{"id":2064599,"date":"2026-07-27T22:56:51","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T19:56:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2064599"},"modified":"2026-07-27T22:56:51","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T19:56:51","slug":"trail-blazers-reject-portlands-offer-to-discuss-concerns-over-arena-lease-term-sheet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2064599","title":{"rendered":"Trail Blazers reject Portland\u2019s offer to discuss concerns over arena lease term sheet"},"content":{"rendered":"
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An olive branch offered by the City of Portland to the Trail Blazers has been rejected by the team as the two sides remain far apart in arena lease negotiations.<\/p>\n

On Friday, Portland City Council president Jamie Dunphy sent a letter to Blazers president of business operations Dewayne Hankins, inviting him to attend a work session Thursday with the 12-member council to address the team\u2019s concerns about the term sheet delivered by the city.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI\u2019m reading in the media that the Blazers would like to see some changes made to the draft term sheet that the City Council provided you last week,\u201d Dunphy wrote to Hankins. \u201cIt would be extremely helpful if you and your team joined our work session to help me and my colleagues understand your needs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dunphy said the Blazers have informed the council they would not be represented at the work session scheduled for 2-5 p.m. PT.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have been told verbally by the Blazers leadership that they will not be attending and that they will not be responding to my invitation in writing,\u201d Dunphy told The Athletic<\/em>. \u201cAdditionally, we still have not received any requested documentation ahead of our work session. Without that information, or the participation of the Blazers, I\u2019m not sure what purpose the work session can even serve. Very disappointing.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The city council is scheduled to vote Aug. 12 on the term sheet for a 20-year lease of the Moda Center. New owner Tom Dundon said he would sign a lease with the city if the team was given nearly $575 million in public funding. The state legislature in March passed a bill that would award $365 million, contingent upon the city and county providing $208 million in additional funding to upgrade the 31-year-old arena.<\/p>\n

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The city council holds the keys to $120 million of that $208 million, but said it needs to hear how the Blazers intend to use the funds. The Blazers have balked at releasing details, saying they feel they were promised a deal in March, and that they want the city to help pay for an architect to devise specific plans.<\/p>\n

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\n The Trail Blazers will not attend the Portland City Council work session regarding a new 20-year lease for the Moda Center. (Portland City Council)<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The city had been negotiating with the team since March and initially wanted to include items such as a beverage tax, street pricing to prevent arena vendors from overcharging, and rent in the term sheet. None of those three items were in the term sheet. However, the city included a $3 million annual payment and a labor-harmony agreement that would stress the importance of hiring union labor for everything from construction work to concessions.<\/p>\n

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A Blazers source, speaking on condition of anonymity to freely discuss negotiations, said the term sheet was \u201ca nonstarter,\u201d but Dunphy said he and the council have no idea what the team\u2019s issues are with the term sheet because the Blazers won\u2019t communicate, let alone show up at meetings.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have no substantive information about what they want, what they don\u2019t want or what a successful partnership with the city, county and state would look like,\u201d Dunphy said. \u201cWe heard through the press that they were dissatisfied with the term sheet, but got no feedback.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt feels like they are either disinterested in transparency and accountability with public dollars, which is a nonstarter, or they are simply going through the motions to run out the clock and burn any remaining goodwill in the city and wait for the government to give them an excuse and move the team,\u201d Dunphy said. \u201cI can make a guess which it is, but have no concrete details to tell me this. In life, I always try to assume the best and not assume malicious intent, but this doesn\u2019t seem like incompetence. It seems intentional.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hankins did not respond immediately to a phone message from The Athletic<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An olive branch offered by the City of Portland to the Trail Blazers has been rejected by the team as the two sides remain far apart in arena lease negotiations. On Friday, Portland City Council president Jamie Dunphy sent a letter to Blazers president of business operations Dewayne Hankins, inviting him to attend a work […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,241],"class_list":["post-2064599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-nytimes-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2064599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2064599"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2064599\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2064599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2064599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2064599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}