Dream Big, Or Don't Bother [J. LaRoue, OnTheSidelines & DCUnitedStadium]

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yeah that would be a nice complex if they could get the money.

 

Can anyone say "pipedream"?

With all due respect to the author, this is one unattainable dream..

A project he is dreaming of will certainly cost over $100 million duckets and the DC government simply will never let it happen..

Just be happy if we get a 28k seat semi-modern stadium..

Let's face the facts here, we all love soccer and want it to succeed on the National level, but it simply won't anytime soon.. The reasons are too numerous and too various to get into at the moment.. I for one do my part by being a now 8 year season ticket holder for United and obviously adding my thoughts on this forum, but in all honesty, were fighting an uphill battle here...

 

I agree with Cweedchop. This is laugably impossible. To begin with, the only place where this dream is even remotely possible is in Virginia, as Maryland is already overbuilt and anything inside DC is subject to the DCSEC, which would surely kill any profit potential a stadium of that magnitude would need to bring. As far as the physical space for the fields ... it's non-existant in DC.

Theoretically I love the ideas of retractable fields, one FieldTurf for everything else (including concerts etc.) and another of real grass specifically for DC United. But realistically, the mechanism for moving and storing those are egregiously expensive. If something like that did ever become a possibility, I'd very much advocate for one universal FieldTurf retractable field and another--DC United Only--grass field.

The idea of a partial roof is legitimate and a good one. The idea of a retractable roof is less likely, but not entirely out of the question. With a retractable roof the usage of the facility gains a good 5 extra months per year (Mid October through Mid March). Plus, it opens up the venue to other activities that are rain-sensitive. But my understanding was that most of those retractable roof deals were in the range of $60M and up for the roof alone. I have difficulty seeing it as worthwhile unless a less expensive solution can be found.

I think DC United should abandon the hope of having youth fields by the stadium. It's nice, but it's not essential. The Quin Park site had potential as a DC United practice site with youth fields, but it's location deep into Virginia and away from the Metro make it unacceptable as a location for a stadium. Anywhere that would be acceptable for a stadium location (i.e. on a Metro line) would be too expensive to buy enough land to turn into youth fields. It's nice that Dallas is doing that, but land isn't an issue there like it is here.

I like this guy's heart, but I don't think his dream is realistic. Heck, there's a much bigger chance of a DC United stadium being built in Virginia next to a new Virginia baseball stadium (a block from the Rosslyn Metro) than there is of getting what this author is suggesting. And let's just say I'm not going to hold my breath on either.

-Tron