More than two years after the NASL N.Y. Cosmos "proposed a 25,000-seat soccer stadium, hotel and retail complex at Belmont Park, inaction by state officials has prompted the team to consider alternative locations" for the $400M privately funded project, according to Robert Brodsky of NEWSDAY. Bidders said that since then, they have "received little information" from the Empire State Development Corp. and "some have grown frustrated with the lack of a decision." Cosmos COO Erik Stover said that the delays "have led the team to consider other sites in Nassau, Suffolk, Queens, Brooklyn, Westchester and New Jersey." He added that the lack of a permanent home "makes it difficult to sell season tickets." Stover: "Belmont is still our first, second and third option. But we would not be doing our job unless we were looking at other sites. It would be foolish to limit our scope" (NEWSDAY, 3/24).
IS SOMETHING BETTER THAN NOTHING? Indiana state Sen. Luke Kenley yesterday said that NASL club Indy Eleven Owner Ersal Ozdemir should "put up his own money" now that the Indianapolis Tax & Fiscal Policy Committee approved $20M for "renovating IUPUI's Carroll Stadium" for the club. In Indianapolis, Mark Alesia notes the committee "first nixed the original idea" of a new $82M stadium, then "voted 13-0 to send the bill to renovate Carroll Stadium to the full Senate." Kenley: "How fancy or how nice the stadium will be will depend on what he wants to put in. The amount of money we're putting in would rehabilitate the current stadium" (INDIANAPOLIS STAR, 3/25).
