What if we took Hayward Field and moved it to Portland?

Planning ahead is a great idea. However, what about athletes / coaches who don't know if they will qualify until a few weeks before a meet? How about all of their family who suddenly wants to come see them run? If the hotels are already booked, these people - the actual performers people are coming to see run - have to stay an hour away at high cost because there is not adequate lodging. But yea, the Joe Schmo spectator who booked a year in advance is set!

Great post man. Maybe he did consider Portland but couldn't for one of these reasons.

Smart, let’s gatekeep the sport to wealthy losers who spend thousands of dollars a year in Advance to attend a track meet for 10 days. The letsrun crowd.

smart idea to grow the sport

The current Hayward Field was discounted and built for as little money as possible. My guess is they should have spent $2 Billion.

The lot size of Hayward Field was chosen 100 years ago. If you look at the lot size of Hayward Field on google maps it's about the same lot size as a typical high school track and field. It's way too small.

There's no underground utility level/floor to house food services, TV Broadcast tractor trailers, maintenance equipment, nor work rooms for hundreds of track volunteers, hundreds of media volunteers and officials.

There's no underground parking levels for fans. My guess is it would have taken 4 levels of underground parking.

there's better fent in portland too - would save us a trip

Delta Park (Portland) has often been suggested as a great place for a major sports complex. If they did decide to dump Eugene (they won't, for the forseeable) that's a big contender. Flat, relatively cheap land near the airport. Already has sports fields, plus some sad-sack big box stores easily bulldozed. Right now lots of low income and homeless nearby, but they'll move on if it's developed, and there's lots of space. It would be a great way to vitalize that area.

You cant just move things here and there. It takes effort and time to build a great stadium and great meets. The history is the foundation.

Your qualifications for making this architectural critique?

They obviously satisfied the City Planning Dept. Beyond that the project is evaluated by its success in accomplishing goals while factoring in budget opportunities/limitations. Any architectural project can be improved with more money.

This facility has already been criticized for being overbuilding and you want more?

If only the Timbers stadium was not downtown, you could combine the Timbers and track stadiums and maybe even the minor league hockey team into a single stadium at the Rose Quarter (right next to the Trail Blazers stadium) with enough seats where Portland could get international soccer matches played (Timbers current stadium is too small for that).

Nice place for the homeless to hang

Let me get this straight, hoteliers are supposed to hold discounted rooms for last minute entries and spontaneous tourists?

Are they also required to build extra capacity for an 8 day event (NCAA, USATF, Oly Trials) that happens once every year or two? Capacity that sits largely empty in between track events because some consumers cannot afford to pay market rates?

The old Hayward could hold about 10,000 people with extra bleachers during the big meets? Where did people stay before 2019? How did they afford it?

You are welcome to build a track stadium any city you want.

Then the rest of us can tell you where you should have spent your money.

Let's do it! Much better place to live and Progressive! Some won't understand...

"a bunch of high IQ and high earning fans with supermodel spouses" i think you have confused the track fan base with another sport.