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Excellent
The city looked bad tonight at the presentation.
No—-the city looked like an entity that was watching out for our tax dollars. And holding feet to the fire—-especially the potential team owner.
Big step. Good job by leadership.
Hilarious
The City stepped in it alright.
Seems to be a great thing for the potential ownership group, not really a value add proposition for taxpayers.
Great news! But should still build eleven park but take the stadium space and add more towers with increased height and a smaller beautiful glass multiple purpose venue for sports/concerts / public engagements etc…and still make money!!!
Something smells rotten here. I’m not sure what it is, but the key players don’t seem to be in a hurry to be up front and transparent. In addition, Indy residents once again get stuck with a big bill with little return on (tax dollar) investment.
Following the necessary sequence to keep process going. “Smells” begs the current popular fall back to , “must be a conspiracy”… no one makes much money on a new sports franchise, etc. Quality of life and the opportunity that is “right now” as the league will expand … and if Indy doesn’t get in, it will be left behind. And then we will, in our populist fashion, “blame” the mayor, the city on its lack of bold decision making. Watch the process and then decide my friend.
Honestly screw MLS, they saw that USL team was going to get a stadium and completely undermined it. It’s beneficial that Indy gets a pro soccer stadium, USL or MLS. The City will be better despite which league is here.
That proposed stadium had a $243 million funding gap plus more time and money associated with the significant issues due to the graveyards. It wasn’t going to be built.
Exactly. My prediction is there will be a Ft Wayne Eleven and no MLS team in Indy by 2027.
Great, if Fort Wayne with all its problems wants to squander $243 million on a freaking soccer stadium, let them take that deep plunge.
Instead of paying the usual public subsidies to boost the egos of multi-millionaires and billionaires, Indianapolis should take the $243 million of hard-earned taxpayer money and use it for its original purpose of funding public services and infrastructure.
Christopher B., please elaborate on Fort Wayne’s problem? You just decided to pull that comment out of the big blue sky?
Maybe if the mayor actually laid out all the specifics and say exactly why MLS keeps rejecting Keystone group and Ozdemir specifically, then this all might make sense. Time the news of the bodies on the site were out, I knew this was going to turn into a failed project like Ambrose and the GM STAMPING plant. I just don’t understand why cities like Austin and Nashville can get major projects like this completed but indy struggles to? Nashville’s new $2 billion Nissan stadium is an excellent example of how far Nashville has surpassed Indy
Those cities have bold visions and strong leadership. Notice I did not say they were without some problems of their own. I love Indianapolis but am embarrassed and ashamed of this mayor and his administration. No leadership, small minded, small thinkers, and zero vision. And the saddest part is that this mayor would continue to be re-elected for as many terms as he chooses. And don’t say that this is his final term as mayor. Should anyone trust a word he says?
Michael M. I agree with you 100%. I too love Indy and I see the potential for it to truly be a great city. Seems as though Indys suburbs are on the move, Hamilton county in particular. Even FT Wayne Indiana is showing great leadership as well as the city of Evansville. Indy needs to think bold and progressive and make this a unique place from other peer cities. I saw a video on Youtube about modern cities in Asia, China to be specific and it’s mind boggling how far behind we are to them. Indy could take a page out of their playbook. The governor and city leaders went to Malaysia to get ideas on how to revamp the canal and whit river but I fear we won’t come close to building anything as bold and transformative as they do over there and that really sucks for Indy, We’re just a cookie cutter of most cities in the Midwest and we’re barely keeping up in the respect.
It’s hard to professionally articulate “The Keystone Group did not have the money or the juice to make an MLS expansion happen”. They didn’t even have the additional investor until the city stepped in with its plan. The supporters club for the Eleven has even shifted to a preferred option that would follow the city’s plan and integrate the existing Indy Eleven team.
The city wanted to get an MLS franchise, the MLS wants to get rid of an USL team. Two sides with aligned interests are what created the opening. The city sees this as a unique opening that it thought had passed it by.
The heliport site would be ideal, that whole corner of downtown could be activated and bring a cohesive district that would also bridge the gap over to Fountain Square.
I love how the Mayor is now pretending to care about the graveyard. EVERYONE involved in this project knew that this still contained some burial plots and that was in the bid to make sure they were properly respected and relocated just like the hundreds they relocated when Diamond Chain was built by the way and during every single expansion they performed over the years into the 1990’s. I have a picture of the Mayor during the huge announcement with a shovel in his hands after he gave his speech supporting the project. Regardless of what anyone thinks is the better option, what the Mayor did was underhanded and not even supported by the City Councilor in the heliport district. Indianapolis looks ridiculous right now.
He was just re-elected by a near-record margin, despite $10 million being spent against him.
Much of Indy is glad the Mayor finally got the word that the 11 group couldn’t muster the required finances (20%), and the decision to punt actually saved us all a lot of grief and money.
Your contentions about the burial site….are pure speculation.
The city conveniently leaves out several important details while selling this plan to the public.
For instance, the city is not telling the community they must purchase existing businesses that own portions of the land where the mayor wants to put his stadium. That could take years of negotiations and end in Hogsett using his imminent domain tactic. They also have to get the FAA to decommission the heliport, which will take a long, long time. That doesn’t just happen overnight – more years are added. Then, they must do traffic and land studies, develop a budget, find a developer, an architect, and a design team, present a stadium design to the community and the State, and so on. Years, and years.
Of course, Eleven Park is way ahead of the game on all this. They’re ready to start building now. But no, it’s just too threatening to the city and basketball, apparently. The moment the cemetery remains issue came up, I suspect the mayor, the CIB, and Simon smelled blood in the water and started their plan to give Keystone and Indy Eleven a kidney punch to get out of the way.
Even if the mayor gets his stadium, he won’t be in office anymore, and who knows if MLS will even come then? There is no guarantee they will. The entire thing is a petty, ugly move to destroy soccer in Indianapolis. Thanks Simon.