USM has a fairly large rink with an Olympic-sized ice surface on their Gorham campus. all of their athletic facilities are located there.
There are plans to renovate Fitzpatrick Stadium? First I've heard of it. Who's paying? And hope it's not just football/track because there is a HUGE need for soccer. A regulation sized soccer field is much wider than a football field. They need to figure something out and fast. Portland is growing in stature much faster than its population. Portland now pulls people from Boston on the weekends (for the foodie and bar scenes) and that would become a potential source with concerts. A new stadium needs to be up to 20,000 for soccer (football and track will not attract more than 10,000) and up 25,000 for an outdoor concert. A few years back Mumford & Sons drew over 10,000 to the Eastern Prom. A summer concert series in Portland with up-to-date designed food and drink options (covered) would pull people from Southern NH and Boston. Live Nation, the concert behemoth (and is on its way to being broken up due to Federal anti-trust rules discussed in Congress last week) wants to do a large concert series in Payson Park. They know the potential in Portland. Again, USM's new garages with 2,250 spaces helps with the parking. If Fenway Park can handle a crowd of 40,000, surely Portland could for up to 25,000. Didn't Bangor have a show in their outdoor venue with 15,000 last summer? It was a who's who of performers there last summer. None of them came to Portland. Look at the line-up at Cross Arena. Godawful.
The link I sent on the last page shows the renderings for a renovated Fitzy for soccer. That’s the plan afaik but no word on a timeline. I’m sure the soccer group that’s pitching it is hoping the city/state pitches in
Thank you for the link. That is a super lame proposal. It does not address bigger capacity, food and drink space designs that are popular today, and it is not true that it can't also have a track with the widened soccer field. I've watched stadiums swap out sections of artificial turf for specific events. The sections of the turf that conflict with the track can be removed. I hope the city and its rec dept. does not go with this inferior proposal. There are other ways to get more funds with sponsorships. Shamrock Sports Marketing is one source to find them. It's another Cross Arena result, in my opinion. I work with professional sports teams and stadiums across the country during some of my work. I am qualified to talk about this from a professional experiential position.
Feel free to reach out to me directly or Gabe - we've been at this with the City for almost 3 years with literally no real contact (no city manager and no economic development contact) and this is literally what was created with the parks department being the main contact and input. This is what they have told us to do and what they would bless. ~ C
We are most definitely NOT expecting a dime. ~ C
It's been a challenge. The parks department understands it's meaning to the city - specifically the immigrant community- they lead the effort to get the futsal court down at Kennedy Park - but in terms of a larger vision for the city its really not their role. City has like 300 openings that need to be filled - including obviously the manager and economic dev role. In many ways I feel so bad for them trying to operate in this environment but also I am just kind of tired of running in circles. I'm hopeful that this simplified plan gets approved just so we can get the team going while we sort out where we can play more permanently. I mean it's basically we rent the time just like any other club and pay for the upgrades we need to meet USL requirements. Gabe did a tour of some simpler league facilities and feels like we can still create a great game day experience. NO SCHOOLS LOSE PLAY TIME..... The turf is technically nearing it's run time anyway. And we may or may not have a legit potential lead investor doing due diligence right now. We are fortunate that the USL has been very supportive given the length of time we've been at this. ~ C
It's more like AA; MLS is at the top and isn't formally affiliated with USL, then there's USL Championship (def below MLS) and League One (us) is a tier below that.
