The future of Portland’s only Broadway-capable theater remains unclear after city councilors advanced a resolution to research both replacing and renovating the Keller Auditorium.

But as they passed the resolution 8-4 during a meeting Wednesday, city councilors said they’re not pledging money to renovate the venue or build a new one at Portland State University.

“We’re making crystal clear that we are not making a commitment to dollars today,” District 1 Councilor Loretta Smith said.

The resolution allows city staff to work with PSU on plans to potentially build a new city-owned performing arts venue on campus. That theater would have the ability to host traveling Broadway productions.

At the same time, the resolution directs staff to continue discussions around renovating the city-owned Keller Auditorium in downtown Portland, currently the city’s only Broadway-capable venue. A previous economic study commissioned by the city suggests Portland only has sufficient audience demand for one Broadway venue.

“We need to have a venue that can operate these large-scale productions,” District 2 Councilor Elana Pirtle-Guiney told her colleagues at Wednesday’s meeting. “We need to do so in a way that doesn’t create a break-in operations, which would be negative for our community for a lot of different reasons — first and foremost, the jobs, but also the access to culture and the arts. And I think this gives us the step to start to do that.”

This is the first time this version of the full city council, which expanded to 12 councilors in January 2025, has considered the fates of the Keller Auditorium and the proposed PSU project. However, questions about what to do with the earthquake-vulnerable Keller have been swirling around Portland City Hall for years.

Portland State University shows city its plans, if council backs new performing arts center

Portland city leaders began wrestling with the dilemma of downtown performance venues in the summer of 2024, with the previous city council hearing multiple proposals. Two possibilities emerged as the top choices: building a new performing arts venue at PSU or renovating the Keller Auditorium.

Renovating is a challenge because the Keller actively stages Broadway shows and performances from the Oregon Ballet Theatre, the Portland Opera and others. Shutting it down for construction could mean missing out on numerous performances, and the hundreds of jobs and millions of dollars that go with them.

So, in October 2024, councilors essentially said yes to moving forward with renovating the Keller and building a new theater.

City staff, with input from advocates of both projects, sketched out a plan to keep the Keller open while a new venue is built at PSU. That plan anticipated that once the new theater opened, the Keller would close down for renovations.

By keeping the Keller open during construction of the new venue, the city could continue hosting Broadway shows. Then, when the Keller is being renovated, the thousands of workers that help put on shows would shift to the new PSU venue. In the end, however, Portland would have two Broadway-capable venues, which a city-commissioned economic analysis found wasn’t feasible.

But in spite of the unwieldy costs of the two-venue plan, and the analysis finding insufficient demand for two facilities, the resolution that City Council approved this week continues to push that plan forward. However, it directs city staff to also study the impact of turning the Keller Auditorium into a 1,200-to-1,800-seat, seismically-sound theater, meaning it wouldn’t be big enough to host traveling Broadway productions.

To renovate or build new? Portland City Council answers ‘yes’

City Council President Jamie Dunphy told his colleagues he enthusiastically supports the proposed project at PSU. It would create a 3,000-seat theatre owned by the city but housed on the university campus.

Portland State plans to make the venue the heart of its upgraded performing arts curriculum. Leaders at the school also have named potential development partners and scored some private funding for an adjacent hotel and smaller venue.

“By moving forward in partnership with Portland State University, the city will be tapping into one of the most effective and proven capital project development teams in our region,” Dunphy said at Wednesday’s meeting, “who have clearly and repeatedly committed to spending their staff time, energy, and reputation on raising private dollars for what will be a city-owned asset, and who are proposing a joint approach on funding ongoing regular maintenance throughout the multi-building complex.”

District 2 Councilor Dan Ryan was among the minority that voted no on the resolution. Ryan instead supports renovating the Keller Auditorium, and told councilors the city could find creative ways to continue Broadway programming during construction.

“The origin of this resolution is based on the fear of us not taking care of business during construction and the fantasy that we’ll find a billion dollars for two new large-scale performance halls that are not needed,” Ryan said. “Time to be reasonable and improve on what we are already responsible for and not add further government-induced blight to a core area of downtown.”

Future of Keller Auditorium still hazy as city council asks groups to merge renovation and replacement proposals

While councilors disagreed on the best path forward in terms of venues, they agreed on two other points: they want to support arts in the city and that Portland is short on cash. It’s unclear where money would come from to fund renovations of the Keller or a new venue at PSU.

However, leaders at PSU say they’ll likely need some sort of funding commitment before the end of the year. City councilors expect to consider how much, if any, public money should flow to the project in December.

“I think we’re going to be back right in the same place that we are, but we’ll have more information,” Council Vice President Olivia Clark said. “And that’s not a bad thing.”

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2026/09/09/portland-council-no-money-downtown-venues/