---

BY ROSARIO PAZ

In print | November 8, 2007

Two months ago, negotiations began between Delaware County officials and investors of a Major League Soccer franchise concerning a new 20,000 seat pro-soccer stadium to be constructed on the Chester waterfront as soon as 2010. The $155 million complex will be funded by a $30 million investment on the part of Delaware County, in addition to privately-raised funds and supplemental capital funds from the state government.

According to Andrew Reilly, Chairman of the Delaware County Council, “the investors reached [Delaware County officials] about a year ago with a vague proposal,” he said. “The negotiations weren’t very intense or serious until about two months ago. We talked about site location and their goals of having a soccer stadium … This component was simply about getting a host agreement with the county of Delaware and the city of Chester.”

The host agreement is the consensus between the investors, the county and the city involved in defining the scope of the project. This agreement was reached during recent negotiations between the Delaware county officials and the MLS franchise investors, in which the officials made certain to state the objectives of the county.

One objective was to increase access to the Chester waterfront for Delaware County and Chester city residents. According to Reilly, the stadium is predicted to bring in $400 million in private commercial development for the surrounding areas. “We wanted any soccer stadium that was built to be an anchor for positive development,” Reilly said. “It’s going to spur other economic development in the city of Chester. We wanted something compatible with a soccer stadium, such as retail and office buildings and town homes … There’s [also] going to be a marina constructed there.”

Conversely, despite the estimated revenue towards city economic development, Mayor of Swarthmore Elric Gerner has expressed ambivalence towards the stadium initiative and doubts whether it is the most reasonable spending of such an exorbitant amount of funds.

“If somebody said to me they were going to give me 30 million dollars to help Chester, I would say that building a soccer stadium wouldn’t be on the list … and I am saying this within the context of being a super duper sports fan,”Gerner said. “the flip side of this …. the folks who are in charge are trying to do something that they believe is going to be constructive. They feel this is going to be something that is going to be an economic benefit.”

Another objective of the project was to ensure the security of the county’s investment. The $30 million dollar investment provided by Delaware County was to be used by the sports authority of the region towards the purchase and development of the land on which the stadium is to be built and for the stadium itself. The investment is coming from economic development gaming funds from casino hotels in the region, including Harrah’s Casino Hotels.

Delaware County gets a certain percentage of gaming funds that must be used towards economic development, which totals $2 million per year, according to Reilly. The third objective was to create a sports authority to issue $30 million in bonds towards the construction of the stadium. “No county tax dollars are going to be used for this project,” Reilly said. “The project is going to be wholly funded by gaming revenue that must be used for gaming development.”

Eric Wagner, head coach of the Swarthmore men’s soccer team, speculated that “these investors said, ‘This is going to be a huge tourist attraction and if we kind of tag team and build our stadium at the new time they build their slots and venues, it would be an enormous potential draw for professional sports and gambling in the same area.’ The development that has been going on down there has been a hot topic between the developers and the legislators.”

Despite the assured belief that the stadium initiative will undoubtedly prove beneficial to the city of Chester, Economics Professor John P. Caskey, whose primary research interests and expertise lie in financial and urban economics, argues that the number of games and the number and quality of burgeoning businesses in the surrounding area, particularly restaurants, have important impacts on the successes of professional sport initiatives.

“Generally, when a city thinks about a stadium, the ones that are viewed as most beneficial by economists …. [include] Camden Yards in Baltimore Because it is a baseball stadium, people come frequently and it is surrounded by restaurants and other amenities that the fans tend to use.”

According to Reilly, the last objective was to ensure that the MLS franchise would maintain an active presence in the community. “They’ve already taken big steps in that regard. They’re committed to being a really big benefit to the Delaware County and the Chester community,” he said.

Additionally, Governor Edward Rendell has supported the stadium initiative and is proposing to allocate additional capital funds towards its construction. “Governor Rendell has given his stamp of approval,” Wagner said.

Ultimately, the building of the new stadium would be an initiative to further promote the investors’ MLS franchise. Although MLS has been around for almost 11 years, Philadelphia has yet to establish a franchise within the league. With the development of the new stadium, MLS will be looking to add two new teams within the coming years.

“One, for certain, will be added one year from now. It might start playing in 2008 but it might not. That is going to be decided before Christmas,” Reilly said.

Though the additions seem certain, MLS is still in the early development stages of franchise expansion. “We continue to be interested in Philadelphia as a potential MLS expansion market, and discussions are ongoing. At this time, we will refrain from commenting on any specific developments in the process,” MLS President Mark Abbott said in an e-mail.

There are clear indications that the development of the Chester soccer stadium is underway. According to Bryan James, President of Sons of Ben, a supportive 890-member fan club base for a Philadelphia-based soccer team that does not yet exist, there was a press conference concerning the stadium on Oct. 22 in which Delaware County politicians and stadium and franchise investors discussed the possibility of the stadium being built by 2010.

Investors are not the only ones interested in generating an MLS franchise in the Chester area. According to Wagner, Sons of Ben has recently been petitioning in support of the prospective Chester stadium. Because only teams with “a plan for a soccer-specific stadium” can be approved by the MLS, Sons of Ben, in hopes of being given an expansion team to root for, has given strong approval to the plans for a new soccer stadium in their area.

“We started in January this year and tried to get some members to start a supporter’s club,” James said. “Hopefully, we’ll be supporting a real team soon.”

The tenacious no-team fan club has begun petitioning the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. It has made its petition available on its Web site and has collected nearly 3,500 signatures, in addition to 300 on paper. “We started the petition a month and a half ago, at the end of September … Just to show the number of people in this area that were interested in [MLS] and watching a game in their own backyard rather than having to travel …” James said.

According to their Web site, the petition is made up of three articles stating the stadium’s purpose as a venue for shows, performances and high school and college soccer games, its predicted economic benefits for the currently underachieving waterfront and its commitment towards Olympic-related initiatives and events. Their slogan is “We’ve got the fans. We’ve got the city. We just need a team!”

Both excitement and concern is being raised by the stadium initiative on all sides of government, soccer fans and the college community.

“I just want to make sure if I was involved with [the soccer stadium initiative], the people of Chester would not be left holding the empty bag,” Mayor Gerner said. “I would want to make sure that they could reap some benefit from that.”

“That’s not to say this is bad for Chester,” Caskey said. “Chester is probably going to get some tax revenue and jobs from it but they’re also going to get a lot of traffic in there. This could be both good and bad …. Some of the people driving to and from the stadium might stop. This might give Chester the opportunity to develop a restaurant sector that begins to make the place more appealing and brings in more tax revenue and jobs.”

“There’s a whole lot going on right now with regards to an expansion of the MLS,” Wagner said. “Bottom line is that I think this would be fantastic in this region. We’re the biggest region in this country that doesn’t have a soccer stadium in our area.”

Currently, negotiations between Delaware County officials the stadium investors are still in progress. Exact details about the stadium and the prospective expansion teams are undisclosed by MLS and the Sons of Ben stadium petition continues to ask for more supporters’ signatures.

---

« RETURN TO SPORTS

« PREV ARTICLE | NEXT ARTICLE »