Scott Wartman | Cincinnati Enquirer

Mark Wert/The Enquirer

Provided/FC Cincinnati

FC Cincinnati may have decided to locate in the West End because a Northern Kentucky developer said no.

Corporex, the owner of the Ovation property in Newport, released a statement on Monday explaining why the vacant property near Newport's riverfront will not house FC Cincinnati's new stadium.

But the statement caused more confusion about the negotiations for a soccer stadium in Newport. The statement indicated it was the company's choice to move in a different direction.

But after the statement was issued Monday, Corporex managing director Tom Banta told The Enquirer it was the soccer team that chose not to locate in Newport.

"We worked hard on it, we thought it was a good alternative," Banta said.

In the statement from Covington-based Corporex, the company said it decided the original master plan for a mixed-use development of commercial and residential was a better fit.

Corporex had supported the soccer stadium project, company chairman and CEO Bill Butler said in the statement. The tax-increment financing district around the Ovation site would have generated $39 million in tax revenue to put back into the building of the stadium.

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"We offered a development package, which in effect, represented free land," Butler said in the statement.

That compares to the City of Cincinnati's offer to FC Cincinnati of $33.8 million in incentives to build a stadium in the West End. On top of that, Hamilton County will build a 1,000-space garage at a cost of $15 million.

But the Corporex decided a mixed-use development was better "for the long-range evolution of Northern Kentucky."

Last week, FC Cincinnati General Manager Jeff Berding said the club had not been able to reach an agreement with the developer. That's why the club had to focus on the West End as the site of the stadium.

Monday's statement is one of the few Corporex has made in the past decade about the fate of the Ovation site.

The company and Newport in 2006 first unveiled plans for Ovation as a $1 billion development with townhomes, condos, apartments, entertainment and shopping. It would be built on the location of a former public housing complex. After the city bulldozed the public housing, the Great Recession hit. It's remained vacant ever since.

Butler in the statement didn't say when anything would get built on the Ovation or what it would be. But he seemed optimistic.

"Now we intend to get on with building the major infrastructure and working with various residential properties and entertainment opportunities in partnership with developers that complement our core businesses," Butler said.

Newport City Manager Tom Fromme said he wasn't surprised FC Cincinnati didn't locate in Newport.

"All along I never felt they were serious about Kentucky as a site," Fromme said.

The soccer club never approached the city in a formal way. Fromme said he only had one brief conversation with Berding at a dinner at the Metropolitan Club in Covington.

Fromme said he thinks a soccer stadium would have been a tight fit and would have prevented anything else from being developed there.