The prospect of Major League Soccer in the Sin City has taken another step forward.
The Las Vegas City Council on Wednesday voted 4-3 in favor of a public subsidy for a soccer stadium, clearing the way for a new downtown soccer stadium to be built and putting further momentum behind the city’s bid for an MLS expansion franchise.
Las Vegas is one of a number of cities vying for an MLS expansion franchise. Representatives of the city’s bid, as well as groups from Minneapolis and Sacramento, met with MLS officials at the league office in November regarding the possibility of an expansion franchise.
MLS has stated that it wants to expand to 24 teams by 2020. Twenty teams will compete in the league in 2015, with expansion clubs in Atlanta and Los Angeles set to join MLS in 2017.
The Las Vegas stadium will only be constructed if MLS awards the city an expansion franchise.
According to detailed information about the revised term sheet published by the City of Las Vegas, the proposed $200 million stadium, which would be situated at Symphony Park, would be "privately owned, privately managed and privately operated."
The City of Las Vegas says that the current deal calls for private funding from a group headed by Findlay Sports & Entertainment and The Cordish Companies that would cover roughly $143 million of the stadium project, while the city would kick in $25 million in bonds toward the stadium and another $31 million in infrastructure funding.
“We applaud Mayor Goodman and the Las Vegas City Council for approving the measure to support a public-private partnership to build a new soccer-stadium in downtown Las Vegas,
The Las Vegas news comes on the same day that the Washington, D.C. City Council approved a plan for D.C. United to build its own soccer-specific stadium in the District's Buzzard Point neighborhood.
