Let’s go back to June 29th—3:45am to be exact. That’s when the Austin City Council passed the resolution for the City of Austin to get down to the nitty-gritty of negotiating with Precourt Sports Ventures (PSV) for a new stadium at McKalla Place.
If this deal is going to get done, it’ll need to happen in August. That’s when the City Manager, Spencer Cronk, is directed to report back to the City Council on the negotiations.
Let the negotiations begin
From now to August, the City Manager has a checklist of about 20 items to negotiate as laid out in the resolution. These are some of the big ticket items they’ll hash out:
- Costs for construction, development, operations, and maintenance of the stadium to be paid by PSV.
- On-site affordable housing.
- Open space on the land for leisure and special events for the public.
- Transportation and parking for the stadium.
- MetroRail station at the stadium to be funded by PSV.
While the negotiations continue with PSV, the City Manager also is directed to solicit plans for the development of affordable housing on other city-owned tracts as part of this resolution.
It may be worth noting City Manager Spencer Cronk was hired in February 2018 from Minneapolis, where he was City Coordinator since 2014. He’s likely familiar with MLS stadium negotiations—Minnesota United FC was formed in 2015 and was also working with the city of Minneapolis to build a soccer-specific stadium on city land.
On their end, PSV has some legal wrangling to do after being sued by the state of Ohio in an effort to keep Columbus Crew from moving.
It’s safe to say there’ll be no shortage of crossed fingers come August.
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