USL club Sacramento Republic FC yesterday selected Calif.-based architecture firm HNTB to "design its proposed downtown stadium," according to Dale Kasler of the SACRAMENTO BEE. This is the "latest step in the minor-league team’s 'Operation Turnkey' initiative, which is designed to complete the logistical steps needed to convince MLS to grant Republic FC admission to the big league." HNTB’s hiring came a month after Republic FC named Legends "project manager for the new stadium." Sacramento is "believed to be on the short list of cities being considered for an MLS slot after losing out to Minneapolis for a team earlier this year." MLS has "indicated it will lay out a process" in late '15 or early '16 "for selecting its next round of teams" (SACRAMENTO BEE, 8/19). In Sacramento, Ben van der Meer noted plans for the new stadium call for "20,000 to 22,000 seats in the northeast corner of the railyard, contingent on Sacramento receiving" an MLS expansion team. The team has also "started a fan-interaction process to get feedback and ideas for the stadium, from its design to its amenities to what should be developed immediately around it" (BIZJOURNALS.com, 8/19).
TWIN BILLINGS: In St. Paul, Frederick Melo noted the Federal Transit Administration decades ago helped the Twin Cities' Metro Transit "establish a bus-storage facility near Snelling and University avenues in St. Paul." The "bus barn" was torn down in '02, but the federal financing it involved "could slow the city's efforts to build" an MLS stadium for NASL club Minnesota United. Building an 18,500-seat professional soccer stadium on the 10-acre parcel "would require the blessing of the federal government." St. Paul Port Authority President Louis Jambois said that the federal government likely "would require a professional value appraisal ... as well as a review to determine how future development would link up with planned or existing public transit, among other analysis." He added that United team owners are "under mounting pressure" from MLS officials "to identify a specific site for a future stadium." Jambois: "That's where the pressure is really coming from -- it's coming from Major League Soccer to the team ownership about having some certainty about where they're going to go" (ST. PAUL PIONEER PRESS, 8/19).
DESERT OASIS? A LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL editorial noted local development firm AGP Capital "has met with city leaders and submitted the broad outlines of a proposal to convert" Cashman Field, home of the Triple-A PCL Las Vegas 51s, into a stadium "capable of attracting an existing or expansion" MLS franchise. AGP said that it "can accomplish this without the use of public funds." The editorial: "Good. The plan likely has no chance of being realized otherwise." The plan is "far more complicated than it appears, however, because the 51s' Cashman Field lease runs through" '22. AGP said that it "might first have to bring minor-league soccer to the city to prove Las Vegas is a viable MLS market, and that such a team would share Cashman with the 51s." But MLS "isn't likely to give Las Vegas a franchise without a soccer-first stadium" (LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL, 8/19).
