by President Ann Cudd
August 9, 2024
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Today our partners at the City of Portland announced a resolution that the City Council will vote on next week regarding the future of performing arts in downtown Portland. It calls for Portland State University to work with the city to come up with a win-win solution that would develop both the current site of the Keller Auditorium and the site that Portland State proposed for a new state-of-the-art performance venue on our campus.
As PSU knows well, a thriving downtown Portland depends on a thriving arts, education and culture scene to attract more people to the central city, improving the overall vibrancy of the city and spurring new development. That’s why PSU first proposed the development of the Portland Performing Arts and Culture Center to be developed on the current site of our University Place Hotel — a once-in-a-century opportunity to serve the city and our future students.
Our proposal, which would replace the seismically compromised Keller Auditorium, was one of just three under consideration by the city. With the resolution announced today, PSU will join with city partners and the Halprin Landscape Conservancy, who developed a proposal to rebuild the Keller on its current site, to spend the next 45 days developing a plan that will ensure a path forward on our proposed Portland Performing Arts and Culture Center and the future of the Keller Auditorium block.
This is a positive development in the city’s process that can lead toward a re-energized arts, culture and entertainment district that activates the iconic Halprin Sequence of walkways, fountains, and parks that run alongside our campus parallel to Fourth Avenue, in a new way. It also ensures that PSU’s vision for a performance venue that would be integrated with our campus can continue to evolve. Additionally, it creates a pathway to a plan that won’t require the Keller Auditorium to close for a lengthy reconstruction, which would impact arts organizations and economic activity vital to our city.
I applaud Portland City Council and the Interim City Administrator’s Office for developing the resolution and actively seeking a win-win solution for downtown Portland and Oregon.
And we’re looking forward to collaboration over the coming weeks that expands the conversation beyond a decision about a single auditorium and brings us together to develop a broader vision for the future of our city. Portland State will always take a seat at the table for collaborative work that moves our region forward.
I’m grateful to everyone at PSU who has continued to work on this initiative and I look forward to sharing the results of the collaborative planning process later this fall.
You can learn more about the proposal on the project webpage.