Portland group seeking MLB team proposes ballpark site

PORTLAND, Ore. – A group seeking to lure a Major League Baseball team to Portland announced that it has signed an agreement in principle to develop a 45-acre waterfront site.

The agreement with the Port of Portland was announced Thursday by the Portland Diamond Project. The group also released artist renderings of a new ballpark at the port’s Terminal 2.

“Building an iconic, state-of-the-art ballpark along the Willamette River will catalyze economic development and capture great views of both the urban scale of the city and regional character of the Pacific Northwest,” the group’s founder and president, Craig Cheek, said in a statement.

The group analyzed several available properties in the city with the intention of finding a suitable site for a 30,000-seat ballpark.

Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred has repeatedly said expansion will not be considered until after the Oakland Athletics and Tampa Bay Rays get new ballparks, and he believes both those clubs will get new stadiums in their current areas.