Modesto and soccer league extend stadium negotiations deadline for a second time
United Soccer League and the city of Modesto will extend their exclusive negotiation period to June 10, after missing two deadlines to come up with a deal for a downtown stadium.
In the past six months, the city and USL were able to discuss potential terms and draft language for a memorandum of understanding — a nonbinding but detailed agreement that usually acts as a precursor to a contract. But the parties weren’t able to ink something before their March 10 deadline.
“Given the short duration of the extended negotiation period, the City and USL remained engaged in negotiations and determined that additional information would be needed to move the discussion forward and finalize the terms of the MOU,” reads the resolution passed by the City Council on Tuesday.
Where things stand with USL
Modesto’s first letter of intent to USL, sent in September 2024, secured an “exclusive negotiating period,” meaning the league could not explore having a soccer team anywhere else in the Central Valley between Manteca and Merced County’s southern border. In turn, the city will consider only USL for a professional soccer team.
That period ended Sept. 10. During the negotiating period, the city held several workshops to gather data, public input and other details to decide, before anything else, where to put a stadium. The City Council eventually selected to focus on the Modesto Centre Plaza site, which has hit some snags, and extended its negotiation period with USL to March 10.
If USL and the city cannot agree on an MOU by the new June 10 deadline, the two entities will need to agree to extend it once again. If they agree on an MOU during that time, the exclusive negotiation period will automatically renew for six months.
While details involving negotiations between a company and a municipal government are typically not available publicly, the city did divulge some details about what topics they aim to cover. These include:
- Potential designs and size of the stadium to ensure compliance with applicable USL stadium requirements.
- Subject to USL stadium requirements, the parties intend that it would have a minimum seating capacity of 5,000, with the ability to expand to at least 10,000 seats, and serve as the home stadium for both a men’s professional soccer team and a women’s professional soccer team.
- How construction of the stadium will be financed, including exploring the use of financing districts.
- The identity of the ownership, management, and operation of the stadium, and agreements relating to leases, licenses, easements and other real property transactions for the stadium.
- The type of ancillary development which may be constructed adjacent to, or in the vicinity of, the Stadium.
- What plans, studies and other predevelopment costs are necessary.
Why the delay
The city wants Kosmont Companies, a consulting firm, to provide an independent analysis needed to “assess the feasibility of the proposed stadium” and “assist in advancing negotiations related to the MOU,” according to the city’s letter of intent.
For its feasability analysis, the city tasked Kosmont with focusing on the project’s overall financial and economic impacts. Further details show Kosmont also will analyze financing options, including using public funds.
For its help with negotiations, the letter of intent states that Kosmont will discuss “site control/ownership, operations, funding, financing and transaction structuring” with USL representatives.
Kosmont was hired by the city in 2022 for just under $50,000 to conduct a study on creating a special tax district to fund downtown redevelopment.
An amendment to Kosmont’s agreement was made in February, which gave it an expanded scope to participate in negotiations and advise the city after it decided to focus on the downtown location for the stadium.
The site chosen for the stadium is where Modesto Centre Plaza, the city’s premier event center, sits. It will need to be demolished if the City Council holds firm on its decision to build a stadium there.
The city planned to close Centre Plaza, which it owns, at the end of 2025. But the city and DoubleTree Hotel, which is attached to Centre Plaza, struck a deal that saved the event center until at least the end of this year.
The downtown stadium project is estimated to cost about $125 million and seat 10,000 people. The men’s soccer team would be a level below the USL’s top tier, which includes Sacramento Republic FC.
