Developers of a soccer-village in downtown Albany wants at last $100 million in state aid.
It appears that New York Governor Kathy Hochul is ready to spend public money on building a soccer stadium-village in the state capital in Albany. United Sports Development Partners wants to build a 7,500-seat stadium for a United Soccer League franchise and surround it with 1,000 apartments and related development downtown. The stadium-village would cost around $400 million and the United Sports Development Partners want at least $100 million from state in public funding. Albany has a soccer club that plays in USL League Two. United Sports Development Partners is a Connecticut-based real estate developer that specializes in mixed-use projects with a stadium as an anchor. The company helped develop a soccer-stadium village in Pawtucket Rhode Island. That stadium houses the USL’s Rhode Island FC.
The stadium could seat up to 12,000 for concerts and would house women’s and men’s teams in the United Soccer League. There are not too many other details about the stadium-village plan yet although there is some sort of plan to build a stadium-village. The United Soccer League is in a major expansion mode. The United Soccer League plans to go “major league”. The USL has been around since 2011 and has been considered a minor league or Division II grouping by the United States Soccer Federation. The USL has 24 franchises, most of them are in smaller markets which would not necessarily be considered major league markets. The league has some franchises in big-league markets including Indianapolis, Las Vegas, Miami, New York, Oakland, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Sacramento, San Antonio and the Tampa Bay area. Albany would not fit into the “major league” expansion. But it fits into another USL niche. Smaller cities getting lower level franchises once a new stadium is built. Omaha, Nebraska and Reno, Nevada plan to build stadium-village for the lower level USL league. Political leaders in those cities think the stadiums will be catalysts for economic development especially with the village surrounding the stadiums. United States Development Partners initially wanted to acquire a team in MLS Next Pro, MLS’s reserve league, but changed course and decided to pitch USL for a higher league team earlier this year.
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