San Diego Loyal’s purpose is to ignite and unite our community through service, soccer and soul so San Diego is activated, elevated and celebrated. We do this by putting on exciting events both on and off the pitch.
In essence, our goal is to make San Diego and even greater place to live, work and to play, by bringing people together while putting smiles on their faces. Together with you—our fans—we are creating something authentic, special, and fun.
As we kick off our season this month, we are also busy making plans for our first stadium and home in San Diego. Along with our partners in the Midway Sports and Entertainment District, we responded to the city’s request for a proposal for redeveloping the Sports Arena site. MSED proposed a significant community-centric, sports-themed mixed-use development anchored by a 12-acre central park that includes a new modular soccer stadium for the Loyal.
It’s a plan created for San Diego by San Diegans, which is among the reasons we think it’s fantastic.
The modular soccer stadium will seat up to 15,000 fans. It will be the welcoming home for the SD Loyal and our fans for seven to 10 years while we continue building our fan base and searching for a permanent home that will accommodate our growing club.
We are in the business of growing relationships, and it takes time to grow into a stadium with 35,000 seats, like San Diego State University’s new football stadium, or if we built our own soccer-specific stadium. This temporary soccer stadium at the Sports Arena site will allow us to continue to grow our fan base and provide us with proof of concept that ensures success when we are ready to move to the next level.
At the same time, this new facility will give us a chance to do something good for the community while laying a foundation for the redevelopment of the entire Midway area. More people play and watch the sport here than any other community, and we are eager to ignite the passion for soccer right here in San Diego and prove to the world that this community is the North American soccer capital.
The central 12-acre park promotes health and fitness as a way of life and will continue to make San Diego a leader in the sports and active lifestyle industry that already generates $6.8 billion in economic impact and supports 58,000 local jobs throughout the region.
We believe the MSED plan has the potential of accomplishing our goal of making San Diego an even greater place to live, work and play by bringing people together and making the SD Loyal one of the best clubs in all the leagues in the United States.
You can help us get this plan across the finish line! I am urging fans and the community to visit the city’s sportsarenainput.org website to view each design concept, and then click here to vote for the Midway Sports and Entertainment plan.
I am confident if you look at both proposals you will choose MSED as the project that best fits San Diego’s soul and swagger. Voting ends Monday, July 20, so please vote now!
Warren Smith is president and CEO of SD Loyal.
