The Los Angeles Football Club has made its biggest signing of the year and it’s not for a star striker or goalie.

The Major League Soccer franchise signed a 25,000-square-foot lease at Downtown Properties’ 818 W. 7th Street in Downtown. The lease comes less than a month after LAFC’s new $350 million Banc of California Stadium opened just a few miles south of Downtown at Exposition Park.

The office will be the business operations headquarters for LAFC, a three-year-old team still trying to make a name for itself in the shadow of the LA Galaxy, its crosstown rival and an MLS behemoth.

Downtown Properties, associated with Goodwin Gaw’s Gaw Capital, completed a renovation of the 12-story office building earlier this year. The firm purchased the now-93-year-old 377,000-square-foot building in 1996 when it was just 33 percent leased, according to Downtown Capital’s website. Gaw himself is one of LAFC’s co-founders.

CBRE’s Chris Caras, Philip Sample, Brad Chelf, Brandon Bank, and Taylor Watson represented Downtown Properties.

Gaw Capital has been busy elsewhere in L.A. this year, too. The Real Deal learned in January that the firm paid World Class Property Group $31 million for 3030 Studios in Atwater Village.