City wants to jump into MLS stadium talks this summer

Behind-the-scenes conversations between Hogsett administration officials and a would-be investor group about bringing Major League Soccer to Indianapolis are expected to run throughout this summer while a state committee considers a new taxing district to pay for a proposed downtown stadium.

The city and the Capital Improvement Board of Marion County in the coming weeks will convene with the prospective MLS investor group to begin early design work for a stadium on the downtown heliport property, as well as start negotiations on development and management of a stadium.

The city work is expected to run concurrent with the State Budget Committee and State Budget Agency’s evaluation of a new professional sports development area that was approved Wednesday by the city’s Metropolitan Development Commission.

Dan Parker, chief deputy mayor, told IBJ the city will submit the map to the state within several weeks, after the MLS investor group’s identity is made public—something that could happen within the next few days—and a feasibility study is completed by Chicago-based Hunden Partners, likely sometime in July. The State Budget Committee does not meet again until August.

The taxing district consists of a non-contiguous collection of more than 110 properties from which certain local and state taxes can be collected for a stadium development, so it must receive state approval before it’s implemented.

After the map is sent to the state, Parker said, city officials will turn their attention to other aspects of a potential stadium deal.

“There’s no pause,” he said. “If we want to try to take advantage of our competitive advantage right now, we need to be moving on a lot of different fronts, and that can’t stop while” the state is evaluating the taxing district.

He said Hogsett’s goal of an investor group submitting a formal application for an MLS expansion club requires the city and its partners to “keep the foot on the gas.”

Parker and other city officials—including Hogsett—have said they don’t know the identities of the prospective investors for an Indianapolis franchise, and have only heard rumblings from the periphery of those conversations. As a result, he said, discussions can’t begin on next steps until those individuals become public.

“A lot of things need to occur for planning purposes … but a lot of that stuff will be behind the scenes,” he said. “Much of it will be planning, preparation, negotiation for hopefully putting this whole thing together.”

The investor group is being organized by Charlotte-based soccer executive Tom Glick, who has experience working for numerous domestic and international teams, including New York City FC and Charlotte FC.

Parker said Wednesday that Glick has shared that minority investors in other MLS clubs and at least two European soccer teams have expressed interest in joining the Indianapolis group, with some of those individuals being bonafide billionaires.

He said while some lawmakers—specifically Ryan Mishler, R-Bremen, and Greg Porter, D-Indianapolis—have said they don’t need to know the identities of the group, the city is insistent that they are known before going to the state.

“I’m not going to name names, but it has been highly recommended to us [by lawmakers] that there’s an identified group before we submit,” he said.