The Columbus City Council has approved the city's $50 million contribution to a new Downtown stadium for the Crew SC and a revamp of the Mapfre Stadium into a practice facility and sports park, but one needed element is still absent from both projects — land.

On the centerpiece project, the team and the landowner, Nationwide Realty Investors, a division of Nationwide, are still locked in negotiations for the new stadium west of Huntington Park baseball stadium, said Steve Schoeny, the city's development director.

Phil Dangerfield, a vice president of operations with Crew SC owner Haslam Sports Group, which also owns the Cleveland Browns, had no comment on the negotiations as he left the City Council chambers Monday following the council's unanimous sign-off on the city's $50 million contribution. The entire project is currently projected to total $295.4 million, split about 50-50 between public and private sources.

Get the news delivered to your inbox: Sign up for our morning, afternoon and evening newsletters

Morgan Hughes, 38, a member of the Save the Crew organization that fought to keep the team in Columbus and prevent a move to Austin, told The Dispatch he isn't concerned that the project doesn't yet control needed land, even though officials hope to break ground as soon as this fall.

"Whatever the future may hold, we as a community will cross it when we get there," Hughes said outside the council chamber. "Today was a massive opportunity to cross one of those bridges, and I'm happy about it."

But Bret Adams, an attorney and sports agent who has been critical of the project's costs, said the stadium's backers — particularly the Columbus Partnership, the association of the city's largest businesses and organizations that was instrumental in landing the public-private stadium package — should have secured a commitment from Nationwide Realty up front for land costs.

"It was the Columbus Partnership that announced the stadium site without securing an option for a purchase price for that," Adams told The Dispatch outside the council chamber. "That deal has not happened yet because, I'm sure, Nationwide is playing very tough from the price point, and there are serious negotiations going on.

"They're going to overpay for the land," Adams said.

Alex Fischer, president and CEO of the Columbus Partnership, couldn't be reached Monday evening to comment.

The development agreement between the project's partners specifies that city money can't be used to build the actual stadium but can be used to buy land needed for it.

Also still up in the air is land needed for an expanded Crew SC practice facility and city sports park at Mapfre, which would expand into parking lots currently owned by the Ohio Expo Center — site of the State Fair. A fair official has said his board was never consulted about the project before it was announced in early December, and the fair can't afford to give up any parking for its events.

Council member Elizabeth Brown said the Crew, which will control the construction of the Downtown stadium, has agreed that 30% of the work will go to city-certified minority- or women-owned businesses.

In other business, the council allocated $4.35 million in funding to Columbus Next Generation Corporation, a city-funded agency that focuses on redeveloping underutilized properties in core neighborhoods. The money is "to purchase, renovate or construct real property assets in targeted central city areas."

Also, the council approved a series of 10-year, 75% property-tax abatements for Mission XC LLC on $61 million in proposed new "speculative industrial" warehouse construction around Rickenbacker International Airport. The project is estimated to create about 90 new jobs.

bbush@dispatch.com

@ReporterBush

Listen to the Soccer Speakeasy podcast: