Scheduled to break ground in October with the first game in 2024
Pro Iowa Soccer - Krause Development
- Thread starter cyfan92
- Start date
This is a complete fleecing of the City. What a joke.
How is it a fleecing of the city? Isn’t this state money?
generally speaking I'm not a fan of publicly funded pro sport arenas
This is going to be built on the chemical dump so Im ok with using the sales tax and hotel tax to help fund it.
Agreed. However that contribution is about 5% of the estimated cost of the total project. The land currently is a toxic waste site. They plan would not only clean up the city image but take a current liability and potentially turn it into a tax producing asset on top of the social/environmental benefits. I'm not a huge soccer nut myself but I'd be more interested in that vs a baseball game. Plus the desire to clean up that area is a plus for me. I'm definitely interested in learning more about the project.
well that's just it, it's probably not going to be a tax producing asset because I'd be stunned if there are many decades worth of property tax abatements included.
Still, if "only" 5% that the gov't is paying for, it's not that big of a deal
I could be way off and I know soccer is growing but realistically how many Iowans are going to pay to watch professional soccer?
Yeah I'm not real big on publicly funded sports stadiums, but I think both this one and the hockey one are going to be worthwhile. Especially when the alternative is to just spend the money on crappier projects. Both are going to take and repurpose bad sites.
I think you'd be surprised. Having a USL soccer club in Des Moines will be awesome.
There's also a good deal more to this plan than just the stadium that should be a benefit. That's what tips it into being more beneficial for me.
Des Moines Register
www.desmoinesregister.com
The plan includes:
When theyre talking half a billion in projects, there's a lot of ROI there
i've never been to a soccer game, but if DSM has a pro team, i'd be down for a couple matches a year.
not many, especially when it's not even at the MLS level where you can talk yourself in to being able to fill a stadium when the team is good.
We're close enough to KC that anyone who wants to watch pro soccer in a good environment can just go there.
My assumption is the soccer stadium is kind of the novelty item that gets headlines but the real money is in whatever is being built along with it.
I guess I don't get the doubts about attendance. I assume it'll be as good or better then a MiLB team. I don't know any numbers but there are probably more kids in soccer than baseball. It would be a fun day out for the family just like an I-Cubs game.
There's also a good deal more to this plan than just the stadium that should be a benefit. That's what tips it into being more beneficial for me.
Des Moines Register
The plan includes:
When theyre talking half a billion in projects, there's a lot of ROI there
cause professional teams and developers never lie about the ROI. Lol
My son is 10 and plays both soccer and baseball and baseball numbers blows soccer out of the water. Like it's not even close.
When you look at KC and see the investment that community has put into soccer it really is quite remarkable. Sporting KC gives back a lot of time to the community and they have made an incredible influence on the sport among KC youth. Kansas City doesn't have the facilities they have without Sporting KC. If DSM can get 1/3 of the response that Sporting KC has it will be a big win for the metro.
The drive to children’s mercy park is 3 hours, I’d much rather catch a game or 2 there a year and watch more at a place that I don’t need to worry about lodging or driving late into the night. Then you can just head over into downtown right after too. The reason Iowa State has had such a great tailgating experience and fan attendance even when we were terrible is because there aren’t that many entertainment options around. Even if I wasn’t a huge Iowa state fan I’d rather drive 30 minutes to watch Iowa state on most weekends than spend the time and money it would take to go to Vikings/Chiefs/Bears/Packers games. Pretty much everyone I’ve talked to about this is pretty excited for it. Des Moines is growing and soccer is growing rapidly with younger people, I think the attendance will surprise some.
