The city of Orlando is now officially planning to build a soccer-specific stadium for the Orlando City Soccer Club. On August 9, 2013, the proposal allowed for the spending of $60 million to build this stadium and other civic-improvement projects in the city.
The new spending will allow the Lions to leave their current home of the Citrus Bowl. By building a soccer-specific stadium, Orlando City Soccer can be considered by Major League Soccer as a potential expansion team.
The new stadium is expected to be built on Church Street, near the Amway Center.
Freshman Armeen Makhzan said, “[The soccer stadium is good] because a lot of foreigners love soccer and it’s just an all-around good sport.”
The plan will use $60 million overall, broken down over several different projects. About $20 million will be used on building the stadium and will take approximately 10 years of construction to complete. The $20 million only makes up a fourth of the stadium’s overall price and will be paid with money raised by the city’s tourism tax.
The other $40 million will be used for a number of projects, such as to continue building the Dr. Phillips Center for Performing Arts, renovating the Citrus Bowl, and marketing and advertising for the new stadium.
Freshman Emily Anderson said, “Instead of starting it [the construction] all at once we should focus on one [project] at a time. The state doesn’t want to get everything jumbled and have to stop half way through for a few year. Plus it seems like it would be a huge raise in taxes.”
Sophomore Chance Overall said, “We don’t have enough things being built in Orlando currently.”
All of these new actions are directed towards luring in local tourism throughout the next 5 years. It is predicted that the stadium will bring in 60,000 to 70,000 tourists per year.
The current pricing for game tickets at the Citrus Bowl is at most $30 during regular season games and $60 during international games. There is no price set for the new soccer stadium or predicted amount of money it will bring into the city.