INDIANAPOLIS — Over a week ago the announcement was made that plans for a brand new soccer stadium to host Indy’s professional soccer team would be moving forward.
In a project anticipated to cost around a billion dollars, Indy Eleven team owner Ersal Ozdemir in a partnership with Keystone Corp. has acquired the old Diamond Chain manufacturing site on the southwest side of downtown to be turned into “Eleven Park.”
Ozdemir said the development will see a new soccer-specific stadium built on the site for the Indy Eleven, as well as retail space, a hotel, and even apartments.
Though the project’s main goal is to give Indy Eleven a place to play permanently, Ozdemir believes the project will go beyond what’s on the surface.
“This is the lynchpin for this area to completely take off,” he said on Inside Indiana Business. “Create a village where people live, work, play to do that. We’ll have our men’s and women’s (team), but that’s the smaller component.”
Ozdemir believes the stadium will attract more international soccer matches to take place in Indianapolis, such as when Chelsea FC faced Inter Milan at Lucas Oil Stadium as part of the International Champions Cup.
Again, soccer is only on the surface.
“We believe you can have 25,000 people in a concert (in the new stadium),” Ozdemir said. “So, we’ll actually become the largest concert venue. I’m not saying we’ll be a ‘concert venue’, but another place to host large concerts.”
Finally, Ozdemir hopes Eleven Park will help support other large events that take place in Indianapolis every year.
It will take a public-private partnership to build the complex as it would be owned by the Capital Improvement Board and leased by Indy Eleven once finished. Construction could begin as early as next year.
