Greyhound Park grandstand demolished

WOOD VILLAGE -- A little more than a month after the Grand Ronde Tribe held a demolition ceremony at the site of the former Multnomah Greyhound Park in east Multnomah County, the iconic glass-enclosed grandstand is no more.

Demolition crews from Konell Construction & Demolition Corp. used several cherry pickers and excavators to pull down the 95-foot-tall structure on Tuesday, Aug. 2.

Those who could not attend the actual demolition were able to view it on a live stream from Portland TV station KGW.

The 31-acre property was purchased by the Tribe in December 2015 and future plans call for it to be an important element in the diversification of the Grand Ronde Tribal economy.

On Monday, July 11, Tribal Engineering and Public Works Manager Jesse White met with the Wood Village City Council and Planning Commission to unveil potential uses for the site once it is shovel ready.

Preliminary plans call for an eight-story hotel anchoring an entertainment-oriented campus. The hotel would be slightly higher than the grandstand at 115 feet.

The hotel and entertainment center would likely be served by a new east-west road connecting Northeast 223^rd Avenue with Wood Village Boulevard. A bus stop also would be developed to serve the property as well.

Multnomah Greyhound Park opened in 1957 and closed in 2004. Since then, the property sat idle and the grandstands were dilapidated with broken glass littering the area and graffiti marring the inside. Feral cats seemed to be the only regular users of the property.

During the demolition ceremony held on June 28, Tribal Council Chairman Reyn Leno said the Tribe wants to bring a centerpiece to Wood Village as important as the greyhound park used to be. During its heyday in the 1980s, the park attracted more than 600,000 greyhound racing fans to the small city.