Crew Stadium 2.0 - Construction News and Notes

MLS 1.0 -- Build a stadium wherever the land was affordable. If it meant Dublin or Frisco, so be it. At least then the practice facility could be right there.

MLS Whatever_The_Hell_It_Is_Now -- Downtown, except if you're select teams. In these cases, an "alternate Downtown" is ok.

What are the odds on the next team getting their second stadium? (Teams that don't play in stadiums where they're the primary tenant don't count. This includes Chicago.)

 

That’s easy, it’s Miami

 

Wasn't DC the primary tenant, in fact the only tenant, at RFK? But that really isn't in the spirit of the question.

I suppose Miami counts but really they have always just been waiting for their real place to get built. The current flamingo nest was never intended as a permanent home.

I guess you have to day Colorado, depending on what that POS Kroenke does. He wants to develop all that vacant land around The Dick, with all the usual hotelrestaurant medical etc etc , and is trying to get more land from Commerce City, which seems reluctant to let him have it.

But I haven't heard them say he wants a new place, although God knows they need it. Rather, he wants to renovate the old dilapidated shit hole.

And unless they get a really big helicopter, the place will still be 10 miles from downtown, ie around 3 times farther than HCS, which Garber said was unacceptable.

 

Is anyone else really ready for a new stadium? Everyone has fond memories of HCS, but it was an erector set stadium. It is doubtful Hunt thought it was going to be the club's home 20 years down the road. It was really just a proof-of-concept for the league. Maybe LA Galaxy with the first sunken-bowl "suburban-location" stadium is the closet analogy, but I doubt they are looking to change venue any time soon. Chicago abandoning Bridgeview was wild, and it seems like they're having trouble getting new digs. It would be very Chicago if the city let the Bears move to the burbs only to agree to replace Solider Field with a soccer stadium of a shit club.

 

I honestly thought of LAG as the first answer to this question. Ive never been to Carson but does that place have the amenities to keep up with LAFC and the rest of MLS?

 

I don’t really know. I do know there were major upgrades done when the Chargers played there. It’s also true that - unlike nearly all clubs who built stadiums shortly after Crew Stadium was built - AEG spent real money on theirs. It was about a $90 million stadium, more than 20 years ago. AEG also owns it, which presumably makes it harder for them to leave.

Anyway, it seems to have aged well, and has received some major upgrades. It’s also a pretty heavily scheduled facility, being that it hosts concerts, friendlies, rugby, will be an Olympic site in 2028.

 

The original lease was for 25 years with an option for 25 more.

The timing of the sale by HSG, combined with the end of the Mapfre deal was notable. Looking back on it, did anyone know when the Mapfre deal was to expire? IIRC, it wasn't announced, but how could we not have known? Hindsight truly is 20/20.

My guess for "SSS replacing SSS" would be either Dallas or Colorado.

 

When the then-HDC was built, AEG compared it to ours with the line of "We are sugar and they are NutraSweet."

 

I was thinking Dallas as well but they have the US Soccer HOF there so I'm not sure they would move. That and the Hunts are somewhat cheap. Not sure they could get public money for a new stadium.

 

That's the sort of thing assholes say, so I'm sure they said it.

 

https://www.bizjournals.com/columbus/news/2021/01/29/crew-training-site-lease-payment.html

 

Good call with the HOF, unless if that becomes their MLS NP site and they do a new stadium in a better location. Of course, what a lot of us remember is that the league's original mindset was to build a stadium wherever it was feasible. If it meant our stadium being built in Marysville or London, then so be it. (IIRC, part of the plan for the Dublin proposal was it be underground to be filled with dirt in the case of the league folding.) I think even London *was* proposed as a stadium site at one point.

Of course the Mapfre deal was semi-leaked when a fan stumbled upon all sorts of signs/logos at the stadium.

What a lot of people may not remember was circa 2002-05 when Scott's was lined up for some sort of major sponsorship deal. Each of the four upper concourses was adorned with a giant logo since 1999 or so. One was Pepsi, one was OhioHealth, I believe one was Huntington and the fourth was left open for the company who'd buy the stadium naming rights. Well, the only thing the FO would say was how Scott's was being courted for something larger than the corner.

Whatever was planned never came to be, but judging by the amount of signage around the stadium that week, I think we can all take a reasonable guess.

 

This is all facts my seats are in 138 but I did sit in Huntington area seats were great in players box for MLS cup. Thing is season ticket price is double of that of Típico which I picked.
( my phone keeps thinking this word must be typed in español jajaja)

Price was my deciding factor , the sun is in your face when it’s cold like Crewsmas made me warm but better wear a hat in summer and sunglasses for the first half.

 

Have they worked out the "no drinking at tailgates" thing yet? I know that being on college property kinda makes some things trickier for them.

 

Doesn't count since it was existing and was the stadium for Miami 1.0 as well. I think the question is more of "Who will have a second stadium after they already built a first one" much like us. Which rules out your Seattle or any other place that retrofit their teams into something existing. Portland is kinda half and half because they added a lot of seats to that place and kicked the baseball team out. They sank a lot of money into that place to make it soccer only.

My money is on Dallas. I know the Hunts are cheap, but I'd wager that Don is gonna be like "OK, I've given you a long time out in Bum********, get a closer stadium more befitting of the museum or I'm moving it to Columbus."

But before that, he had better damn well make sure that the Revs and NYCFC have broken ground on stadiums of their own.

 

No drinking at tailgates? I definitely remember Angel City Brigade hosting a tailgate for us that had a keg in 2008.

 

I mean yeah, they had the lease for x amount of years, but I suspect Lamar Hunt’s thoughts were something like: 1. This league could very well fail but at least I won’t be out a hundred million on a stadium 2. The league will succeed and I (the club) will need a more permanent professional stadium in a couple decades. Nothing about the build of HCS said “we expect to be here for 50 years”.

 

But--it could have. There are other stadia of that type (Erector Set) that have stood far longer and are still in use. It wasn't a bad compromise for it's time, though.

 

I fell in love with it the first time I saw pictures of it. Yeah, it wasn't top of the line, but it was actually historic and perfect in so many ways.

 

Considering the length of our lease at the training facility and the fact that HCS turns 25 this May, there seems to be zero reason to think that it won't still be there at 50, 60, etc years, too. It'll need periodic upgrades - mechanical infrastructure, like plumbing, won't last forever - but it serves a valuable purpose for the team and hosts events for which it's an ideal venue. We're fortunate to be in this situation.

 

Whatever they built had to be built quickly. There were nine months and one day between groundbreaking and the first game. The ticket windows weren't ready until the days after the inaugural game and the office wasn't ready until later that summer.

...also part of the reason for the erector set.

Sure, they probably could have played another 3-4 games on the road, but the options for temporary home stadiums weren't many.

 

Probably not without completely rebuilding it. And at that point, what's the point? The location sucked.

 

That wasn't my point. I don't disagree. My point was that it was could have lasted 50 years had that been needed.