LANSING – Professional soccer appears to be on its way to downtown Lansing, with plans to play at the Lugnuts’ stadium, beginning this spring.

The Lansing City Council is reviewing plans for a Lansing professional team in the new United Soccer League Division 3, an offshoot of the longstanding USL and a league loosely affiliated with Major League Soccer.

Lugnuts president Nick Grueser presented plans to the City Council’s committee of the whole Monday evening. If approved, the club will play its home games at the city-owned Cooley Law School Stadium. The soccer team is separate from the baseball organization, Grueser said, though he will be team president and Lugnuts owner Tom Dickson will own the team. A full City Council vote is slated for early October, Mayor Andy Schor said.

The team will not be named Lansing United, according to a trademark filed by Lansing Soccer Club LLC, which holds the same address as the Lugnuts offices. That trademark, which leaked on social media last week, is for the name “Lansing Ignite.”

Lansing United owner and creator Jeremy Sampson was at the City Council meeting with Grueser. He has not been willing to speak publicly about his role with the new club. Grueser said he couldn’t comment about Sampson yet, either. Sampson has confirmed that there will be a Lansing United women’s team in United Women’s Soccer, the same league the club debuted in this season.

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Sampson met with members of Lansing United’s supporters group, The Ransom, over the weekend. The group released a statement Monday night from co-creator Eric Walcott, reading in part:

“The Ransom formed with the goal of passionately and unconditionally supporting Lansing United. We have sacrificed our sweat, our time and our money to try and help the club we love grow. When rumors first started about a possible professional team coming to town, we were hopeful that it was our beloved club making the big step. Given the announcement before the City Council (Monday) evening and the trademarks that have been filed on behalf of this venue, clearly this is no longer the case. As a result, The Ransom cannot support this new club. We will continue to give (our women’s team) our full support.”

Sampson’s dream was to have professional soccer in Lansing when Lansing United began in 2014. The club — an amateur team made up of mostly active college players — moved to the Premier Development League a year ago to better align with MLS and USL in hopes this move would eventually happen as early as 2020.

If the full City Council approves of the stadium agreement, Lansing will have professional soccer in 2019. United’s budget in the PDL was around $100,000 annually. A USL-3 team’s annual budget is at least $1.5 million a year, Sampson said last spring.

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As council members asked questions Monday night, with several expressing excitement, it was clear Schor was further along in his understanding of the plans and appeared to be on board.

Grueser said the Lansing Ignite won’t be part of an expected USL-3 announcement Tuesday and that the club has not finalized the name nor the logo. “We’re weighing all options,” he said Monday night.

“We want to bring pro soccer to Lansing and we’re working through it with the city right now,” Grueser said.

They look to be further along than that. A posting seeking a director of marketing for “Lansing Professional Soccer” has been up on several online job sites for a while.

Some of the details that emerged Monday night include a 12- to 15-game home schedule, likely filling many of the weekends the Lugnuts are out of town. Turning around the field, including putting down sod, takes a couple days, so a home soccer game requires the Lugnuts to be away for at least four days, Grueser said.

The season begins in late March and runs through the middle of September.

Tickets are expected to be $15 to $22, with no surcharge on the purchase of the lower-end seats.

Grueser said the new soccer club has built its budget on being able to average 4,000 fans per game, “a conservative” estimate, Grueser told the City Council.

Cities with teams already announced for USL-3 include: Madison, Wisconsin; Tucson, Arizona; Greenville, South Carolina; Rochester, New York; Richmond, Virginia; Chattanooga, Tennessee; Statesboro, Georgia; Orlando and Toronto.

Contact Graham Couch at gcouch@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @Graham_Couch.