Kaiser Permanente Performance Center Opens as Joint Home for Portland Thorns and Fire
Built on a former Nike site, the 12-acre, $150 million campus offers high-end training plus family-focused recovery amenities to serve as a model for future women's sports facilities.
Overview
- The Kaiser Permanente Performance Center has opened with an official ribbon-cutting and is now in use by the NWSL’s Portland Thorns and the WNBA’s Portland Fire.
- Raj Sports repurposed a former Nike office complex into the 12-acre, $150 million campus that includes two full-size outdoor soccer fields, a 17,000-square-foot gym with two basketball courts, a weight room and dedicated locker rooms for each team.
- The facility was designed with player input and includes parenting and recovery features such as two nursing and changing rooms, a fully stocked nursery, a meditation and massage area, Pilates and yoga studios, and an underwater treadmill.
- Owners Lisa Bhathal Merage and Alex Bhathal lead Raj Sports and opened the site as part of an 'Epicenter of Women's Sports' program in partnership with Nike and Kaiser Permanente, which included a Nike-hosted Women’s Global Sport Summit.
- As the first purpose-built campus explicitly serving professional teams from two women's leagues, the center aims to improve player welfare, support athlete-parents, and provide a shared-resources blueprint that could attract more private investment in women's sports.