Semi-pro soccer team Detroit City FC, seeking revenue to fund its move to professional status later this year, will add suites made from refurbished industrial shipping containers as VIP seating at its home stadium in Hamtramck.

Four of the steel containers will be placed on newly poured concrete pads behind the goal at the north end of Keyworth Stadium, the school district-owned historic venue used by the wildly popular semi-pro soccer club since 2016. Each of the containers will be divided into three suites that can accommodate 16 people, said Detroit City FC CEO Sean Mann, and seven of the 12 suites have been leased.

The suites can be leased for $10,000 for the season, or per match starting at $800, Mann said.

The club, which launched at Detroit's Cass Tech High School field in 2012, also is in talks to sell naming rights to some of the suites, he said, but Mann didn't disclose names because the deals aren't finished. DCFC is pitching the suites for B-to-B use, Mann said.

"It's something that we've been talking to a couple entities about, but we haven't locked any deals in yet," he said.

The other two containers will be placed behind the suites and used as walk-up bars that face the game-day beer garden area.

The field-facing containers, which have roll-up industrial garage doors to allow a field view, will have outdoor patio seating between the containers and the field. Seating will be just 10 feet from the turf, Mann said.

"You'll have a full, wide-open view," he said. "It'll be intimate."

There will be a pre-order catering menu for suite goers, Mann said, and a bartending staff. The food will come from the stable of food trucks that are on-site for DCFC matches.

The 40-foot containers were bought from Detroit-based Container Port Group on Fort Street, which advertises used containers starting at $1,800 each. Mann didn't disclose a purchase price but did say each cost "four figures" and included a rehab and paint job by the seller. DCFC management hand selected the containers from the company's storage yard, Mann said.

The soccer club is further cleaning up the containers and adding TVs, high-top seating, refrigerators, shelving and other amenities.

Delivery of the six containers is scheduled for this week, Mann said, and the team will use a handful of local individual contractors to finish the build-out before the season opens on May 19.

"For us, it's a fun tie-in to the rail yard and the aesthetic of Keyworth and the surrounding neighborhood," Mann said.

Mann said the club got the idea for using shipping containers as premium seating suites after seeing the Detroit RiverFront Conservancy's Dequindre Cut Freight Yard that uses nine of the steel boxes for food, drinks, retail and entertainment.

"That got our heads spinning about ideas we could do," he said. DCFC's containers replace the old sold-out VIP section.

"That gave us the idea there was a market there," Mann said.

Revenue from the suites is one of the cash sources the club is using to capitalize its transition from the amateur National Premier Soccer League to professional status in a still-forming league this year, Mann said. The primary funding to pay for new expenses such as player salaries — Mann said DCFC players will get about $20,000 a season plus housing and meals — will come from more games.

"We are committed to paying a living wage," Mann said.

DCFC relies on season and single-game ticket sales, game-day concessions and merchandise sales, corporate advertising and money generated from its rental of its 75,000-square-foot ice rink-turned-fieldhouse opened last year in Detroit's Elmwood Park neighborhood for the bulk of its revenue, Mann said.

He said this year's DCFC budget would be "north of $2 million." That includes game day operations that includes 125 workers, front office and coach salaries, travel, insurance, etc.

Detroit City will have 16 home matches this season, up from 13 last year. This season's Keyworth schedule announced so far will include seven NPSL regular-season games, one friendly and five NPSL Founders Cup matches. Yet to be announced are three international friendlies at Keyworth, Mann said. Last season, Detroit had six home friendlies, one Lamar Hunt Cup match, and six NPSL matches.

"Playing more games helps dramatically, as does playing on Saturdays," Mann said, adding that the new games are predicted to boost revenue by 30 percent.

DCFC last season averaged 5,584 fans per match. Of those, about 2,000 were season ticket holders and Mann said they're on pace to match that number of season ticket holders despite price increases.

The formal transition to a professional club commences with the NPSL Founders Cup, a 10-team competition that will run after the conclusion of the 2019 NPSL regular season, from August to November. Details of the subsequent new professional soccer league to begin play in the spring of 2020 are still being finalized.

DCFC's new revenue also is paying off the $741,250 raised by the team in a non-equity crowd-funding campaign in 2015 and 2016 that financed improvements to Keyworth's grandstands, bleachers, locker rooms and restrooms, Mann said. The 500 investors, who functionally loaned the club money in ranges from $250 to $50,000, split $107,000 in revenue sharing money, the team has said.

Paying back investors eats up 22 percent of the club's revenue, Mann said. Adding the suites, clubhouse and more games hastens the pay-back schedule, he added.

"We're looking to be a year or two years ahead of paying everybody back," Mann said. That could happen by the end of 2019.

Without going into detail, Mann said he and the other four co-owners have taken on some debt to further finance the club's plans.

"We've had some investors, people we've gotten to know through the process," he said. Mann did say that the team is profitable.

DCFC also has looked closely at the fundraising model used by NPSL team Chattanooga FC, which earlier this year raised more than $500,000 in the first month of a limited stock sale. However, Detroit City won't use that model now because it's a complex process that required an immense amount of sophisticated financial work — keeping track of hundreds of investors alone is difficult for small clubs, Mann said. The preference, he added, it to keep the ownership group small.

"It best suits us right now for navigating the next steps," Mann said.

Chattanooga sold 8,000 shares to finance its move from the NPSL to the Founders Cup alongside Detroit City FC. The team said it had investors in 44 states and 10 countries. One of those investors, the team said, is University of Michigan sports economics professor and soccer analyst Stephan Szymanski, who is a DCFC season ticket holder and informal team advisor.

"(DCFC) is a symbol of how people feel about Detroit and want to root for something based in the grassroots of the community and isn't corporate," he said.

Szymanski said the Detroit City would quickly raise a lot of capital if it sold ownership shares, but he understands why DCFC prefers to keep a limited ownership circle and avoid the paperwork headaches. Opting to raise money via suites, increase ticket sales, and other ways can work just as well.

"They'd find a lot of willing supporters (but) if they don't need it, why should they," Szymanski said.

In the meantime, suites are one of several changes at Keyworth Stadium this season.

In December, the club got a grant of up to $450,000 from the Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Foundation grant to replace Keyworth Stadium's 20-year-old turf. New artificial turf from Calhoun, Ga.-based Shaw Sports Turf is now being installed, Mann said. The decision was made to stick with synthetic turf instead of natural grass because the stadium is Hamtramck's primary public greenspace and is used after school by hundreds of kids, Mann said. Real grass for pro sports competition has to be protected and would require closing the stadium to the public, he said, and the team didn't want to do that. DCFC has developed a reputation as a progressive, community-based sports organization.

Other stadium work in 2019 includes finishing concrete restoration and final bleacher replacement in the east grandstand, Mann said. In the future will be rehab of the east grandstand bathrooms.

DCFC in January hired Trevor James as both head coach and general manager. The English-born James has been coaching since 1985, including in Europe and in Major League Soccer, and he replaces Ben Pirmann, who resigned in December after six seasons to become an assistant coach with expansion Memphis 901 FC of the second-tier USL Championship.

James is simultaneously managing the upcoming final NPSL season while assembling a 26-man professional roster for the professional move, and Mann said he's been given a budget to pay for players.

"It's taking a good amount of creativity," Mann said.