![]() ![]() ![]() In a statement at the re-brand event, David Fordon, CEO and General Manager of the Solanna Group, the owners of the parcel said, “We’re quite impressed by Phoenix Rising FC’s grasp of the goal we are trying to achieve at Akimel 7 for a quality sports and entertainment environment. The land at the site is generationally owned, and the families involved are in agreement to develop the footprint. Most importantly for this race – and with two announcements promised by MLS before New Year’s Day, this is definitely a race – the stadium complex has plenty of space for a 25,000-seat stadium with amenities, and the red tape has already been cut.īack in November, 2016, when the ownership group announced that Arizona United SC would become Phoenix Rising FC, they had already established the land lease at SRPMIC that would make possible the existing USL complex, as well as a future MLS stadium, retail ventures, and whatever else would become mutually beneficial. The club already operates a shuttle to the match from the official pre-match party at nearby Tempe Marketplace. Remote though the site currently is in terms of nightlife, a great many Valley residents already depend on access to a vehicle, and a spur from the popular Metro Light Rail has been discussed. The location is not in downtown Phoenix proper, as might have been mandatory in MLS bids of the past, but ask any Phoenician, and for the moment at least, they’d much prefer south Scottsdale for a night out. The main campus of Arizona State University, one of the largest schools in the nation, is two miles away. Situated at the intersection of major Valley arterials Loop 101 and Loop 202, the complex is an easy drive from both high-dollar suburbs and high-density millennial hotspots like Tempe and Old Town Scottsdale. Phoenix Rising Soccer Complex, home of the current United Soccer League club, and proposed home of the future MLS franchise, sits at the corner of approximately 550 acres of land at the southwest extent of the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community (SRPMIC) – also known as the center of the Phoenix area’s soccer demographic. Phoenix Rising FC, once considered a dark horse in this race, is one of the only candidates facing none of the obstacles to stadium development that hampers other markets, and its ownership group has quickly and methodically achieved every objective necessary for the MLS stamp of approval. In nearly every other candidate city, similar situations are putting ambitious MLS bids in a holding pattern of maddening uncertainty, and the media circus that has erupted around them is a boon to both the league, and the bidders who are poised to rise above the rest. In San Diego, the public property targeted for stadium development cannot change hands without a vote, which is now slated to happen in November of 2018, well after MLS has concluded the expansion process. A public vote on financing a budgetary shortfall in Saint Louis stalled the MLS bid in that city. Today’s expansion applications come from cities much less densely developed than Miami or New York City, but real struggles are reducing the number of viable candidates with startling speed.Īs is the case with launching any high-profile business on a large piece of prime real estate, the primary hurdles to these efforts are political, financial, or both. Likewise in 2013, the league was understandably keen to add City Football Group to its business, but four years later, New York City FC is perhaps farther from a stadium deal than Beckham is. When David Beckham was granted the option to purchase a franchise for a mere $25 million back in 2007, MLS was in a very different place, but still, they could not have foreseen, much less desired the embarrassing situation playing out in Miami. There was a time, not that long ago, when MLS would allow a desirable ownership group access to the league’s membership with little more than a flicker of hope that an appropriate stadium would appear. Since the league’s January 31st application deadline, the fate of each of the 12 applicant cities have risen and fallen primarily on the bidding owners’ ability to deliver the number-one item on the MLS wish list: a soccer-specific stadium. Much has been made of the contentious race to secure one of the next four expansion slots into Major League Soccer.
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