FC Cincinnati are looking to follow a trend in MLS with a stadium inside the city limits, but according to a new interview with the architect of the project, the inspiration is more far-flung.
Entertainment and sports trade publication VenuesNow published a profile on Wednesday on the 2019 MLS expansion team's stadium project, and according to architect Dan Meis, the objective is to find a way to integrate the stadium with the neighborhood in the most reasonable way, as happened in Europe and in the past with baseball stadiums in Chicago and Boston.
“It’s a lot like our [early] ballparks in the US,” Meis said in the profile. “There was a field, and as the club got more popular, they built a grandstand, and then added to it or built another grandstand. It’s kind of odd using baseball as an analogy, but that’s our heritage with parks like Wrigley and Fenway. It’s very much that model about how they connect to the community, and it starts to really influence the architecture.”
Meis, who is also designing a new stadium for AS Roma, among others, likened FC Cincinnati's fanbase to the storied Italian side.
“They have an incredible fan base,” he said. “It’s a lot like working in Rome where you have very smart, rabid fans.”
You can read more about the process of designing FC Cincinnati's stadium over at VenuesNow.
