S moke S ignals
JULY 1, 2016
23
Greyhound Park making way for
Spirit Mountain at Wood Village
By Dean Rhodes
Smoke Signals editor
WOOD VILLAGE – Multnomah
Greyhound Park is almost gone.
In its place will rise Spirit Moun-
tain at Wood Village, a mixed-use
development that will have a sym-
biotic relationship with the Grand
Ronde Tribe’s Spirit Mountain
Casino.
Tribal Council Chairman Reyn
Leno announced at a demolition
ceremony held for the Greyhound
Park on Tuesday, June 28, that the
Tribally owned development will be
a mixture of lodging, entertainment
and housing, as well as complement
the Tribe’s 20-year-old casino in
Grand Ronde.
“The membership wants us to
look to diversify,” Leno said while
being interviewed by a KOIN-TV
news crew before the ceremony
started. “We look at this project as
a diversification of our portfolio.
We want to bring something that
will reflect Wood Village and be
a centerpiece like the one we are
tearing down.
“This kind of reminds me of when
we first started building our casino.
We built what we
could that would be
successful and then
we kept building
on to it. Realisti-
cally, right now it
is housing, enter-
tainment and some
other things.”
Leno said that
whatever is con-
structed will com-
plement Spirit
Mountain Casino.
“Entertainment is something we
do really well,” Leno said in his
opening remarks. “We hope to tie
in something here that can benefit
Spirit Mountain. You come here,
shop and get points, and you go
to Spirit Mountain, or you go to
Spirit Mountain and get benefits
up here. We’re not going to kill our
own casino.”
Wood Village Mayor Patricia
Smith thanked the Tribe for pur-
chasing the derelict property.
“I know that this is just going to
be something that is going to ben-
efit both the city and the Tribe,”
Smith said. “I have seen their archi-
tecture in Grand Ronde and I know
they are not going to build some-
thing that looks like a gas station.
… The quality of the development
will define Wood Village. We are
going to have a great partnership
with Grand Ronde and I know we
will benefit each other.”
Hundreds of people attended
the demolition ceremony, getting
their last chance to say goodbye
to the iconic structure. Attendees
mingled before the 10 a.m. event,
discussing memories of betting on
greyhound races as well as learning
how to drive in the park’s expansive
parking lot.
Leno was accompanied by Tribal
Photos by Michelle Alaimo
Tribal Council member Brenda Tuomi uses an excavator to break out a
window of Multnomah Greyhound Park’s grandstand building during a
demolition ceremony held at the park in Wood Village on Tuesday, June 28.
At left, Tribal Council Chairman Reyn
Leno speaks during the demolition
ceremony held at Multnomah
Greyhound Park in Wood Village on
Tuesday, June 28.
Council Vice Chair Jack Giffen Jr.
and Tribal Council members Bren-
da Tuomi, Tonya Gleason-Shepek,
Denise Harvey and Jon A. George,
who drummed and sang a prayer
song and gave the invocation to
open the ceremony.
The 31-acre property in the small
eastern Multnomah County city of
Wood Village was purchased by the
Tribe on Friday, Dec. 11. The site,
which was no longer being used
for dog racing, was listed for sale
at $11.2 million by owner Arthur
McFadden.
Konell Construction & Demoli-
tion Corp. of Sandy has been abat-
ing asbestos and lead and removing
outbuildings, such as kennels, since
mid-April. Now the main structure,
a four-story grandstand, is set to
come down.
During the demolition ceremony,
it was announced that the grand-
stands will come down in early
July.
“Historically, this was a vital eco-
nomic engine that drove Wood Vil-
lage,” said City Administrator Bill
Peterson. “At one point, this was
Oregon’s single largest attraction.
It’s an amazing part of our history
and the importance of being able
to replace that with an equivalent
kind of attraction is just critical to
our future.”
Peterson said the city’s dealings
with the Tribe have been great.
“Relationships have been magnif-
icent,” he said.
The property is zoned Town Cen-
ter, which allows for a variety of
potential uses including a regional
entertainment facility, commercial
retail, housing and office buildings.
Grand Ronde Tribal members are
familiar with the site since it was
identified as the possible location
for Oregon’s first privately operated
casino by two Lake Oswego business-
men who sponsored statewide ballot
measures in 2010 and 2012 to build a
private casino at the former racetrack.
Oregon Tribes successfully com-
batted both measures and Oregon
voters overwhelmingly rejected the
idea of private casinos in the state
during the November 2012 election.
Wood Village is located within the
historic homelands of the Cascade
and Clackamas Chinook Tribes,
which confederated to Grand Ronde
in the 19th century. The Tribes
ceded the area to the federal gov-
ernment in the Willamette Valley
Treaty of 1855.
Multnomah Greyhound Park
opened in 1957 and closed in 2004.
In its heyday, the Greyhound Park
attracted more than 611,000 spec-
tators in 1987, helping make Wood
Village the “Home of Greyhound
Racing” in Oregon.
The property joins the Portland
Area Office on Southwest Barbur
Boulevard as Tribal holdings in
Multnomah County.
Tribal staff who attended the
demolition ceremony included
Tribal Council Chief of Staff Stacia
Martin, Public Affairs Adminis-
trative Assistant Chelsea Clark,
Tribal Attorney Rob Greene, Senior
Staff Attorney Jennifer Biesack,
Economic Development Adminis-
trative Assistant Meghan Zimbrick,
Finance Officer Chris Leno, Tribal
Engineering and Public Works
Manager Jesse White and many
others. Tribal Elder and former
Tribal Council member Wink So-
derberg also attended.
White said it will still be several
months before the site is shovel
ready for a new development and
that construction probably would
not start until summer 2017 at the
earliest.
“This is a great day and this is a
great turnout,” Leno said. “For you
people who live here and drive by
this, this day will mark the start of
the teardown. For us, it is the first
day of the vision of what we will see
built here. … We didn’t just come
here. We are actually returning
here. This is the ceded lands of
the Confederated Tribes of Grand
Ronde. There are lots of villages
right here that our people walked.
We are returning to a place where
our ancestors have always been.”
After the ceremony, Tribal Coun-
cil members and Tribal staff donned
hardhats and toured the interior of
the grandstand building and partic-
ipated in a symbolic tearing down of
the grandstand structure.