Oregon Public Broadcasting

Merritt Paulson, the owner of The Beavers baseball team, withdrew his proposal for a new stadium in Portland’s Lents neighborhood Friday.

That was one part of a plan to put pro-soccer in PGE Park, the Beavers’ current home.

Nick Christensen has been campaigning for months to keep the stadium out of his local Lents Park.

Nick Christensen: “We’re overjoyed that this bad plan has gone away. We’re a little bit disappointed that Mr. Paulson was unwilling to look at sites in lents that didn’t involve public parks space and wasn’t willing to look at funding plans that didn’t drain the urban renewal area of it’s resources, but the point was, this is a bad plan and now it’s off the table.”

In response to Paulson’s decision, Portland City Commissioner Randy Leonard told the Oregonian he'll no longer support Major League Soccer coming to Portland.

Paulson had planned to have a soccer team play in PGE Park by 2011 and to move the Triple A Beavers to a new venue.

Now the fate of both teams is hanging in the balance.