The City paid for an independent study of what the arena actually needs. It says about $253M in today's dollars. The public is being asked for $600M — more than double. And most of even the real number isn't repair; it's revenue-generating upgrades the Blazers keep.
Keeping the building sound and safe — the public's job as the owner.
Premium suites, clubs, bars, retail, and fan-tech. The Blazers operate the arena and keep this revenue; the public, which owns the building, doesn't share in it.
Two-thirds of two decades of spending on this building is not about keeping it standing. It is about making it more profitable — for the team that runs it.
The public should fund what the public gets. The Blazers should fund the revenue streams they get. That is not anti-Blazers — it is how a serious public-private deal works.
In 2024, the City hired Venue Solutions Group, a national arena firm, to assess Moda Center and build a 20-year capital plan. The evidence is two documents: the facility report and the capital spreadsheet. Here is what they found.
These are not three separate studies. They are three versions of the same conversation: the line-item list, the 20-year plan, and the larger public-facing ask. The bars are drawn to scale — watch the spend grow.
The actual line items before inflation and before some items get replaced more than once. Even here, the scope is already more revenue-upgrade than repair.
~$253M = Costs tab Column P ($237.84M) + F&B Costs tab Column J ($15.05M), both in current dollars.
The same capital plan after inflation and recurring replacement cycles — the most aggressive honest number, and the real ceiling. It already bakes in 3.5%/3% annual escalation. The revenue-upgrade share grows because premium spaces, clubs, bars, retail, and fan-experience technology recur faster than core repairs.
The public-facing figure is about $95M above the independent 20-year plan — and it can't be inflation, because the $505M already projects 20 years of escalation. You cannot add inflation on top of a number that already includes it. That extra gold segment should not be treated as public obligation unless officials disclose what it buys and who captures the revenue.
All dollar figures are in millions. The $253M current-dollar scope is the anchor used throughout this page; the $505M is that same scope escalated and repeated over 20 years; the $600M is a public-facing figure that exceeds the independent plan.
Four ways to slice the same plan — by system, by biggest line item, by the report's own urgency grades, and over time. Every cut points the same direction.
Classification rule: repair means worn-out systems, structure, waterproofing, safety, and basic building function. Revenue/amenity means renovations, new build-outs, premium spaces, fan-experience upgrades, and commercial areas that generate income — income the Blazers keep as the arena's operator.
Every one of these is revenue capacity the Blazers capture as operator. Restrooms are the most arguable item here: basic fixtures can be public-benefit repair, while a full cosmetic renovation is also a fan-experience cycle. More broadly, the ~$164M repair bucket is the clean public floor, not the only work with public value. If Council funds mixed-benefit items like seating, ADA/code work, egress, restrooms, or circulation, it should name them line by line and explain the public return.
You don't have to take our split for it. VSG grades every line item High, Medium, or Low. High means work that “should be addressed immediately… due to end of life or obsolescence” and “to maintain the safety of the facility.” Of the full $253M of work the building needs today, only about $70M — barely more than a quarter — clears that bar.
The $253M breaks down as $238M of building, systems, and technology work that VSG priority-grades High/Medium/Low, plus ~$15M of food-service equipment that VSG grades by condition instead — and rates 92% of it “Good.” Whichever lens you use, it points the same direction as our repair/revenue split: very little of this is urgent, and almost none of it is structural.
The simple version: $253M is the price tag if every item happened today. The 20-year plan is about $505M because costs rise and some amenities get redone more than once. That is why the revenue-upgrade line pulls away from the repair line.
The big jumps are recurring amenity and premium-area cycles. The repair line rises more gradually because core building systems last longer.
The public should fund what the public gets. The private entity should fund the revenue it gets. Once you apply that rule, the renovation stops being a vibes argument and becomes a deal-structure question.
The ~$164M in repairs is defensible for the public to fund as the clean repair floor. The public owns the building; owners maintain their buildings. Even then, a normal landlord recovers maintenance through rent.
The ~$341M in revenue-generating upgrades all benefit the Blazers, who operate the arena and keep the revenue they produce. Funding them with public money, with nothing flowing back to the General Fund, is a straight subsidy. In a normal deal, whoever keeps the revenue funds the asset or repays it through rent or revenue share.
The public-facing $600M figure is above the independent 20-year plan. It may include legitimate new scope, but new scope is likely new revenue capacity. That must be disclosed before a vote.
Structure, core systems, life safety, the roof, basic building function, and Garden Garage waterproofing and safety barriers are the cleanest public obligation.
Seating, restrooms, and circulation are mixed. VSG also flags real safety/code items — past-due CAT1 elevator testing, dead-end egress at locked upper-bowl gates, “head-knocker” low-clearance zones, and a bowl accessibility (ADA) assessment — that need line-item public benefit and capped overruns.
Suites, clubs, bars, retail, premium tech, and new scope generate revenue the Blazers keep. They need a private match, rent, or revenue sharing back to the public.
The state bond authority should be treated as the public baseline, not as permission for unlimited local subsidy. The bonds are repaid from public tax revenue through the Oregon Arena Fund, so the public obligation should be funded first.
Public tax revenue already authorized through SB 1501.
The clearest public obligation in the 20-year plan.
Potential room for justified mixed-benefit work before asking City or County for more.
That remaining capacity could potentially cover the mixed-benefit and safety items VSG actually identifies: bowl seating replacement, the accessibility (ADA) assessment, egress and low-clearance fixes, past-due elevator safety testing, Garden Garage waterproofing and vehicle and pedestrian barriers, restroom modernization, and a public maintenance reserve. Council should publish exactly which VSG line items fit in that bucket.
The question then becomes: why should City or County taxpayers cover anything above the state package? And what real return pays them back? It is worth following the money: the operating revenue from these upgrades goes to the Blazers, and any rent the public collects as the owner is recycled into the Oregon Arena Fund to pay for the arena's own future renovations. So the City's General Fund — the budget for police, parks, and housing — nets nothing. The money cycles from the public, through the arena, and back to the arena.
Wanting a fair deal is not the same thing as wanting the Blazers to leave.
The Blazers matter. They are Portland's major-league team, a civic institution, and part of how a lot of people understand this city. Moda Center should be renovated, and the team should stay.
But fans should not be asked to choose between losing the team and accepting a blank check. A serious pro-Blazers deal should be built to last: public money for real public repairs, private or repaid funding for revenue upgrades, a public revenue waterfall, cost-overrun protection, and lease terms that actually keep the team here.
Civic pride is a reason to negotiate carefully, not a reason to stop negotiating. If Portland is going to invest public tax revenue because the Blazers matter, the deal should protect both the team and the public.
The question is simple: are we making a deal that keeps the Blazers here on fair terms, or are we making a donation and hoping it works out?
SB 1501 does not lock in the money. The bonds cannot issue until the City and County make binding and substantial commitments. Those commitments have not happened.
Renovate Moda.
Keep the Blazers.
Make a deal, not a donation.
The standard is simple: state money should cover the public-side baseline first. City and County money above that should require capped exposure, private match or repayment, General Fund return, and a published revenue waterfall.
Figures are from the Moda Center Facility Condition Assessment (a May 14, 2024 draft marked “Draft & Confidential”) and its companion capital-expenditure workbook, both by Venue Solutions Group, commissioned by the City of Portland and obtained via public records request.
The ~$505M is the workbook's 20-year nominal total ($504,877,921), which matches the report's Capital Expense Matrix Recap on page 121. It is escalated at 3.5% in 2025 and 3% per year thereafter and includes recurring replacement cycles; $223M (44%) of it falls in the first five years. We use ~$253M as the single current-dollar figure throughout because it is the cleanest measure of what the building actually needs now: the same work in today's dollars, every item counted once, before inflation and before the items that recur are counted again. It comprises $237.84M of building, systems, and technology line items (Costs tab, Column P) plus $15.05M of food-service equipment (F&B Costs tab, Column J) — both in current dollars — for $252.89M ≈ $253M. Each line already carries VSG's 35% soft-cost loading for demolition, design, general conditions, contractor profit, and insurance. The $505M is that same scope escalated and repeated over 20 years: $468.47M for the main building plus the $36.40M 20-year nominal Food & Beverage / Retail total from the workbook Recap. Note the two F&B figures are different bases — $15.05M is the current-dollar equipment cost, while $36.40M is the inflated, recurring 20-year total — so they must never be added to the current-dollar main scope (doing so produces a spurious ~$274M).
The High / Medium / Low priority figures are VSG's own grades from the workbook (High ≈ $70M, Medium ≈ $134M, Low ≈ $34M of the ≈$238M of priced building, systems, and technology items); the remaining ≈$15M of food-service equipment is graded by condition — 92% rated “Good” — rather than by priority. The repair-vs-revenue split is our classification of each line item, anchored to VSG's own scope labels (Repair, Replacement, Restoration, and Waterproofing read as repair; Refresh, Renovation, Reconfiguration, and new build-out read as revenue/amenity) and corroborated by those priority grades. Restrooms are the most arguable item and are flagged as such throughout.
Statutory references are to enrolled SB 1501 (2026); the Oregon Arena Fund and the ~$365M state package come from that legislation, not the VSG documents. The $600M figure has been described by Mayor Wilson as a placeholder and does not appear in the VSG documents. VSG states its estimates are planning-grade, not bids.