SNST Newsletter Week 28: Do you even DoSo, bro?

I told you we’d keep moving north. This week, our focus is on Raleigh. (First published September 5)

Published in

Soccer 'n' Sweet Tea

4 min readOct 4, 2019

Happy Thursday! I told you we’d keep moving north. This week, our focus is on Raleigh. We’ve spent some time here fussing over the Charlotte MLS bid, but North Carolina FC and NC Courage owner Steve Malik and folks in the Triangle are making moves of their own to reshape the area’s soccer scene.

A proposed 20,000-seat stadium and surrounding development would bring soccer to downtown Raleigh and could serve as a strong selling point for MLS in the future (we know how much the league loves its soccer-specific stadiums).

Seth Hunter is our resident expert on the development, and he broke down the status of the project below.

What’s up with Raleigh’s downtown stadium?

By Seth Hunter

Just over two years after the #919toMLS rally and original stadium proposal, a major stadium and entertainment development for North Carolina FC and the NC Courage became closer to reality late last month.

The currently-named Downtown South project, located just south of downtown Raleigh and anchored by a 20,000-seat soccer stadium, passed a major hurdle to becoming a reality after the Wake County commissioners and Raleigh City Council both voted unanimously to conduct a feasibility study by year’s end.

NCFC owner Steve Malik and local developer John Kane want to invest $1.9 billion in the new district, which would also include a hotel, restaurants, retail and housing, and could possibly even host esports events. They have asked for just over $11 million a year over a 30-year period from the county interlocal tax funds, which would pay for debt service and the maintenance for the project.

In anticipation for the feasibility study to be conducted by the local governments, the applicants recently published a study conducted by the Urban Land Institute. The full 96-page document and presentation can be found here.

So, what’s next?

With the feasibility study expected to be completed by December, the next step in the process would be the approval of so-called “medium projects” that would share $42 million in tourism money. DoSo would be competing against the likes of Marbles Kids Museum and the North Carolina Museum of Art for a portion of that money.

That process should be completed by the end of fiscal year 2020 and includes another round of voting by both the Wake County Board of Commissioners and Raleigh City Council. While the commissioners who voted unanimously for the study will remain unchanged, city council has an election coming up.

As of now, DoSo is alive and well, and unlike the previous stadium announcement two years ago, NCFC and North Carolina Courage fans finally have a timeframe and entities they can look towards for progress.

The #NCFCfam waits patiently.

This weekend’s schedule

NWSL

North Carolina Courage at Sky Blue FC, 3 p.m. Sept. 7 on YAHOO! Sports

USL Championship

Charlotte Independence vs.Tampa Bay Rowdies, 7 p.m. Sept. 7 at Sportsplex at Matthews
North Carolina FC vs. Bethlehem Steel FC, 7 p.m. Sept. 7 at WakeMed Soccer Park
Charleston Battery vs. Indy Eleven, 7:30 p.m. Sept. 7 at MUSC Health Stadium

USL League One

Greenville Triumph SC at Richmond Kickers, 7 p.m. Sept. 7 on ESPN+

NISA Fall Showcase

Stumptown Athletic at Philadelphia Fury, 7 p.m. Sept. 7 on MyCujoo

Extra time

Charleston Battery can’t catch a break with the weather in 2019. The team’s Monday night match against Memphis 901 FC was postponed a second time this season after a mandatory evacuation warning. There’s no telling if Saturday’s match will be able to be played with the hurricane moving in this week.
Here’s a look at the maximum, minimum and projected points for both USL Championship conferences.
On Talkin’ Jacks, Ben and Alex discuss Charlotte’s scoreless draw with Charleston and the recent dip in form. They also predict the results for the rest of the season to get an idea of where the Jacks will finish 2019.
NC Courage star and former NWSL MVP Lynn Williams has signed a deal with the Western Sydney Wanderers for the upcoming W-League season. Several NWSL stars play in Australia during the American offseason, and Lynn trained with Melbourne City during the 18–19 season.