With a 7-4 vote for, Austin City Council is letting Precourt Sports Ventures build a Major League Soccer Stadium on city owned land in North Austin. This represents a large step to getting the city a Major League Soccer team to call its own.
The vote sets up the city owned land at McKalla Place near the Domain as a new home for the Columbus Crew, once construction is completed. That is if the lawsuit the team’s owner, Precourt Sports Ventures (PSV), faces in Ohio goes their way.
Mayor Steve Adler said the deal would see the stadium built and funded by PSV, who will hand ownership to the city for free and then pay the city rent on said stadium. And to hammer the point home he added, there is no loss of property tax revenue since the only other possible use for the land would have been Affordable housing.
Affordable housing advocate Councilmember Greg Casar voted for the deal, but not before explaining many of his concerns like affordable housing locations were addressed in the deal with PSV.
The deal wasn’t without its dissenters, District 1’s Ora Houston voted against, fearing what the lawsuit in Columbus, Ohio would mean for the City. She also voiced her disapproval of how PSV went about looking for a new city.
(Titlephoto:Shutterstock/lev radin)
