According to The Columbus Dispatch, a plan to keep the Columbus Crew soccer team from moving to Austin, Texas would include building a new stadium that would also include a apartments and retail space. “Wait until you see the plans going forward on the new facility for the Crew,” which will be “more than a stadium” and “more than any of you will have imagined,” said Franklin County Commissioner Marilyn Brown, who described the project as a large-scale, multi-use complex.
“It’s not totally known yet, in terms of the final numbers, but it will be far more than just a field,” Brown told The Dispatch after the announcement. “It will have mixed-use included, so it’s an economic-development deal that will include apartments, retail along with it. So it will have enormous economic-development benefits.”
Asked about Brown’s comments, Columbus Partnership CEO Alex Fischer, who has been instrumental in the negotiations to keep the Crew in Columbus, said that officials will announce “other facility, stadium components” Thursday. The announcement Wednesday was the first of several in the coming weeks that are to “culminate with the sale of the team by the end of the year,” Fischer said.
“I think that when the world and the country look at the weekend’s news out of Columbus, both this (Mapfre) facility, what’s announced (Thursday), and all the progress that we’ve made, I think we will have turned heads around the world of professional sports, all looking at Columbus,” Fischer said Wednesday.
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