Men’s and women’s professional soccer teams could come to Modesto, plus a new stadium
The Modesto City Council is expected Tuesday to approve a letter of intent that formalizes negotiations between the city and the United Soccer League to bring both men’s and women’s professional teams here and build a multipurpose stadium seating at least 5,000 spectators.
Modesto and the United Soccer League already have been engaged in talks, according to a city report. The letter of intent spells out the scope of the talks and establishes a one-year exclusive negotiating period.
The talks will include potential sites and designs for a stadium, how it will be financed (including public and private funding), who will own and manage it, and development surrounding the stadium, such as affordable and market-rate housing, stores, restaurants and hotels.
The Tampa, Fla.-based United Soccer League operates several leagues throughout the United States and has teams in such cities as San Antonio, Detroit and Sacramento.
Venue also for concerts, festivals
The letter of intent does not obligate Modesto and the United Soccer League to do anything other than talk. The reality of professional soccer at a new multipurpose stadium would require many additional steps and City Council approvals.
But this comes after a group of civic and business leaders went public in late 2021 with their proposal for a downtown Modesto stadium that would be the new home of minor league baseball’s Modesto Nuts, which now play at city-owned John Thurman Field, as well as men’s and women’s soccer teams. The stadium also would be a venue for concerts, festivals and similar events.
A potential stadium could be built on city land. On Aug. 28, the council declared Modesto Centre Plaza — the city’s downtown convention center — along with John Thurman Field and the adjacent, shuttered nine-hole Modesto Municipal Golf Course as surplus under California’s Surplus Land Act.
This lets the city sell or lease the properties, but it’s a complicated process, including the city first offering the properties for sale or lease to developers of affordable housing. Any sales or leases would have to be approved by the council.
Because the golf course and Thurman Field are on the same parcel, one of the properties could not be declared as surplus without the other, according to the city. The letter of intent says the requirements of the Surplus Land Act would be followed if a stadium is built on city-owned land.
Where do Modesto Nuts fit in?
And it’s not clear how long the Nuts will be in Modesto. The council on Aug. 28 also approved a one-year extension to keep the Nuts at Thurman Field through Sept. 30, 2025.
The extension gives Modesto and the Seattle Mariners ball club, which own the Nuts, time to reach a long-term deal for the Nuts to stay at Thurman. But the extension states there is an April 1, 2025, deadline to reach a deal, and if one is not reached, the Nuts would leave the ballpark by Oct. 1, 2025.
A city spokeswoman declined to comment Monday because council members have not yet voted on whether they will approve the letter of intent.
The letter says the talks between Modesto and the United Soccer League will include a multipurpose stadium that can be expanded to at least 10,000 seats.
A city report says a stadium has the potential to draw from more 700,000 residents and become a regional attraction, though the report acknowledges “much of this larger population” is more than a 30-minute drive away.
The letter of intent and city report provide little in the way of details on how a stadium would be financed, other than private and public financing and what are known as public financing districts. But local governments typically pay for stadiums through issuing bonds and other forms of debt.
The City Council meets at 5:30 p.m. in the basement chambers of Tenth Street Place, 1010 10th St. The letter of intent will be the second-to-last item the council considers on an agenda of 28 items.
