugees.