George Sipple

Detroit Free Press

ORLANDO — Hundreds of people clad in purple apparel ate, drank and snapped photos more than four hours before the opening festivities began inside Orlando City SC’s $155-million, 25,500-seat soccer-specific stadium.

If Tom Gores and Dan Gilbert get their way, a similar scene will unfold on the streets of downtown Detroit in 2020 on the site of the failed Wayne County Jail.

Major League Soccer commissioner Don Garber attended Orlando City Stadium’s first match today and spoke to reporters about the stadium and other expansion efforts, including Detroit.

“Detroit’s a big market,” Garber said today. “I’ve spent time with Tom Gores. I’ve spent time with Dan Gilbert.”

Arn Tellem, vice chairman for Palace Sports & Entertainment, told the Free Press the failed jail site was the only site that was part of Detroit’s expansion bid proposal for 2020.

Related:

Gilbert offers Wayne County new jail, courts in swap for Gratiot site

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Gilbert and Gores haven’t publicly said what other sites would be considered if they can’t come to an agreement with Wayne County to get the jail site property, but there have apparently been discussions about another site, according to Garber.

“I’ve been there twice,” Garber said of Detroit. “I like both locations, but I really like the jail site. If I were a resident of Detroit, I would probably rather have a soccer stadium as the gateway to my city, rather than a jail. I hope they continue to make progress with that concept.”

Gilbert, who owns the Cleveland Cavaliers, and Gores, who owns the Detroit Pistons, have combined forces in an effort to bring MLS to Detroit in 2020. Gilbert and Gores were among a dozen groups who submitted expansion bids for 2020.

Gilbert’s Rock Ventures made an offer to Wayne County last month to build the county a $420-million state-of-the-art criminal justice center that includes a jail, juvenile detention facility, sheriff and prosecutor's offices and criminal courthouse to replace the Frank Murphy Hall of Justice now in downtown Detroit.

The proposal calls for the transfer of the Gratiot Avenue site to Rock Ventures where it wants to build a $1-billion commercial development to host an MLS team.

Judges, prosecutors and sheriff's office leaders haven't weighed in yet on the proposed plan for a new complex near I-75 and Warren Avenue, but that is expected in the next few weeks.

Orlando SC began as a USL pro team and became an MLS expansion team in 2015. The club spent the past two seasons at Camping World Stadium (formerly known as the Citrus Bowl), until the Orlando City Stadium was built with private funding.

The announced attendance for today's game was 25,527.

Majority owner Flavio Augusto da Silva made Orlando’s soccer-specific stadium happen. Garber posed with the MLS owner alongside a lion statue that greets people in the lobby of one of the stadium’s entrances.

“I just spent the last half hour talking to Flavio,” Garber said. “Talking about the time we first met and the vision that he had for his new city and how he thought he could really grow our league in ways that would give it a flair and give it an identity that would make us better. And he’s done that.”

It remains to be seen whether the vision Gilbert and Gores have for soccer in Detroit will come to fruition.

Garber said the first expansion meeting and more time will be spent reviewing the bids over the next four to five weeks before an MLS board meeting in the third week of April. Garber said the initial findings will be detailed at that meeting and MLS will narrow expansion bids into Group 1 and Group 2 and then hope to select teams 25 and 26 by the end of the year.

Contact George Sipple: gsipple@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @georgesipple.