Mayor Joe Hogsett said Thursday that Indianapolis will pursue a Major League Soccer team—a surprise announcement that comes a few days after he says he visited New York City to talk with MLS officials.
In what the city described as a “significant announcement about the future of sports in Indiana,” Hogsett said the city plans to work with an undisclosed ownership group to develop a stadium using a funding mechanism approved by the Legislature in 2019.
Hogsett said he had a “productive meeting” with MLS Commissioner Don Garber on Monday.
“Every great achievement in our city’s history has began where opportunity was met with action,” Hogsett said at Thursday’s announcement. “Today we enter our pursuit of the world’s game”
The City-County Council has already started that funding process by establishing a professional sports development area for a stadium location at the former Diamond Chain manufacturing site on the west side of downtown. The designation—if approved by the state—would capture tax revenue collected within the zone and use it to pay off bonds for a stadium.
Hogsett said the city has already started the process of establishing a PSDA that could be used to locate a stadium at the site of the Downtown Heliport. The Indianapolis International Airport Authority owns that site and has taken steps to decommission it and make it available for development, although that process has proven controversial among some who want to maintain a heliport.
The work on the PSDA for the Diamond Chain site is well underway and was meant to develop a stadium for the Indy Eleven, a team that plays in USL Championship league, which is in a second tier of professional soccer. That land is owned by Keystone Group, whose owner, Ersal Ozdemir, is also the majority owner of Indy Eleven. Hogsett—who attended the groundbreaking last year for Eleven Park, the district that would include the stadium—said on Thursday that the city has determined the PSDA would not generate enough money to pay for the Indy Eleven stadium.
Still, on Thursday, the mayor told reporters that the Diamond Chain site and the existing PSDA remain options for a stadium to be used by the MLS team a new ownership group would bid for. Hogsett did not take questions from reporters at his announcement, and he did not say whether Keystone Group would be willing to sell the land for a stadium or whether Ozdemir would have a role in the ownership group.
Hogsett said at either site, the stadium project would be contingent upon the city and the ownership group securing an MLS franchise. The mayor declined to share the names of the potential investors, but he said the group is “led by an experienced and well-respected sports executive, who has held leadership roles in MLS and global soccer.”
He said the group hopes to submit a formal bid to the league by the end of this year.
MLS is the highest level of men’s professional soccer in North America, with 29 teams in the United States and Canada. In a statement after the announcement Thursday, MLS issued a statement saying that, “It was exciting to hear Mayor Hogsett’s vision for a new soccer-specific stadium in Indianapolis.”
News of the city’s move to forego its relationship with the Keystone Group comes after the development company told IBJ earlier Thursday that the city had been quietly marketing itself for potential MLS suitors after walking away from a deal on its proposed $1.5 billion Eleven Park stadium district.
Details of the new ownership group are expected to emerge in the coming weeks, city officials said, although it is not expected to include Ozdemir.
The Indianapolis Colts told IBJ that owner Jim Irsay is not involved in the ownership group. When asked if the Simon family was involved in the group, the Indiana Pacers did not answer directly, instead saying the organization had “always been supportive of initiatives to make our city a more vibrant place to live.”
A source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told IBJ that longtime soccer executive Tom Glick is among those involved in the project. The source characterized Glick’s role as that of a “broker” rather than being one of the major investors in the proposed franchise, adding that the city had been in talks with the longtime soccer and sports executive since January to potentially orchestrate a run at MLS.
Glick previously was president Tepper Sports & Entertainment, which owns MLS club Charlotte FC and the NFL’s Carolina Panthers. He most recently worked for Chelsea FC in the United Kingdom. Prior to his time at Tepper, Glick was president of New York City FC and chief commercial officer of Manchester City.
Sports outlet The Athletic separately reported on Glick’s involvement in the city’s efforts. Glick did not return a call requesting comment Thursday evening.
The city’s move would effectively quash the 11-year-old Indy Eleven’s hopes of going after an MLS designation of its own, something Ozdemir has long said he wanted, as well as his hopes of developing the stadium district that broke ground last May.
City officials said Thursday that negotiations with Keystone faltered after they determined there was a “substantial gap”—they declined to share a specific figure—in tax revenue that would be generated by the proposed district.
The city had been in negotiations with Keystone about incentives for Eleven Park, which was to include the 20,000-seat soccer stadium, a 4,000-seat entertainment venue, 600 apartments, a hotel, office space, retail and other amenities.
According to a source familiar with the situation, the city told Keystone this week about its pursuit of an alternative route and another ownership group but had not been in regular contact with the company about its tax incentives request since January.
Ozdemir and the Indy Eleven lobbied the Legislature for several years for passage of the law that authorized the professional sports development area specifically for a soccer stadium. The bill, initially passed in 2019 and updated in 2021, required the developer or team owner to contribute at least 20% to the project. The law allows for up to 80% of the funding for the stadium to come from the revenue generated by tax revenue within the district.
The City-County Council approved the PSDA map for the Eleven Park project in December. But Keystone Group said in its statement on Thursday that the Hogsett administration never forwarded that map on to the State Budget Committee, a requirement for the financing to move forward.
On Thursday, Hogsett said the second option for a stadium site—the existing parking lot west of the heliport structure at 355 E. Pearl St.—would likely incorporate several neighboring parking lots, including a large lot directly east of the heliport operated by Denison.
In a lengthy statement, Indianapolis Airport Authority officials told IBJ it is still working to decommission the heliport—a process that began in December 2020—but it has a formal agreement with the city’s Department of Metropolitan Development to eventually redevelop the heliport site in a manner that “will promote physical revitalization of the site and financial reinvestment into the downtown area.”
As part of the PSDA process, the DMD on Wednesday submitted a new map to the Metropolitan Development Commission that will be considered by the commission at 1 p.m. Wednesday in the City-County Building Public Assembly Room.
That map, which will be made public Friday, could potentially capture several nearby areas prime for redevelopment and city projects—a feature that city officials said make it a viable option.
If the proposal is approved by the eight-member board, it will move on to the Indianapolis City-County Council, before returning to the MDC for a final certification. Under the 2019 legislation that created the PSDA’s framework, the city must have those legislative approvals by June 30.
Hogsett administration officials will work over that period with the ownership group to determine which site to submit to the state budget committee. The state law only allows for one PSDA for the future soccer stadium and requires a feasibility study to be conducted on that property for consideration by the State Budget Committee.
The city’s Capital Improvement Board, which has been working on a study tied to the Eleven Park proposal, said earlier Thursday that the analysis has not been completed. The CIB has been working with Chicago-based Hunden Partners to complete the study, but it has been put on hold until a site is selected by the new ownership group.
The city said it will be able to submit the proposal to the MLS after securing support and approval from the state, and it plans to complete that application by the end of this year.
If Indianapolis is considered for an MLS expansion club, it’s likely the new ownership group will have to pay a hefty sum to get the ball rolling and could face an uphill battle in the Midwest. Over the last several years, St. Louis, Nashville and Cincinnati have been approved for expansion, as have Charlotte and Miami.
In San Diego, officials paid a franchise fee of $500 million for an MLS expansion team set to begin play in 2025.
City officials said if Indianapolis fails in its expansion bid, development on a stadium, which does not have a projected development cost, will not proceed.
By Mickey Shuey and Taylor Wooten of Indianapolis Business Journal
