Oregon Tribes Try to Play Big

Oregon tribes want a casino in downtown Portland.

The Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde first dangled a $350 million baseball stadium in front of Portland as bait for a downtown casino. Now the tribes are trying to entice the city by offering to pay for a $130 million convention hotel.

According to the Oregonian Newspaper, "The ante is getting smaller, not larger. Next, we'd half expect the tribes to come back with an offer to pay the $75 million cost of capping the water reservoirs at Mount Tabor -- only, of course, if they get a downtown casino in exchange."

Still, like the earlier baseball stadium, this latest offer has some appeal to Portland decision-makers. Portland has long sought a convention hotel. With the Grand Ronde's help, a 600-room hotel that would propel Portland into the major leagues of the convention business could be built without public subsidy and without shifting tax dollars from other needs.

An editiorial in today's Oregonian newspaper says the deal is not a good one for Portland. Is this a good or bad deal for Portland? In my assessment, it comes down to whether Portland wants to roll the dice with downtown gambling.

I find it quite interesting that the tribes are making a big play here. Of course, there is Foxwoods Casino in Connecticut, which is clearly the largest one out there. All this points to the fact that the tribes have come a long way as economic development players. They are working on projects of scale now. I recall the 3-year Indian economic development project that I worked on during the late 1990s -- things have changed in a major way in how tribes are approaching economic development.

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