Indianapolis’s Proposed MLS Stadium Gets New Site, Funding Mechanism

The Indianapolis city-county council has approved a new special taxing district to help fund a new soccer stadium on the southeast side of downtown, with the hope of luring a Major League Soccer team to the city, according to an article from Axios. The new plan replaces the Indy Eleven stadium project, which was slated to be part of the $1.5 billion Eleven Park mixed-use project approved last year for the southwest side of downtown. It means the city will walk away from a proposed partnership with Eleven Park’s developer, the Keystone Development Group, and Indy Eleven, a member of the United Soccer League, despite the fact that Keystone has already broken ground.

The originally proposed site was called into question when fragments of human remains were found out the Eleven Park site; the property was formerly the site of the city’s first public cemetery, and it’s believed many of the estimated hundreds sets of remains still buried there are likely from the unmarked graves of Black residents, reports the Indy Star. 

In a controversial move, Mayor Joe Hogsett’s administration said the Eleven Park site was too financially risky because “MLS would not touch the [Eleven Park] ‘with a 10-foot pole’” and “issued an ultimatum” to the city-county council in advance of the recent vote: “either pass [Hogsett’s] plan to lure Major League Soccer to town by publicly funding a stadium near the downtown heliport or don't build a soccer stadium at all,” writes reporter Arika Herron for Axios. 

According to another article by Axios, the professional sports development area approved by the council’s most recent vote will be the mechanism to fund the construction of the soccer stadium. It will allow the city to divert some tax revenue from properties in the designated district toward the stadium. However, according to Axios, the stadium will actually only be built with the guarantee of an MLS team, which is still up in the air.