Playing with Fire and Thorns: Portland’s New $150M center puts women’s sports center stage

What you probably already know: For decades, women’s sports teams were forced to practice in community centers, share weight rooms with local colleges, work their schedules around men’s teams and use facilities rarely built with their gender in mind. The ownership group behind both the WNBA’s expansion club Portland Fire and National Women’s Soccer League’s (NWSL) Portland Thorns FC is out to change that. RAJ Sports, the investment platform led by the Bhathal family, has invested $150 million to repurpose an existing suburban office complex in Hillsboro, Oregon, previously occupied by Nike to create a campus it envisions will become “the global epicenter of women’s sport.”

Why it matters: Now called the Kaiser Permanente Performance Center, the campus broke ground last year and will open in phases beginning this summer. Key features include a 63,000-square-foot training facility, two full-sized soccer pitches, a 17,000-square-foot practice gym featuring two full-sized basketball courts, a strength training facility and a dining room with a full-time chef and nutritionist. “Building an innovative training facility that provides the best possible environment for our athletes will be a game changer for women’s sports,” Lisa Bhathal Mirage says. “Our goal is to create the most inclusive and welcoming environment as we strive to be an elite organization on the field, on the court and in the community.”

What it means: As women’s sports gains unprecedented traction — McKinsey & Co. estimates the U.S. market could skyrocket to $250 million by 2030, a whopping 250% increase from just two years ago — numerous teams are building elite facilities in what’s been dubbed an infrastructure arms race. A few examples: The WNBA’s Seattle Storm in 2024 opened a $64 million Center for Basketball Performance;  the NWSL’s Kansas City Current constructed CPKC Stadium, a $117 million, 11,500-seat arena noted for being the first soccer stadium in the world built explicitly for a professional women’s sports team; and two years ago the WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury opened a $100 million, 58,000-square-foot private facility with two dedicated courts, a cinematic film room and customized hot and cold plunge pools.

What happens next: “I grew up playing soccer,” Hillsboro Mayor Beach Pace said at the groundbreaking of the Fire-Thorn facility. “When I was looking at where I could play in college, I was told, ‘Don’t worry about it, because no one will ever pay to see women play sports.’ I get very emotional because I was told opportunities like this wouldn’t exist.” RAJ Sports recently signed a long-term lease expansion for Thorn and Fire headquarters with Workspace Property Management on land surrounding the facility at the 12-acre Evergreen Corporate Center. RAJ remains the anchor tenant. Workspace CEO Tom Rizk says the location will become “the undeniable home of women’s sports in the Pacific Northwest.”