Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported that coach James O'Connor had not yet visited the stadium site until Thursday. He had been to the site, but it was his first time at Copper & Kings, where the event was taking place.

Hundreds of people gathered in support of the Louisville City FC stadium project Thursday night at Copper & Kings, where the club's potential future home was clearly within sight, just a few blocks north.

Louisville City officials have been relatively quiet since announcing in April plans for a 40-acre, $200 million Butchertown development including a 10,000-seat soccer stadium with office, retail and hotel space.

But now a plan for how the stadium project will be achieved is slowly beginning to come into view.

Louisville City board members Tim Mulloy and John Hollenbach told the Courier-Journal on Thursday that the club's ownership group plans to present in front of Metro Council within 60 days, a meeting that will get into the “nitty-gritty, economic forecast” of the project, Mulloy said.

The “nitty-gritty” isn’t clear just yet. The club will ask the city to acquire land it currently has under option, and then the city must authorize a development district before the club can apply to the state for tax-increment financing.

Hollenbach previously said the club will seek between $30 million and $35 million in TIF assistance from the state.

Background:LouCity commits to city with plan for stadium

The entire plan, however, hinges on approval from Metro Council.

"The most important thing is to not put the city and taxpayer dollars at risk," said Councilwoman Barbara Sexton Smith, whose district includes the Butchertown site. "It needs to be beneficial to all. It's not just a stadium, but a lot of other development."

But some Metro Council members are leery of following too closely in the footsteps of the KFC Yum Center deal, which saw the arena's finances tank after the surrounding TIF district failed to perform as expected. The city, state and the University of Louisville were forced this week to negotiate a new lease in order to refinance the Yum Center's $690 million construction debt.

Mayor Greg Fischer said comparing the Yum Center deal to the Louisville City stadium project was like "apples to oranges." He called the stadium project "promising" but said it relied on the deliverance of private funds.

“It’s going to take a partnership between the state, the city, and the owners are going to have to step up big with equity on a project like this," Fischer said, "but there’s a lot of willing partners at the table."

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"I think the biggest concern is, 'What is the city's commitment?'" said Councilwoman Angela Leet, R-7th District. "We've gone through a painful exercise on the Yum Center, and I think it's always great to be optimistic about what you expect, but at the end of the day we need to be realistic ... in terms of ticket sales, and can we use this as an economic development tool and an attraction for young people?"

Five days after the club drew a record crowd at Louisville Slugger Field, many braved the stifling heat to attend the stadium rally hosted by the Louisville Coopers and the Butchertown Neighborhood Association.

Leet said she was encouraged by the evident public support for the stadium, but is holding off on formulating an opinion until she knows more about the project's economic impact.

"I haven't seen numbers yet so I want to keep monitoring where our community is at about that," Leet said.

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Louisville City is funding an economic impact study by Commonwealth Economics, while Louisville Metro Government recently set aside $250,000 in the city's budget for an environmental study at the Butchertown stadium site, and to keep tracts of land under option.

Louisville City board members have declined to go into much detail about funding beyond designating the project a public-private partnership. Leet and Sexton Smith both said they have not yet seen suggestions for how contributions will be split, but Mulloy insisted the club's owners would shoulder the majority of the burden.

"We’re paying for the stadium, that will be our equity, our debt," Mulloy said. "The TIF is only as good as what we create on it. We’re not asking the city or the state to build a building out there, or go finance a building or put equity in a building."

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The acquisition cost for the land making up the proposed stadium development site is about $24-$30 million, Hollenbach said.

The site includes the former Challenger Lifts Inc. property at 200 Cabel St., as well as adjacent plots previously occupied by Marshall's Auto Parts, Extra Space Storage and an above-ground oil tank facility.

Mulloy said the club hopes to exercise the options on the land by the fall. After the initial phases of development are complete (meaning construction on the stadium itself is underway), Mulloy said club owners might develop other pieces of land themselves or sell pieces to outside developers. He said people representing entertainment venues, offices and hotels have expressed interest.

Hollenbach, Louisville City president John Neace and board member Mike Mountjoy spent the last few days meeting with an architect for the stadium, Hollenbach said. The ownership group has also been in constant contact with Louisville Forward, which handles the city's business attraction and retention activities , and the mayor's office.

"They've been through this before, so they know what they're looking for," Hollenbach said. "There's a real concerted effort to keep the money that goes into this as local as possible."

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But Hollenbach said the ownership group hasn't ruled out accepting investments from other regional groups, or even foreign investors through an EB-5 program.

Club officials hope the stadium will open in 2020, the deadline that the United Soccer League, of which Louisville City FC is a member, has set for teams to move into a soccer-specific stadium.

A city-funded study conducted by Convention, Sports & Leisure released last August also recommended Louisville City build its own soccer-specific stadium by 2020. The club is in the third year of a five-year ground-share agreement with the Louisville Bats at Louisville Slugger Field.

On the chain-link fence surrounding the Challenger Lifts site and facing Interstates 71 and 64, poster boards bearing 4-foot tall letters shouted a message at passing motorists: "Support the stadium."

Only time will tell if support will be enough.

Reporter Danielle Lerner can be reached at dlerner@courier-journal.com or 502-582-4042. Reporter Dan Karell can be reached at 502-582-4231 or dkarell@courier-journal.com.

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