Providence Park

Providence Park
Location	Portland, Oregon United States 45.521691; -122.690872
Building chronology
Built	1926
Tenants
Portland Beavers (2001-2010)
Capacity
20,000 (19,566 seated)

Providence Park in Portland, OR, was the home of Portland affiliated baseball from 1956 through 2010, ending the tenure as PGE Park. After that, the Portland Beavers of the Pacific Coast League moved to Tucson, AZ where they slotted into an existing ballpark.

Opened for American football in 1926 on ground that hosted sports as early as 1893, it was renovated for baseball in 1956. Then-Multnomah Stadium was renamed Civic Stadium in 1966. A 2001 renovation lured the PCL's Albuquerque Dukes north as the new Beavers.

Portland General Electric bought naming rights in 2001, and it became PGE Park. It drew an impressive 16,637 to the 2009 Triple-A All-Star Game. That very year, Beavers owner Merritt Paulson landed a Major League Soccer franchise - which then, per league policy, refused to share PGE. It was remodeled into a soccer-specific stadium, and acquired the name Providence Park (which was never used in its baseball configuration) in 2014. The Portland Timbers, resurrecting an old name from the defunct North American Soccer League, became very successful, reaching the MSL Cup finals three times in a decade, including hosting the championship game at Providence Park in 2021. A team in the Women's National Soccer League, the Portland Thorns, shares the facility, which now seats over 25,000.

While soccer thrived, all efforts to find a new baseball stadium failed, and the San Diego Padres bought their homeless affiliate with a plan to move it to a suburb of their home city after a short-term stay in Tucson. When Escondido also failed to build a ballpark, the Padres sold the club to a group that moved it to El Paso, TX where they are today's El Paso Chihuahuas.

The original 1926 ballpark could hold about 20,000 and seat 19,566.