Portland will host a ribbon-cutting ceremony Saturday to celebrate the renaming of the Portland Expo, which will be called the James A. Banks Sr. Exposition Building.
The ceremony has been more than a year in the making. The Portland City Council on Feb. 3, 2020, voted to rename the Portland Expo, but a dedication ceremony was delayed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. City officials, officials with the Portland Sea Dogs and members of the Banks family will attend the ribbon-cutting, scheduled for 4 p.m. Saturday at the Expo.
Banks was credited with the Expo’s turnaround in the 1980s when, according to a city news release, he opposed demolition of the run-down building constructed in 1914, and “spearheaded the fight to give operational responsibility for the Expo to the school board and protect the city’s primary venue of school sports programs and activities.” Banks, as chairman of the Portland school committee during the Expo’s revitalization, was “instrumental in its incredible turnaround,” according to the news release.
Banks, 80, died on Feb. 18, 2020, of cancer.
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