A public-private partnership announced Thursday that it intends to break ground on a new $230 million Downtown soccer stadium for Crew SC on a site west of Huntington Park and the Arena District that once was proposed for a casino.

During a packed celebratory event at Land-Grant Brewing in Franklinton, fans cheered the news of the stadium, which would become the centerpiece of a new "Confluence Village" neighborhood of residential and office buildings where the Olentangy and Scioto rivers meet.

The stadium plan is the linchpin of a proposal being made to Major League Soccer by Dee and Jimmy Haslam, owners of the Cleveland Browns, and Dr. Peter H. Edwards Jr. and his family, of Columbus. to buy the Crew and keep the team in Columbus.

Read more: Plan calls for new Crew stadium, with Mapfre repurposed as sports park

The new Crew owners would invest a total of $645 million to buy the team for an estimated $150 million; build the stadium and surrounding commercial and residential buildings; and remodel the team's current home at Mapfre Stadium, on the north end of the Ohio Expo Center, as a practice facility that would be surrounded by a planned Community Sports Park, officials said.

The city of Columbus and Franklin County are pledging $50 million each over 30 years to be managed by a community authority to support site development and infrastructure. City officials said that city money would not go toward construction of the stadium itself.

Fans were fired up Thursday.

"We are completely, completely blown away," said Jason Murray, 30, a Short North resident who skipped work to see the plans unveiled. "You could tell they designed it with us — the supporters — in mind. They did this for us."



"It's everything we could have hoped for and more," said best friend Ryan Cieply, 31, of Pickerington. "The fan base is rejuvenated by this, and now we'll just keep spreading the word to new fans that coming to a Crew game will be an experience."

JW Johnson, an executive vice president with the Cleveland Browns and son-in-law of the Haslams, thanked fans for their grass-roots efforts to save the team.

Johnson said his family's efforts were aimed at keeping another Ohio team from packing up and leaving town, as happened to the Browns in 1995.

The multilevel, 20,000-seat stadium would include 30 suites and loge boxes and 1,900 "club seats," with an artist's rendering envisioning all of the seats covered by a roof but the playing field open to the elements. The stadium would be surrounded by seven low-rise riverfront residential, office and parking structures on a total of 33 acres.

Columbus Mayor Andrew J. Ginther said the stadium would be "a premier facility for Columbus," one that would draw worldwide attention for its design and fan experience.

Commercial and office space would total 270,000 square feet, enough to accommodate 1,300 employees. There would be 885 residential units, with a minimum of 20 percent of them, or 177, dedicated to "affordable housing." It was unclear Thursday who would own the stadium and the buildings around it.

Ginther said that the city's contribution to the stadium would include donating land — about 9 acres of which the city owns at the site, according to county property records. Five of the city's acres would be devoted to a new riverfront park along the Olentangy River, just north of Confluence Park and Route 33.

The rest of the proposed Confluence Village site is owned by Nationwide Realty Investors, the real estate arm of Nationwide Insurance, which purchased 13 parcels from casino developers Columbus Gaming Ventures in 2011 for $11 million. Officials don't yet control any of the Nationwide land needed for the project.

Brian J. Ellis, president and chief operating officer of Nationwide Realty Investors, issued a written statement Thursday that the firm "continues to engage in conversations related to the potential development of a soccer stadium on our property," adding "there is still much more work to be done."

Alex Fischer, president and chief executive officer of the Columbus Partnership, which has been deeply involved in the project, said discussions about the site are "real serious" and hinge on which parties would develop which pieces of the land.

Read more: A timeline of Columbus’ efforts to save its soccer team

Officials started lifting the veil on the plan Wednesday when they announced that the Crew would remain in Columbus and continue to use Mapfre Stadium for two more years before moving to a new stadium as part of a new ownership plan for the professional soccer franchise. The entire deal must be completed by the end of the year to meet an MLS deadline, so that the Crew and the league can plan for next season, which begins with training in February, Fischer said.

Several hours after the announcement, more than 100 people, many clad in Crew scarves, plus a delegation of youth soccer players attended a hastily scheduled public hearing on the proposal Thursday night. Columbus City Councilwoman Elizabeth Brown opened the session with special thanks to Crew fans.

"It’s clear that athletics bring people together," she said. "What we saw from the Save the Crew fans was inspiring."

The hearing included presentations by Fischer, city Auditor Megan Kilgore and other officials, who recapped the details of the Arena District and youth sports complex projects presented earlier in the day.

About 20 residents signed up to speak, all offering comments in favor of the proposal. Pastor Julius Lancaster of I Am Church called it an "awesome project" with big potential for shared community benefits.

"This is an opportunity for us to make a tremendous investment into the future of Columbus," he said.

Kelly DeNiro, a soccer player, Crew season-ticket holder and Save the Crew supporter, said she was excited, hopeful and proud of the results of efforts to save the team.

"This is a true example of how our city is working to benefit everyone in this community," she said.

City council is working to complete a formal memorandum of understanding on the city’s investment, with an eye toward adoption during its meeting Monday.

Asked about the expedited timeline, Ginther said the alternative was to lose the Crew and be saddled with a vacant Mapfre.

Kevin Boyce, president of the Franklin County commissioners, said county leaders see the county's contribution as an investment in economic development.

"You had me at 1,200 jobs created," Boyce said about both the construction jobs and those anticipated to come with the new office and residential buildings around the stadium.

Dee Haslam said earlier this week that her family came later to the Save the Crew movement, but felt compelled to do something to stop the Crew's move to Austin.

"We were reading about this and thought that this can't happen in Columbus," she said. "Everyone here said this can be done. We didn't give up.

"Our family believes that this team is a community asset," Haslam said.

Edwards, who has been the Crew team doctor since its inception, said he is proud to be part of the team that will save the Crew. "I'm so glad to be from Columbus," he said.

"Twenty-five years ago, Columbus wasn't as cool as it is now," he said, adding that professional soccer helped Columbus become a big-league city. "The Crew helped Columbus find its way, and now Columbus is helping the Crew find its way."

Fischer has said the culmination of all the various public and private deals will be the team transferring ownership before the end of the month. Major League Soccer has been negotiating the sale of the Crew to the Haslam and Edwards families for nearly two months.

Present in the first row of seats at the event Thursday was Charles Altchek, a vice president with MLS. He didn't speak.

The Columbus Crew was born June 15, 1994, when Columbus was awarded one of the 10 inaugural MLS clubs. The team played at Ohio Stadium before moving to Crew Stadium in 1999. It won an MLS championship on Nov. 23, 2008. Crew Stadium became Mapfre Stadium in 2015.

On July 30, 2013, Precourt Sports Ventures bought the Crew from Hunt Sports Group. Then-Mayor Michael B. Coleman and Hunt Sports Group Chairman Clark Hunt said a key point in the sale was that the Crew remain in Columbus — although the contract does not contain language tying the team to the city.

Between July 2013 and October 2016, to few outsiders' knowledge, MLS commissioner Don Garber gave his blessing to include an exit clause, specifically for Austin, Texas, in Anthony Precourt’s purchase agreement of the Crew from Hunt Sports Group. Precourt hired a company to conduct a survey of Crew season-ticket holders in Columbus. Garber was name-dropping Austin into conversations about expansion although that city wasn't bidding for an expansion team.

Dispatch sports reporter Adam Jardy asked Precourt whether a franchise move might be in the cards. Precourt said, “I don’t really have a comment on that. I’ve shown my commitment to Columbus. We wore the city’s colors this year on the pitch. We put Columbus back in our badge. I’m tired of the insecurities. We’re playing for Columbus.”

On Oct. 16, 2017, news broke that the Crew could leave Columbus, possibly for Austin. Negotiations to keep the team in Columbus began immediately and looked bleak for months. The #SaveTheCrew movement took to social media and the streets with actual and virtual rallies that went viral. Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine and City Attorney Zach Klein filed a lawsuit based on the state's "Art Modell Law" that required team owners contemplating a move to first give notice and a realistic opportunity for a local owner to make an offer to buy the team. And Fischer, Ginther and others worked behind the scenes to continue negotiations with MLS.

When MLS set the requirements for new ownership — which included concrete plans and signed agreements to build a new stadium in Columbus — the timeline seemed daunting. Fischer said that in several decades of working on business deals and development plans he had never worked on anything so complex or turned it around so quickly.

Dispatch Reporter Marc Kovac contributed to this story.

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