The Detroit City FC is seeking $88 million worth of tax breaks and other development incentives for its planned professional soccer stadium and related developments in the city’s Corktown neighborhood.
Details of the club’s public subsidies request were unveiled on Thursday, Sept. 11, during a night meeting of the Neighborhood Advisory Council that is working toward a community benefits package for the project. The total cost of the development would be $198 million, including the centerpiece of a $153-million and 15,000-capacity stadium to be called AlumniFi Field.
The Detroit City Football Club released renderings of its new soccer stadium, AlumniFi Field, to be built in Detroit’s Corktown.
The non-stadium segments of the club’s development plan are:
76 new apartments (68 to be offered at “affordable” rents).
A new 421-space parking deck.
16,000 square feet of commercial space off 20th Street, including two restaurants.
680 spaces of surface parking.
The stadium would be built on the site of the to-be-demolished Southwest Detroit Hospital. Detroit City FC is aiming to finish the stadium in time for their 2027 season.
The stadium would be more than double the capacity of Keyworth Stadium in Hamtramck where the pro soccer team now plays.
An official with the quasi-public Detroit Economic Growth Corp. laid out the club’s incentives request during Thursday’s meeting, held inside The Mercado community center on Bagley Street. The incentives would be worth an estimated $88 million over a period of 30 years.
David Howell, the DEGC’s vice president of real estate services, said a key difference between the soccer stadium project and the other large pro sports venues in Detroit — Ford Field, Comerica Park and Little Caesars Arena — is that 100% of the financing to build AlumniFi Field would come from private sources, such as investors, and none from direct public funding or municipal bonds.
By comparison, LCA had 38% public funding and 62% private funding, according to the DEGC.
“No public funding is there,” Howell said of AlumniFi Field. “Public support — absolutely.”
Howell said the DEGC ran the numbers and the stadium and residential development wouldn’t be financially feasible without the incentives. And even with the incentives, the projected return-on-investment would be a modest 4.75%, he said.
“We have determined that this project would not happen without incentives,” said Howell.
He then called out club co-founder Sean Mann in the audience.
“Sean is not doing this to make money,” Howell said. “Sean is doing this because he loves soccer, he’s invested in the city, he started this league.”
According to the DEGC projections, the stadium and ancillary development would create 1,030 construction jobs and 142 new direct full-time-equivalent jobs.
The development would have a positive fiscal benefit to the city of nearly $480,000 per year on average — even with the tax breaks. If the development isn’t built, the site would continue to generate only about $70,000 a year in property taxes, the projections say.
The DEGC also expects the stadium to have an economic impact of nearly $25 million a year for area businesses, such as bars and restaurants.
The Detroit City Football Club released renderings of its new soccer stadium, AlumniFi Field, to be built in Detroit’s Corktown.
The club is seeking three development incentives: a “Brownfield” capture of future taxes generated at the site — valued at about $74 million over 30 years — and two commercial tax abatements valued at just under $14 million over a dozen or so years. Each incentive ultimately needs Detroit City Council approval.
The $74-million Brownfield figure includes a previously approved $5.9 million that Detroit City Council awarded to the soccer stadium project in May to start demolition of the old hospital.
The club is seeking to expand the size of that original Brownfield to reflect the higher costs of an environmental remediation across the full site, plus the costs associated with the development’s affordable housing.
Of the 76 total apartments, 68 would be considered “affordable,” with 60 of them set aside at reduced rents for those making no more than 80% of area median income or AMI, and the remaining eight for those at 60% AMI.
In Detroit, 80% AMI is $56,560 a year for an individual and 60% AMI is $42,420 for an individual.
Mann, the soccer club’s co-founder, told the Free Press after the meeting that the private financing for the development is more or less lined up.
“We’ve raised equity, we’ve got commitments on the private debt,” he said. “Obviously it’s a shifting lending landscape, so we’re hoping to find better deals as we get closer to actually breaking ground. But assuming we go through this process smoothly and on time, we’re ready to get going as soon as we can.”
Contact JC Reindl: 313-378-5460 or jcreindl@freepress.com. Follow him on X @jcreindl
