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Report: New details about Orlando City’s stadium made public

Phi Rawlins Don Garber Orlando City (Orlando City)

By FRANCO PANIZO

David Beckham and his looming Miami franchise will not be the only MLS club in Florida to grab headlines for their planned stadium this week.

Following several days of Beckham making public appearances in the Sunshine State to try and convince government officials to allow him to build a soccer-specific stadium in PortMiami, new details regarding Orlando City’s future home have been revealed via a report from local broadcast network WFTV.

The report cites the construction agreement for Orlando City’s state-of-the-art facility in Parramore, and says it will hold more than 18,000 fans and include 2,500 club seats. It will also have 300 seats in specialty suites and the square footage of the downtown stadium is 290,000 square feet, with 120,000 of those dedicated to its bowl.

There were no images of what the stadium will look like when it is completely constructed some time in summer 2015, but building it will cost a total of $84 million. Construction will cost $69 million and the remaining $15 million is needed for land an infrastructure.

Additionally, the stadium will include retail shops, restaurants and bars.

Construction for the stadium is expected to begin in late spring and Orlando City is scheduled to begin play in MLS at a temporary venue in March 2015 before moving into their soccer-specific stadium later that year.

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What do you think of Orlando City’s stadium details? Anxious to see some official renderings? Salivating at the thought of MLS having two shiny soccer-specific stadiums in Florida in the coming years?

Share your thoughts below.

Comments

  1. @ Ivan and Kojo.
    Why would OCSC go with artificial turf? This is florida,were it’s sunny almost every day of the year and we can grow perfect grass.

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  2. Just no more galaxy stadiums. Galaxy, rsl, union, dallas, are old school 🙂
    So what if galaxy remodel their stadium or get a new one, then what people will say. What if columbus goes all out and makes a red bull arena type downtown. People say galaxy stadium is perfect and needs zero upgrades?wtf thats old school
    Crew fans say, we r happy with our stadium?
    I can wait till miami, nycfc, orlando come with sexy stadiums like skc and red bull.
    MLS is not a third world country for soccer, right, then make better stadiums 🙂
    For exampl, earthquakes stadium needs a reality check and why didn’t dynamo.do a full roof cover like skc.
    Oh and rapids stadium 🙂 where they high ir something.

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  3. Lol you people seem to think MLS stadiums are 40k and packed out every week. If they sell out at 18k that’s better then all but 4 or 5 clubs. So I don’t see what’s the complaining about. Expand when needed don’t over build because you can.

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    • My original comment didn’t assume 40k attendance nor did anyone else’s. Generalizations and hyperbole are convenient for generating blog comments.

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      • hyperbole or not, his point still remains valid. the avg attendance in the MLS is 18,807. to compare, Serie A’s avg attendance is 23,459.

        so why is building a stadium with 18k seats for a expansion team a bad idea? the goal is to sell out. There will be room for expanding the stadium as the team gains fans etc…… people saying that it should have started seating at 23k are not being realistic. MLS is not Serie A…..

      • Based on both of your summaries, if this article and its comments were a book report, you would get an F.
        Maybe a passing grade for effort and congeniality.

  4. So everybody understands, this is the first phase of a two phase construction plan. Phase 1 builds 18,000 seats while Phase 2 includes offices and additional seating bringing the number to around 22,500. The timeline of Phase 2 is unclear but there are reasonable hopes that Phase 2 construction plans will be rolled into the initial build so the stadium opens at the 22,500 number. As for people not seeing how this is going to be successful, you have to understand what is being done. A quick article is a lousy way to build a belief about something. There is a great track record of not only the club and its leadership but the central Florida area as a supporting fan base. There are no “ifs” and “hopes”, there are solid realities that are being built on and those cannot be minimized.

    Also, what this news report is referring to is a vote by the city commissioners on Monday to approve the build plan. The city is going to own the stadium so they get the right to approve it. There is very little in this report that hasnt already been said dozens of times but this is the confirmation that this is the plan going forward and will be voted on (and widely expected to pass) on Monday. The club hasnt been able to say much or show what the stadium is going to look like because of this vote but all of those details should come quickly after Monday’s approval.

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      • Adam, I appreciate it. SBIs level of detail matches the content generated by the local news report, which is not very specific to the detail SBI readers and viewers look for. I guess it would be more helpful to link to that report as well. Thanks again for a detail summary.

    • Built on what? Phil packed up in the middle of the night after taking seas so ticket payments and moved to Orlando. Built not bought my a$$ stolen not earned more like it. Viva Aztecs!

      Reply
    • Everyone on this board needs to read your comment.

      I would add, the real hurdle with the OCSC stadium build has been (continues to be) the eminent domain issue with First Unted Methodist Church. We might have some half-baked-blame to throw around on that one.

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  5. This Orlando thing is a failure waiting to happen. I really don’t get it. I don’t care how successful they were in the lower leagues. This is a bad idea. A lot of if’s and hope’s in this deal.

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    • Seems to have a whole lot more figured out than the Miami project, or even NYCFC.

      Not saying Orlando will be a success, or that NY2 & Miami aren’t gonna work, but that seems an overly pessimistic perspective.

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  6. 18k seems pretty small. I know the 20k seats was the ideal set when SSS’s became all the rage after the Crew set the precedent, but with the numbers that we’re seeing with some clubs’ season ticket sales, you’d think they’d be targeting a more optimistic 25-30k mark. I think even StubHub’s 27k is looking a little small (at least for Galaxy), granted Orlando is not LA…like Jeff said it’s always easier spending someone else’s cash.

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    • OC could conceivably play big matches in the Citrus Bowl. It’s right next door and an MLS Cup or Man Utd, type friendly would fill it up.

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  7. It’s easy for me to spend someone else’s cash, but the total amount seems kind of cheap, no?

    Will there be a roof, at least above the supporters section?

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    • The low-ball figure could be used as a honey-pot to induce interest from the city (everybody wants a good deal), and then some sort of commitment to cover certain, or maybe all, cost-overruns. When politics and business mix, you can also get an instance where good money is thrown after bad even when costs increases far outpace both expectations as originally presented in planning and the inflation that occurs over the time-period of the building project.

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  8. 18,000 capacity is quite small, hope they go more like 21k or 22k. With the support they have they should be able to get those numbers I would think.

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    • I suppose they would be designing a stadium with future expansion in mind. What Salzburg did to expand for UEFA cup or a la Timbers. Too many seats at once and u flood the market with supply and therefore demand is lower and reflected in ticket prices and gross revenue.

      I agree the $69m seems low, also this announcement is a considerable PR FAIL. The same week as Miami announcements, and providing cost estimates without addl details like sexy renderings or concept package? Sounds half baked to me.

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      • From my perspective it’s probably more beneficial to put out a baked concept and plan than trying to keep up with the Beckhams.

      • Timbers didn’t build the stadium with expansion in mind. It’s a 100 hundred year old stadium that has had to have many modifications to get it to it’s current capacity.

      • The Timbers renovated, that is correct, but they didn’t open the stadiums full capacity until halfway through their first MLS season. This relates to my comment about restricting supply to create greater demand. Timbers FO totally under shot their market. Maybe they’ll put in those double counting turnstiles Rory mentioned and they’ll be over the magic number of 40k.

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