Trail Blazers to Portland: Public cash ‘only solution’ for renovating Moda Center

For months, lobbyists working for the Trail Blazers have pressed Portland elected officials to commit millions to renovate the city’s aging Moda Center. That appeared to pay off last month, when the city pledged to put more than $400 million toward arena renovations, as part of a larger funding package at the state Legislature.

Little has been shared publicly about how local politicians reached this point.

Public records obtained by OPB suggest the scope of the Blazers’ campaign. From a staff trip to North Carolina, to implicit threats to relocate the team, to nudging from Nike’s CEO, the documents pull back the curtain on months of private talks, setting the stage for another long stretch of closed-door negotiations between the Blazers and government officials as they hammer out a final lease agreement.

The city of Portland currently owns the 31-year-old Moda Center and leases the building to the Blazers. The arena is one of the oldest in the NBA that has not undergone major renovations. According to the Blazers management team, the building is in need of plumbing and electrical upgrades, new elevators, new restrooms, locker room renovations and other improvements.

In August 2025, an investor group announced plans to buy the Blazers from the estate of Paul Allen, which had put the team on the market in May. That group was led by Tom Dundon, a subprime auto loan billionaire who lives in Texas and owns the NHL’s Carolina Hurricanes. It’s not clear how much the group will pay for the team, but their representatives say it will be over $4.2 billion. The deal, which will need final approval from the NBA, is expected to close by the end of this month.

The news of this sale stoked immediate fears that Dundon’s group would relocate the Blazers to another city if local and state governments didn’t quickly commit money to renovate the Moda Center. The Blazers’ current lease expires in 2030, with the option of a five-year extension.

The concern was based on that short-term lease, but also past precedent: Several recent NBA arena renovations, from Salt Lake City to Memphis, have been fully funded by local governments. In these deals, the funds are contingent on local NBA teams agreeing not to leave town. There are a few recent examples of teams contributing, with the planned San Antonio Spurs arena having the most private support.

The agreement passed by the Oregon Legislature implies a similar deal. The state pledged to make a $365 million investment in the arena — paired with other investments from Portland and Multnomah County — if the Blazers commit to signing a 20-year-lease to remain at Moda.

The Trail Blazers did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.

Full-court press

When news broke of Dundon agreeing to buy the Blazers, ESPN reported that he intended to keep the team in Portland. He’s not said much since, and he’s never said he’d relocate the Blazers without a public funding commitment. But messages from Blazers lobbyists to Oregon repeatedly hinted at the importance of it.

“In smaller markets like Portland, where venues cannot generate the same amount of revenue as teams in big markets like New York, San Francisco and LA, public investment is necessary to secure the long-term future of a team,” reads a document sent to Mayor Keith Wilson’s staff by the Blazers management team in January to explain the rationale for public dollars. This document comes up multiple times in email records between Wilson’s office and legislative leaders over the course of the month.

The pressure to rely heavily on public investment came on strong. Karl Lisle, the city’s head of the spectator venues, which includes Moda Center, said in a Jan. 23 chat message to colleagues in the mayor’s office that a Blazers lobbyist told him “100% public financing is the only solution.” Lisle said this could be “extremely challenging in the short timeline proposed by Dundon’s group and may in fact require more time.”

In their document shared with Wilson’s staff, Blazers representatives say they “are confident” that Moda Center will need $600 million in renovations. But that number may grow based on inflation. Renovations would occur over three years starting in 2027 to ensure the arena is finished in time for the NCAA Women’s Final Four in 2030.

While lobbyists acknowledge that previous Blazers owner Paul Allen privately financed the Moda Center construction in 1993, they say that kind of deal isn’t a possibility for Dundon’s ownership group.

They write that the state and local governments should “be matching the confidence that the incoming Blazers ownership group has in Portland and Oregon when they made a $4.2+ billion investment in the state.”

The document goes on to note that the Blazers’ incoming owners have gotten an earful “from outsiders” about how unfriendly Oregon’s tax system is for businesses, suggesting that Dundon could be easily swayed to move.

“In many ways, it puts the Blazers at a competitive disadvantage with other small-market cities looking to attract professional sports franchises,” it reads.

Wilson hasn’t needed much convincing. A month before Dundon’s group announced their agreement to buy the franchise, Wilson and Gov. Tina Kotek pledged in a letter to NBA Commissioner Adam Silver that they would find the money to renovate the Moda Center in order to keep the Blazers in Portland.

“Leadership begins with clear-eyed recognition that Portland and Oregon will need to compete with other cities who are likely already plotting to woo the next Blazers owner to their city,” read the joint letter sent in July.

Wilson has met with Dundon at least once, according to email records obtained by OPB. In October, Wilson said he had breakfast with Dundon the morning after Dundon attended the Blazers’ first game of the season. Wilson mentioned this breakfast in an email sent to Nike CEO Elliott Hill later that day, according to records obtained by OPB. According to Wilson, Dundon had mentioned meeting Hill during their breakfast meeting.

Hill responded a day later. He confirmed that Dundon visited Nike headquarters to discuss his pickleball franchise, another of his investments. Nike is the official manufacturer of NBA and WNBA jerseys. Hill told Wilson of the team’s importance to the city.

“We all need to do what we can to keep the Trailblazers in Portland,” Hill wrote. “Losing them will be disastrous.”

Nike did not immediately respond to OPB’s request for comment.

The campaign continued two months later, when city staff agreed to join Blazers staff on a trip to North Carolina, where they toured professional sports arenas in Charlotte and Raleigh.

The city of Charlotte just finished major renovations to the Spectrum Center, home to the Charlotte Hornets. The $245 million renovation was entirely paid for by the city, and the agreement commits the team to the arena until at least 2045. Raleigh’s Lenovo Center is home to the Carolina Hurricanes, the NHL team Dundon purchased in 2018. That arena is in the process of a publicly funded $300 million renovation, negotiated by Dundon, that locks the Hurricanes into a 20-year lease and gives Dundon the rights to develop some 80 acres around the arena.

Raihana Ansary, Wilson’s deputy chief of staff, joined two other Portland employees on the city-paid trip: Donnie Oliveira, deputy city administrator for community and economic development, and Lisle.

Ansary detailed the purpose of the trip to her colleagues in a calendar invite for the three-day December visit.

“City staff will benefit from learning first-hand about these case studies and strengthening key relationships prior to closing of the Blazers pending sale,” she wrote.

The public employees were joined by at least three representatives from the Blazers in North Carolina, where they met with arena staff, dined with Charlotte public officials and attended a Hurricanes game.

City spokesperson Cody Bowman told OPB that the visit “provided practical insight into the scope of renovation, financing models, and long-term lease structures, including lessons from an ownership group active in Portland.” He said the experience has helped shape the city’s approach to negotiating the Blazers lease.

By January, Wilson and other city officials were meeting with Blazers lobbyists at the Capitol, getting briefed on ways to convince colleagues, state lawmakers and others that spending city money on the Moda Center was the right thing to do.

In the briefing document, the Blazers called the financing deal a “generational opportunity” and that the arena is “Oregon’s largest gathering place” that brings people together from across the state.

Wilson and other state politicians have parroted these talking points in public statements.

In February, when the funding bill passed out of a legislative committee, Wilson joined several Portland city councilors in calling the Moda Center the state’s “largest gathering place, drawing visitors from every corner of Oregon and bringing people from across the country to our state.”

Last week, after the bill passed out of both legislative chambers, Wilson issued a statement alongside Portland Council President Jamie Dunphy, calling the plan a “generational opportunity.”

Next steps

The city’s commitment to paying for Moda renovations isn’t a done deal.

Wilson has pledged roughly $405 million in city dollars to the proposal. That includes $120 million up front and $285 million over the next 20 years. Wilson has identified two sources of funding: the Portland Clean Energy Fund and money from Prosper Portland.

Related: Inside Portland’s $1.7B climate fund, which is being floated to help fix the Moda Center

The boards overseeing both PCEF and Prosper Portland need to consider the funding request before it heads to Portland City Council, which will need to vote to approve the funding. Before any of those dollars are decided, however, councilors will vote on the terms of their deal with the Blazers. That’s an opportunity for councilors to set expectations around renovations, like ensuring union construction firms are involved.

Councilor Tiffany Koyama Lane is one of several councilors focused on cementing those terms to “deliver real benefits” to Portlanders. She has raised concerns with the way Blazers lobbyists have used this funding deal to threaten councilors.

Koyama Lane told OPB that, through conversations, these lobbyists “have made it clear that elected officials will be blamed if the team leaves Portland.”

Koyama Lane was the only City Council member to not sign onto a Feb. 26 letter sent by Wilson and councilors cheering the Moda Center funding bill’s progress in the Capitol.

At least three other city councilors told OPB that they have been told by Blazers representatives that their political career would suffer if they didn’t agree to the deal. Those councilors asked not to be identified to protect their careers.

Councilor Steve Novick is also skeptical of the Blazers’ threats. He’s especially concerned about using PCEF funds, which are supposed to be for climate resistance and response, for the Moda Center. Wilson has floated using roughly $75 million in PCEF funds to pay for renovations that reduce the arena’s carbon emissions. Novick doesn’t believe that’s what the fund is meant to do. He’s calling their bluff.

“It’s hard for me to believe that they’re going to pack up the team and leave tomorrow if we don’t commit $75 million from the Clean Energy Fund in the next five minutes,” Novick said. “I don’t like the idea of being railroaded.”

Portland City Council will begin discussing their desired lease terms this spring, according to Council President Dunphy’s office. Negotiations with the Blazers are expected to last for several months. City Council will approve that lease agreement and decide on funding sources “no earlier than the summer,” according to Dunphy’s adviser Eben Joondeph Hoffer.

Multnomah County is on a faster track. The county will also draft its own term agreement proposals to come before the county board in April, when commissioners will also vote on their funding plan. The county has pledged to spend $101 million to pay for Moda renovations, coming from a tax on rental cars, business income tax revenue and other sources.

The Legislature committed $365 million in bonds to pay for renovations, which will eventually be paid off with income tax revenues paid by the Blazers, employers and performers at the Moda Center and construction workers hired to carry out arena renovations.

According to that agreement, the Blazers would be responsible for paying any cost overruns if they occur. It doesn’t seem likely that will be necessary.

While the Blazers say they need $600 million for renovations, the combined commitments from the state, city and county come in around $870 million.

It’s not an unrealistic cost. That price tag would be closer to the amount of recent public financing for NBA arenas in Salt Lake City, San Antonio and Oklahoma City.