Me, too. Turf is much cheaper to maintain. Still, this is bad news. No full indoor practice facility sucks. What is the point if we cannot do all our stuff there? Turf points against a USL side playing there.
It appears that the Crew will be settling for a decidedly second rate practice facility. Look at what others are building. Aside from the stadium - which really only amounts to one full size practice field - and now one with plastic grass to boot - there are colleges with better overall facilities. Particularly with the lack of indoor space and no particular physical/medical/training facility, it's looking pretty bush league. Maybe the players will be provided with a Fitbit and a membership to Curves. They may suck, but they'll have shapely tushies. Practice on grass in the rain and snow, get game fit by powerwalking at the Park of Roses. Perfect.
The high-end indoor field was quietly axed a few months ago. And that, of course, just doesn't make sense, this being Ohio. The team could always transform one of their practice fields into this: https://www.thefarleygroup.com/soccer-domes.htm But any way you slice it, as Bill says, this doesn't seem like a first rate facility. What's odd is that the architecture firm doing the stadium has vast experience designing world class training facilities. I also find it just strange that, by all the reporting we've seen so far, the entire Mapfre project is supposed to be paid for by public funds. I get it that ownership is giving $1M a year for 30 years (or something like that) in philanthropy. Love it. Just seems odd that they'd not kick in funds to build their own training facility. That lack of financial investment, the appearance that corners are being cut for the training facility, and the downsizing of the community center bothers me (especially as a Columbus taxpayer). Re: the overall cost, I'm sure that there are substantial savings in using existing resources in Mapfre as part of the new facility. Locker rooms, offices, obviously a (turf) field. I know next to nothing about just how robust those facilities are, though, and there is almost nothing online that really lays out the current stadium's features. Something just stinks about the whole arrangement. It wouldn't shock me if the whole Mapfre-redevelopment project fell apart.
I'm almost hopeful that it does fall about @Minnman I think it's great that they're trying to give something back to Columbus via a park, but I just don't see the point, especially as the scope continues to get dialed back. It would likely be more beneficial to the city and state to bulldoze Mapfre and return it to original state. The space could be used for additional fare parking, a quarter horse arena or whatever. The trouble with forgoing that land is that there aren't a lot of 50 acre plots in the actual city of Columbus where they could build an 8 field complex with all the bells and whistles. Then you lose that goodwill of city/club partnership and have to start looking for bidders in Hilliard, Grove City or Gahana. Not that there is anything wrong with that in the grand scheme. In the long term, looking to build out an academy, having more space and the buy-in of a large suburb might be better. I've advocated for this type of thing from the moment I heard about the proposal for Mapfre. I just don't get it.
The smell in the air is a little acrid. You are willing to just throw in an extra $70 million for the stadium project/development, but you are scaling back your training facility, which is arguably, potentially, *more* important than the stadium?
Do we know if the scaling back is because of the Crew trying to cut cost or to appease requests/demands from the fairgrounds?
The team seems to be in a tough spot here. Out of Obetz at year's end. Probably stuck training at Mapfre next year. Then what??? They almost have to find a way of making this work. And, again, near as I can tell, new ownership hasn't committed one penny directly to the Mapfre project yet. The best news I've read is that Virgil Strickler dude is now in favor of the project. Woo-hoo.
As I hear this type of info, I can only conclude the long term plan is something other than the Fairgrounds.
I think you all are missing a piece of the training facility in the exhibits. It appears there will be a building of some sort on west side of stadium. I'm assuming this will be team locker room, cafe, offices, Medical, weight room etc. There also still seems to be some other sort of building structure in the current B lot. I'm OK with turfing Fre so it can easily be used by team in inclement weather (especially if no indoor field being included), but also for other events - HS, clubs,concerts.
Meanwhile, 90 miles south...... https://www.fccincinnati.com/post/2019/11/06/mhtc-sets-new-standard-fcc-mls-alike Again, either do it right or do not do it at all. We drop an extra $70 million on the stadium but decide to chintz at Mapfre? Something is most definitely rotten in Denmark here.
That video makes it look much larger of facility than it really is. It is nice but nothing like what RSL built.
I've only caught a glimpse of a rendering of the Mapfre training site but the actual training center building immediately adjacent (attached?) to the west side of the stadium looks very small and unimpressive. This may not matter to you or me or future fans of this team. It may very much matter to future prospective players of this team, especially big money foreign players as well as high potential young guys. This is where they will work their daily 9 to 5, so to speak....not at the cool new stadium. It could lead to a player interested in a MLS move choosing another team over us. That's why I'm really hoping we get it right. I see no reason to need to have training at Mapfre. Keep Mapfre Stadium as a civic amenity and maybe a couple extra fields. Give the rest back to the fairgrounds. Build our training center in the suburbs where theres plenty of room and your actually close to where a decent amount of players probably actually live.
I wonder how much of the problem is because MAPFRE may have become a bit of an albatross around the teams neck. They'd like to still be able to use it, for lots of possibles including USL, maybe NWSL, certainly A academy games and the like, plus community goodwill uses, high school championships and so forth. On top of which, in order to get government involvement ( read: money) they had to devote space for "community" and "neighborhood" use. Add in the severe lack of elbow room around the stadium itself and it's just not a great setup. Maybe if Lowes were to go bankrupt and vacate that parcel there'd be some possibilities. But Lowes isnt going anywhere. Otherwise you're trying to shoehorn a professional soccer training complex into a few acres that you're sharing with the local Saturday mor ing sandbox league.
Combine this with the thread about some other potential changes and I am viewing our new ownership slightly different. They bought the team and are investing 300 million into a stadium but this stuff just doesn’t add up all.
So, I’ve just been casually browsing many threads recently (after STC and this season I need a break), in a sentence or two (or a very helpful link) why is everyone concerned about ownership now?
Rumors about a rebrand/getting rid of yellow almost completely appear to have validity. Also, nothing positive has happened as far as plans for the training facility-the only update has been that its been scaled back-so at the moment the whole thing seems pretty rinky dink.
I'm not here to be a grand defender of the new owners. But I'm really guessing that something else comes/happens for the training facility and it won't be Mapfre and surrounds as originally intended. Getting rid of yellow... no idea what they'll end up doing.
I'm in the camp of "wait and see what happens" on all this.... So far, all I've seen is speculation, and nothing truly concrete.
I don't know that "everyone" being "concerned about ownership" is even close to an accurate characterization. Unless there's some expectation that we, as fans, are simply mind numbed robots who clap and giggle with glee at every last thing that the Crew says or does, then people expressing reservations or doubts about one thing or another is.....gosh, I dunno, what would the word be....oh yes: Normal. Now it's true there is a school of thought in these parts that accuses Crew fans of being a bunch of dolts who are so drunk with Keeping the Crew that they'd be fine with the new management showing up at their door for a quick roll in the hay with your wife while you make sandwiches, but I assure you that in the majority of cases this simply isn't the case.