Delaware County officials and state lawmakers said this week that plans were in the works to put a professional soccer stadium in Chester.
The key to getting loans or selling municipal bonds to pay for sports venues is not a concentration of soccer fans, but a critical mass of deep-pocketed corporations that want to lease pricey luxury suites for years at a time.
"That market is pretty well saturated" in Philadelphia, Sam Katz, the former arena consultant and former mayoral candidate, said yesterday. Katz said he had no specific knowledge about efforts to bring Major League Soccer to the region.
Citizens Bank Park, Lincoln Financial Field, and the Wachovia Center - which were built with the help of public funding - already have a combined 368 luxury suites.
Dan Courtemanche, a spokesman for Major League Soccer, said all six of the newly built MLS facilities have luxury boxes, stadium clubs, and other amenities common in the latest generation of sports facilities.
The price tag on each of the the six soccer-only stadiums built so far has ranged from about $85 million to $125 million, he said, and most were built with a combination of public and private money.
Jeffrey Rotwitt, a senior partner with Obermayer Rebmann Maxwell & Hippel L.L.P. and president of the Philadelphia Kixx indoor-soccer team, estimated that investors would have to raise $50 million to $70 million for the league's $30 million franchise fee, start-up costs, working capital, and whatever else is not covered by public subsidies.
