A Sounders stadium in Fife?
Pro soccer team looking at 80 acres for training facility, stadium and soccer fields
Todd Milles; The News Tribune
The Seattle Sounders professional soccer team is targeting 80 acres of land in Fife for a soccer facility and stadium, Fife officials said Tuesday.
Michael Lafreniere, the director of parks and recreation in Fife, said the Sounders and private investors would finance the project. The cost, along with money for youth foundations, scholarships and operating expenses, is $20 million to $30 million, Lafreniere said. If approved, construction on an expandable, 5,000-person stadium and facilities would begin immediately.
"(Construction) would begin this fall and run into next year," Lafreniere said.
Sounders officials confirmed Tuesday that they have been in contact with Fife city planners. Sounders minority owner Neil Farnsworth was out of the country and unavailable for comment.
The Sounders, who began as a North American Soccer League team in 1974, were resurrected and play in the A-League. The A-League is affiliated with Major League Soccer and acts as a farm system for the MLS.
The Sounders draw players extensively from the region's college and high school soccer programs, while also maintaining ties with youth soccer throughout the Seattle-King County area, operating clinics and helping with select teams.
Farnsworth pitched the plan at the Fife City Council meeting in June. The facility would include seven soccer fields adjacent to the stadium and on-site living and training quarters for national team-caliber players.
Lafreniere said the facility would be the home stadium for the Sounders and also could be used as a training facility by a MLS franchise based in Seattle. The Sounders play at Memorial Stadium in Seattle after having played in Renton last season.
Forty of the 80 acres would be devoted to 23 youth soccer fields, Lafreniere said.
John Rosendahl, the president of the Tacoma-Pierce County Junior Soccer Association, said more soccer fields are needed because of the sport's growing popularity.
"We have a shortage of fields in Pierce County, and in the next 10 years it would a crisis situation," Rosendahl said.
The parcels of land, on the east side of 70th Avenue East at 20th Street East, are about a mile east of Fife High School. Acreage farther south on 70th, near Valley Avenue East, once was in the running as a replacement site for the Longacres horse racing track. Instead, Emerald Downs was built in Auburn.
Another area receiving consideration for the soccer facility is Sumner, but Lafreniere said the Sounders are focusing their efforts in Fife. Farnsworth told Fife city officials that negotiations with the landowner should be finalized in the next 60 days, Lafreniere said.
"The Fife site is the stronger site due to freeway accessibility and location," Lafreniere said.
Lafreniere said discussion of the proposal likely would come at council meetings next month, either Sept. 12 or Sept. 26.
Farnsworth told officials construction would be in two phases. The first part contains the stadium, on-site living quarters and training facility. The second part would be constructing the fields for area youth programs.
Also, Farnsworth said the stadium likely would be built to seat 5,000 people, with the room to expand to 15,000.
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* Reach staff writer Todd Milles at 253-597-8742, Ext. 6197, or todd.
milles@mail.tribnet.com.
© The News Tribune
08/09/2000
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