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Renovating Memorial Stadium is not about soccer.

Mecklenburg County commissioners agreed at tonight’s meeting to take action regarding the historic stadium. While a potential deal with the United Soccer League team Charlotte Independence has come forward as the most pronounced option, commissioners don’t want to feel boxed into an ultimatum as they indicated they did during discussions earlier this year to repurpose the site for a Major League Soccer stadium.

“We have now put it to the [county] manager to come back to us with options about Memorial Stadium,” Commissioner Trevor Fuller said. “The arguments being used for this proposal bear a striking resemblance to those that were used for MLS.”

Vice-chair Jim Puckett, who sponsored legislation to put Memorial on the agenda and voted against county funding for an MLS stadium, acknowledged the July 2016 proposal from the Independence. That deal would have split the $24 million cost between the county, city of Charlotte and the club. While the county awaits further details, fundamentals of the deal are expected to remain the same.

“Some of us have talked to the Independence, and when the other deal didn’t go through they said ‘if you guys are interested, we are interested,’” Puckett said. “‘Let’s spend a little bit of time and see if this is still doable.’ It may not be. The time may have passed. They may not be able to do what they want to do. We may not be able to do what we want to do, but I think it would be a grave mistake for us to at least not take a little bit of time and see if we can’t do it, because I think this saves Memorial Stadium in a far different way than what we did before. ”

The plan has always been for the Independence to play at Memorial. However, in addition to essential maintenance, the field is not wide enough for professional soccer. The club moved home games to Matthews Sportsplex in June.

“We put the Independence under a great deal of strain,” Puckett said.

Sportsplex remains the Jacks’ home for the foreseeable future. However, USL standards dictate that its 2,500 capacity is too small. USL joined NASL as a Division II league last season, and USL’s Division III league commences play in 2019. Charlotte, which competes in Division II, does not meet the desired Division III stadium capacity of 3,500.

“The goal was for our Division II teams to be in soccer specific stadiums or the primary tenant of a stadium by 2020, and part of that being that push for the soccer specific stadiums to be in the neighborhood of 10,000 seats for the longevity and sustainability of the franchises,” USL Division III Vice President Steven Short said in a June interview.

While the state granted Matthews $1 million to add seats to the Sportsplex, the proposed expansion does not meet USL’s 10,000-seat standard.

“Matthews wants these seats,” Mecklenburg County Park & Recreation Director Jim Garges said. “They advocated for this grant from the state, and we accepted it—this board did—and with that money and that acceptance, we have gone down the road to do the construction drawings for the project. Whether the Independence plays another game there or not, as far as we’re concerned, that doesn’t make any difference in terms of the need to complete this phase of the project, which is that third phase.”

Full-seating capacity would be 4,124 at Matthews, whereas the original plan for Memorial would seat 10,870.

“The reason we didn’t go to 4,000 or 5,000 seats when we did the second phase—we didn’t have that money,” Garges said. “We put in as many seats as we could with the money we had. Is it good to put more in? Yes. Any more than this? No, but I think this will cap it nicely.”

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