The investment group attempting to bring a Major League Soccer team to Philadelphia has selected Rossetti to design its $115 million stadium.
“If the project moves ahead, it will be led by our Michigan team,” said Andrew Leeson, Rossetti’s director of marketing in Los Angeles.
Nick Sakiewicz, the former AEG New York executive serving as the investment group’s point man for stadium development, confirmed that Rossetti would get the job.
Rossetti has designed four MLS stadiums: Home Depot Center in Carson, Calif., Toyota Park in Bridgeview, Ill.; Real Salt Lake’s $110 million facility opening this fall in Sandy, Utah; and Red Bull Park in Harrison, N.J., which could cost $150 million when it opens in 2009.
The Philadelphia consortium includes iStar Financial CEO Jay Sugarman; James Nevels, chairman of the Swarthmore Group; and the Buccini/Pollin Group, a local developer whose principals include David Pollin, nephew of Washington Wizards owner Abe Pollin.
In late January, they reached an agreement with Pennsylvania Gov. Edward Rendell to build an 18,500-seat soccer facility on a waterfront site in Chester, a Philadelphia suburb. The state will chip in $47 million to help build the stadium, and team owners will finance the balance.
The stadium, planned for an MLS expansion team,
would be along the water in Chester, Pa.
The stadium would anchor a proposed $500 million mixed-use development containing a convention center, office space, apartments and townhouses, a riverside promenade, and parking garage.
As of early February, Major League Soccer had not made a decision whether to put its 16th team in Philadelphia. A group in St. Louis wants to bring a team to that market and build a stadium across the Mississippi River in Collinsville, Ill.
MLS Commissioner Don Garber said at the league’s draft last month that another team would likely not start playing until 2010.
VEGAS UPDATE: An AEG-Harrah’s joint venture continued negotiating terms with an architect last week for the design of a $300 million big league arena set to open just outside Las Vegas in October 2010.
If HOK Sport doesn’t get the job, it will be the biggest upset in sports architecture since 2004, when HKS nabbed the contract to design Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. HOK has worked with Icon Venue Group, AEG’s facility development partner, to plan eight arenas and stadiums.
“We’ve got our work cut out to make that [2010 deadline], but we’re told the land site will be available for us in September,” said Tim Leiweke, AEG’s president and CEO. The joint venture’s goal is to attract an NHL tenant.
KNIGHT’S CASTLE: Ellerbe Becket’s design for the University of Oregon’s $200 million arena does not contain suites. That does not mean, however, that Nike co-founder and retired chairman Phil Knight and 300 of his closest friends will not have a private enclave to escape to when they’re not sitting in some of the best seats in the house.
The plan is to develop three hospitality areas reserved for the 44 to 48 courtside seat holders and the 4,000 to 5,000 club seats patrons, including the Founders Club, a group suite with a capacity of 300 underneath the stands for the 30 donors contributing $1 million or more to help pay for building the arena.
“Those 30 people would get 10 passes to go to this bunker suite, which would allow them to go there during pregame, halftime and postgame,” said Oregon Athletic Director Pat Kilkenny.
Knight sits in the first row at the midcourt stripe at McArthur Court, where the Ducks have played since 1927.
“He tends to enjoy courtside seating, and my guess is when we allow our significant donors to pick seats, he would certainly be at the front of the queue,” Kilkenny said.
Don Muret can be reached at dmuret@sportsbusinessjournal.com.
