HILLSBOROUGH, Ore. — Walking through the brand new training center of the Portland Thorns and the Portland Fire is a practice in seeing double.
The 100,000-square-foot facility, which cost more than $150 million, houses two full-sized basketball courts for the WNBA expansion team, and two full-sized soccer fields — one grass, one turf — for the three-time NWSL champion Thorns.
There are two team lounges, one for each team, outfitted with plush couches, throw pillows and blankets, and plenty of the athletes’ preferred snacks, from Cheez-Its to peanut butter and jelly-filled dates. Two locker rooms with ample shelf space for each player (plus a little extra for goalkeepers) and a USB-C outlet inside each locker so players can charge their devices while they train. Two meeting rooms for teams and operations staff. Two saunas pierced with sleek, recessed lighting.
But the common spaces at the Kaiser Permanente Performance Center are just as intentional.
The treatment area, 5,000-square-foot weight room, and cafeteria are shared by both teams. That is where professional soccer player-turned-women’s sports executive Karina LeBlanc believes the real transformation can happen.
Soccer and basketball players might sit with each other at breakfast, LeBlanc imagined, and “be like, ‘Hey, what you listening to? Where’d you go last night?’” posited LeBlanc, the former Thorns general manager who is now the executive vice president of strategic growth and development at Raj Sports, the investment firm run by the Bhathal family, which owns both teams.
“It’s also for an athlete who’s struggling. Who is being seen by somebody who cares about them, who may have gone through something similar.”
That is the revolutionary mathematics of this first-of-its kind, dual-sport training ground. From the grand schemes to the minute details, every surface, light, furniture arrangement, and amenity feels intentionally designed for the modern-day, high-performing professional female athlete. That it houses a storied NWSL side and an expansion WNBA team is a fitting expression of the possibilities in women’s sports that have long thrived in Portland.
Raj Sports announced its plans for the performance center last February. At that time, the Fire were known only as Portland WNBA, a placeholder for the eventual team name that would honor the city’s first WNBA team of the same name that existed from 2000 to 2002. And they certainly hadn’t made their first signing in Canadian forward Bridget Carleton in the expansion draft, which took place more than a year later on April 3, 2026.
On Thursday, Carleton sat alongside LeBlanc, South Carolina women’s basketball head coach Dawn Staley, Paralympian Scout Bassett, and Thorns striker Sophia Wilson on a panel at the Epicenter Women’s Global Sports Summit. The convening of high-level operators across women’s sports took place at the Nike World Headquarters in Beaverton, Ore., and culminated in the formal unveiling of the performance center.
“I knew that we were going to be a priority here,” Carleton told The Athletic, which weighed into her decision to sign a three-year contract with the Fire. “Our owners really, really take care of us and the Thorns.”
Player feedback informed that care. The performance center was designed by the global architecture firm Populous, and its women’s professional sports director, Sherri Privitera, was an active listener. She learned through her conversations with athletes that some only wash their hair once a week and avoid getting their hair wet in the showers outside of those wash days. Installing handheld showerheads, Privitera said, was an easy solution.
Coziness is a far cry from the feeling a professional sports team’s training facility conjures, but it’s how Carleton described her team’s new headquarters in Hillsborough, about 15 miles from the Fire’s home arena at the Moda Center, and around 11 miles from the Thorns’ Providence Park. The matte black paint that covers the exterior of the building, once a Nike office complex, does not give off a cozy vibe, either. But the interior tells a different story.
Light, creamy-colored wallpaper gives the impression of wood, like maple, and the lounge furniture follows a similarly neutral color story. The carpet and ceiling of the dimly lit wellness room both feature the same forest pattern that brings the majestic firs of the Pacific Northwest into the space. Athletes can receive massages in private rooms or meditate in the open area.
That contrast is exactly how Lisa Bhathal Merage wanted it.
Fire team president Clare Hamill said the owner had a strong hand in the vision for the feel of the facility. “There’s this design philosophy that was used, which has this exterior shell that feels pretty strong, like a woman,” Hamill said. “It feels strong on the outside, but on the inside, it’s a little softer.”
Carleton added, “You walk in and you could tell it’s built for women and built by women. It’s really an incredible feel.”
A woman will also oversee the athletes’ medical care. Dr Jacqueline Brady is an orthopedic surgeon who specializes in sports medicine and is the team physician for the Thorns and Fire. Her office is located in the treatment area of the performance center, allowing her to meet not only with athletes, but with their teams’ training and operations staff.
“It’s really important to foster autonomy, and to foster the athlete’s ownership of the process and to really understand all the pressures,” said Brady, who played basketball at Vanderbilt before going to medical school. “What I think they’re worried about doesn’t always match what they’re actually worried about. Sometimes I’m thinking they’re terrified of the surgery that I’m offering, but really it’s the milieu of like: well, who’s rehabbing me? What do they have going on? Is the team gonna be on the road, and what is the timing?
“All these things come into play, so having a facility like this, where all of those people who can interpret those important and motivating factors can feed that information into this collaborative approach to fostering athlete autonomy, to really trying to block out all the external factors and focus on (the question of) do you trust your body right now?”
The spirit of collaboration is woven into some of the performance center’s design. One of Brady’s favorite features is the retractable wall that can split the training room into two separate spaces.
“If you need more space when you’re the Thorns, and you have x-number of trialists coming through, and the Fire haven’t started their season yet, you raise the wall. You use the whole space, and it’s flexible,” she said. “Or if you want collaboration in some way with the physical therapists to develop the very best ACL rehab protocol, that becomes one space pretty easily.”
Brady is also excited about the Alter G, a treadmill with a harness fastened to it. The athlete steps into it like a pair of shorts, and the machine carries some of their weight when they run. The lightened load can allow some athletes to accelerate the “return to run” part of their recovery plans after sustaining an injury or undergoing surgery, Brady said.
The new WNBA collective bargaining agreement signed in 2026 mandates certain facility standards beginning in 2028, but the Fire’s space already exceeds those requirements. In recent years, the facilities race specifically has gained pace in the WNBA, ever since the Las Vegas Aces debuted their own standalone facility in 2023. The Seattle Storm and Phoenix Mercury followed in 2024, and then Golden State in 2025. The Kansas City Current in the NWSL have led the way with CPKC Stadium, the first purpose-built venue in the league that set a new bar for other clubs to meet.
Multiple WNBA teams have projects under construction, but Portland — even as an expansion team — is ahead of the curve in opening its own space. The organization had a goal to get its first team in the building, and the Fire will get to spend the last month of their WNBA season in the brand-new facility.
One year into its new existence, Portland already has a recruiting tool in free agency. What prospect wouldn’t see hot and cold recovery pools, state-of-the-art Nike and Lifetime Fitness equipment, and dedicated family rooms with baby-changing tables, and feel inspired?
“The Kaiser Permanente Performance Center represents the kind of long-term investment we believe is essential to building a world-class sports organization,” said Alex Bhathal in a statement following the facility’s unveiling. “We had an opportunity to think beyond what exists today and build for where professional sports is going, creating an enduring home for our athletes, teams and the Portland community that we believe can serve as a blueprint for the next generation of performance facilities.”
Carleton doesn’t expect to pick up any soccer tips from her NWSL counterparts, though she expects her European teammates can kick a ball around, but there is so much more to collaborate on. Mental preparation, recovery strategies, and how to interact with the community are all sure to be topics of conversation in the meal room. Thorns manager Robert Vilahamn told Hamill earlier in the week that he can’t wait to walk down the hall and discuss coaching tactics with Fire head coach Alex Sarama.
“Two incredible women’s brands under one ownership group in a city that is crazy about women’s sports,” Hamill said. “It’s different than anybody else can do, and we kind of like that.”
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
Portland Thorns, Portland Fire, WNBA, Women's Soccer
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