City Enlists Veterans Community to Envision a New Street-Level Home for the Coliseum Memorial Walls

In spring 2025, the City of Portland convened a project advisory group to develop recommendations for the future of the Veterans Memorials at the Veterans Memorial Coliseum (VMC). The group discussed key elements of the Memorials and came together to guide future work.

After meeting six times over four months, the project advisory group produced a final reportrecommending relocating the granite honor roll walls to the main entry plaza in front of the VMC. This new street-level installation of the original panels will dramatically increase the memorials' visibility and accessibility while retaining their important connection to the building.

Also in their report, the project advisory group included key design considerations for the project, recommending that future memorials provide opportunities for interaction, connect to the neighborhood and its history of displacement of the Albina community, center on lighting and visibility, and continue a connection to the digital memorials.

With the key recommendations now in hand, the Cityis devising the project timeline to determine how the veterans memorials can transform from an idea into action. Stay tuned on the City's Veterans Memorial Coliseum webpagefor project updates and ways the community can continue to stay engaged.

History of the Project

The VMC has a long and complicated history in the City of Portland. Since opening in 1960, the building has hosted thousands of major events and been a community staple. It honors the legacies of veterans while also representing the tumultuous policies of urban renewal of the 1950s, displacing hundreds of residents in the Albina neighborhood to make space for the building.

While at its core, the Coliseum is an event space, the spotlight on veterans has been a cornerstone of the building's history. The two granite honor roll panels installed in sunken plazas to either side of the main entrance honor Oregon's war dead, with representation from military conflicts dating back to the Spanish American War. Unfortunately, the attachments supporting the honor roll panels deteriorated over the years and became a safety hazard. The granite name panels have been placed in storage pending a decision on the future of the memorials. In 2022, the Citylaunched a digital memorial siteto serve as a temporary substitute for the physical panels.

With the reconfiguration of the Rose Quarter and construction of Moda Center (previously the Rose Garden Arena) in the early 1990s, easy access to the memorials was cut off. Over the years, there have been many ideas about what to do with the honor roll panels. Still, it became clear that returning to the veteranscommunity, along with trusted neighborhood, artistic and community stewards, would be critical to making any key decisions. Additionally, major renovations to the building are underway, ensuring it will continue to serve as a major event venue for many years to come. That makes now an excellent time to address the longstanding question of what to do about the veteransmemorials that mean so much to so many.