Hogsett team remains upbeat as MLS discussions grow quiet

From the outside looking in, Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett’s pursuit of a Major League Soccer club seems to have come to a standstill.

There’s been little public movement on the effort since the city last August asked the state to create a new taxing district to pay for a soccer-specific stadium. City officials had hoped the request would be approved quickly so a prospective ownership group could feel confident enough in the project to apply by the end of the year to join the league.

But Dec. 31 came and went without the state publicly considering the requests and with no word from the city about the identity of the potential investment group or whether a possible bid was still in the works.

Still, city leaders say that they have no angst about where things stand and that they remain confident the professional sports development area proposal they provided to state legislators last year will be considered favorably in coming months.

Meanwhile, property in downtown’s Market East Cultural District—where Hogsett has proposed to build the stadium—continues to trade hands, with some powerful political players as the acquirers.

Dan Parker, chief deputy mayor for Indianapolis, said the Hogsett administration is satisfied with its progress on the goal of landing an MLS team, even though the city’s discussions with other parties, including legislators and longtime soccer executive Tom Glick, who is assembling the prospective ownership group, have slowed to a crawl.

Parker said city officials are confident that an Indiana Finance Authority analysis of the city’s proposed PSDA—a district that would redirect various state and local tax revenue streams to pay for stadium bonds—will yield a favorable recommendation to the State Budget Committee, a legislator-led body that has purview over the money.

The finance authority told IBJ it is still drafting its analysis. But even if it finishes its recommendation now, the State Budget Committee is unlikely to act on it until after the legislative session ends in April, when the committee begins meeting again. The General Assembly, though, could preempt the committee with legislation.

In fact, Hogsett said he expects the stadium will be a point of discussion throughout the 2025 legislative session, which began this month. However, the mayor stopped short of predicting that a bill dedicated to the matter will be considered in either the Indiana House or Senate. Stadium-related language could also be written into the state’s next two-year budget.

“If I had my druthers, [the state] would already have made some decisions in this regard,” Hogsett told IBJ. “But I think understandably, legislative leaders … wanted to make sure that the membership of the General Assembly had a full and fair opportunity to consider and debate the pros and cons of the state’s involvement in support of the construction of a new soccer-specific stadium.”

House Speaker Todd Huston, R-Fishers, told IBJ that while “people continue to talk” about a stadium and possible MLS bid, “there’s nothing definitive” on the horizon.

Hogsett said that’s OK for now.

“I don’t have any problem with them taking time and ultimately being prudent about their decision-making,” he said. “I just hope, at the end of the day, the state is a full and fair partner in bringing Major League Soccer to Indianapolis.”

Property shuffle

The state-level delay hasn’t prevented other moves, some behind the scenes, related to a stadium project. Parker said the city and the Capital Improvement Board—which would likely own the stadium, as it does Victory Field, Gainbridge Fieldhouse and other facilities—are already in discussions about stadium design.

“We’re working with the Capital Improvement Board and looking at designers for the proposed stadium, just to try to start getting some preliminary numbers on, if all this moves forward, what a stadium would cost,” Parker said. “People throw numbers around, but until you actually know what it is you’re looking at doing, you really don’t know how much a stadium is going to cost. So, we wanted to start that process.”

And the city is working to assemble the land on the east side of downtown that it wants to use to build a stadium.

The Hogsett administration said it will exercise an option to buy the Indianapolis Downtown Heliport property at 51 S. New Jersey St. The Indianapolis Airport Authority owns the heliport but is in the process of decommissioning it, a process that should be complete by the end of this year.

The city has also signed a contract to purchase a parcel at 301 E. Washington St., which comprises the tiny Presidential Place Park and an 80-space parking lot next to the Julia M. Carson Transit Center.

That site is one of three parcels—all of which appear to be key to a stadium development—purchased last year by a holding company called 101 S. Alabama Development LLC that Herb Simon and his family own.

The holding company last spring bought a 5.2-acre surface lot at 101 S. Alabama St. (which led to the company’s name) that’s directly east of the Virginia Avenue parking garage. It bought the parcel next to the transit center in November. Then in December, the company bought a parking lot at 355 E. Pearl St. from AES.

In total, the Simon company paid nearly $16.7 million for 6.8 acres of underdeveloped downtown land.

The purchases have led to speculation that the Simons will be part of the soccer team’s investment group or involved in some other way in the stadium development. But in April, the family’s representative, Phil Bayt, senior counsel with Ice Miller LLP, told IBJ the family’s interest in the 101 S. Alabama parking lot “predated soccer” and that the acquisition is entirely separate from the city’s plans.

Bayt said then that Pacers Sports & Entertainment, parent company of the Indiana Pacers and Indiana Fever, has in recent years increased its use of the lot for Gainbridge Fieldhouse-related activities nearby, including parking for staff and television broadcast vehicles, and would continue using the property for such in the future. Bayt has declined to comment on the later purchases in the proposed stadium site.

Parker told IBJ the Simons “are not acting as a conduit” for the city in acquiring property, even though each parcel now under the family’s control would be integral for a stadium.

Speaking about the lot adjacent to the transit center, Parker said the site “is one that we’ve always had our eye on” because it’s close to the former Marion County Jail 1 building, which is now being demolished in anticipation of redevelopment. But Parker said the Hogsett administration hasn’t had any other discussions about property with the Simons.

“In terms of their land acquisition, you’d have to talk to them,” Parker said. “We haven’t gotten that far.”

Possible blockades

The Simons and the city aren’t alone in their efforts to procure property that could be used for the stadium.

In August, Fort Wayne businessman Chuck Surack bought the La Quinta Inn hotel at 401 E. Washington St., which is adjacent to the heliport property, for $14.4 million.

The founder of Sweetwater Sound is a recent investor in the Indy Eleven, the minor league soccer team for which the tax district legislation was originally aimed. He’s also an aviation enthusiast and the owner of a helicopter charter business who has pushed back extensively on the plan to close the heliport.

Surack said he hopes his purchase of the hotel will slow the city’s effort to build a stadium.

In 2023, before the city proposed the heliport area for a soccer stadium, Surack bought a 2.45-acre site at 603 E. Washington St.—across East Street from the heliport—to try to slow the city’s effort to decommission the aviation facility and redevelop the site.

Surack said so far, no one has approached him about buying the properties—and he has no plans to sell.

“I love the idea of an MLS stadium—let me go on record with that: I’m not against an MLS stadium,” he said. “I just think it’s the wrong location, and it’s a shame that the heliport is going to get torn down.”

Another property owner in the area—longtime businesswoman Lena Hackett—said last year that the city would have to use eminent domain to obtain her building at 10 S. New Jersey St.

The Jannetides family, which owns the Greenfield-based University Loft Co., owns the vacant Atlas Hotel property and other buildings at 433 E. Washington St. A spokesperson for the family did not respond to multiple texts requesting comment for this story, but two sources have told IBJ the family has expressed an openness to selling the site. No formal agreements have been reached, however.

Mystery investors

Another key question about the proposed MLS bid is who will actually make it.

When Hogsett announced in April that the city intended to pursue a team, he said the potential ownership group was “led by an experienced and well-respected sports executive, who has held leadership roles in MLS and global soccer.”

That turned out to be Glick, a Charlotte, North Carolina-based soccer executive who has experience working for numerous domestic and international teams, including New York City FC and Charlotte FC. But the names of the potential investors remain a mystery to the public.

Initially, city officials said they expected the ownership group to make itself public after the City-County Council approved the PSDA in June. Later, they clarified that the group would come forward as part of the State Budget Committee process. Now, Parker said, there’s no timeline.

“I’m not at liberty to speak on behalf of the proposed ownership group,” he said. “So, their going public is going to be on their timeline, not on a timeline that I would hope for.”

Glick did not return multiple phone messages requesting comment for this story.

Jeff Berding, co-owner and co-CEO of MLS team FC Cincinnati, said he’s heard little rumbling about Indianapolis joining the MLS since Hogsett, Parker and Glick met with league and individual team officials in Columbus, Ohio, during Major League Soccer All-Star events last year. But Berding said that doesn’t mean there’s no movement behind the scenes.

“To the extent that it’s just being managed quietly within the [MLS] Board of Governors’ expansion committee, then that would not be unusual at all,” said Berding, whose business partner, Carl Lindner III, is on the league’s expansion committee.

Berding said expansion conversations are kept extremely close to the vest.

But he said Hogsett’s plan for a stadium that would be mostly publicly financed and built downtown makes for a credible and compelling offering to the league. Based on the law that authorized a soccer-oriented PSDA in Indianapolis, up to 80% of the stadium cost could be covered by tax dollars.

The team’s investor group would be required to pay for at least 20%.

Indianapolis has “people’s attention,” Berding said. “But there’s still a lot of questions.”

“It’s a process,” he added. “I think the fact that it’s gone quiet is not necessarily a sign that it’s stalled. There’s just a lot of work that has to be done, and it’s probably not all that evident publicly, from a media perspective or a fan perspective, where they are in that process.”•