Mecklenburg County doesn’t want to pay solo for an improved American Legion Memorial Stadium.

A year and a half since county commissioners approved a $24 million funding model to renovate the site in partnership with the city of Charlotte and Charlotte Independence, the price for progress has gone up.

County Manager Dena Diorio presented a county-funded $31.75 million proposal at the Dec. 19 commissioners meeting, which was approved in a 6-2 vote. The county’s Intergovernmental Committee, led by Commissioner Trevor Fuller, intends to meet with the city’s Economic Development Committee, led by council member James Mitchell, next month to discuss co-funding Memorial renovations as well as an amateur sports complex at the Grady Cole Center site.

“Despite my disappointment, the county did vote to fully fund the renovation of Memorial Stadium,” said Mecklenburg County District 1 Commissioner and Intergovernmental Committee member Jim Puckett. “They did ask the county manager to go and see if anybody would like to partner with us. From a negotiations point of view, once you say that you can fully fund something, it gets tougher to tell someone to now make what you can fully fund one of their priorities.”

With the impending sale of the Carolina Panthers and the “NFL unknown,” Puckett hopes the city will join the county to refurbish Memorial, but admits it’s unlikely.

Mitchell sees an improved amateur sports venue as a potential asset.

“Our thoughts were that the members of the Intergovernmental Relations Committee would meet with the City Council ED Committee members and just have a discussion to see where the stars line up,” said Mitchell, who wants the city committee to meet prior to meeting with the county. The earliest meeting would be held on Feb. 8.

“I do like the possibility of us sitting down and thinking about it,” Mitchell said. “I think the citizens would like that. Memorial Stadium is a very important asset to the community. If the city did get involved, we would be looking for some open, public dates that the citizens can use for Battle of the Bands and things of that nature.

“We see the amateur industry as an industry we would like to get into. That’s why we put out the [request for proposals] so we can get ideas about how we can bring amateur sports to Charlotte. It’s a billion-dollar industry. Most of our parents have told us they have to travel to Virginia, South Carolina and Tennessee to participate in AAU basketball, track and volleyball. I welcome the discussion, because have shown in the past that the city and county can work together and do good things like BB&T Ballpark. We do have some history on our side of working together.”

Puckett expressed concerns about the governing bodies “best utilizing what we have” rather than spending money on another project.

“While I’m more than willing to listen to any idea, the idea of expanding the Memorial Stadium renovation beyond Memorial Stadium is a mistake,” said Puckett, who noted that it would take $12-14 million to upgrade Memorial without soccer, and $14-20 million if soccer became the primary tenant. “Before we look at building a new recreational facility, I think we need to evaluate how we are using, or in most cases not using, our current recreation facilities.”

Puckett noted discussing the idea with Mayor Vi Lyles.

“She actually had voiced a concern to me about needing additional rec space, and I had committed to her that I would be more than happy to discuss how the county can use our current facilities to work with programs within the city,” he said. “For me, until we’ve kind of exhausted how to best use what we have, we don’t really need to be looking at building something additional.”
A key concern at last January’s public county forum regarding the county funding renovations for a Major League Soccer bid came from the concern over the demolition of Grady Cole. A bid pertaining to the site no longer exists, but the Independence’s goal remains to play at Memorial.

Residents in the Elizabeth community have indicated their preference for minor league and amateur sports over major league. The area is surrounded by Novant Health’s Presbyterian Hospital and Central Piedmont Community College, and is better suited to housing smaller events due to limited space.

“The neighborhood was never against the upgrades for minor league, but they made it very clear that they were against Major League Soccer,” Mitchell said. “Talking to council member Larken Egleston, who is the representative for District 1, he said he was very open to having discussions about upgrading Memorial Stadium for minor league soccer.”

Said Puckett: “Minor league is a good half-step to see how it would impact that community. You then start to decide is it something we would want to see with major league or not but to go from nothing to major league was a pretty big leap. Especially when you had the option to do it with a minor league stop in between, which is why I was not in favor of the Major League Soccer proposal, but was in favor of the minor league soccer proposal.”

Other offers:

Charlotte FC, a group which submitted a bid for NISA, a league awaiting U.S. Soccer approval, which league founder Peter Wilt considered key to the club’s bid.

“Widening is important,” Wilt said in a previous interview about Memorial’s dimensions for soccer. “To provide the best possible production of a professional soccer team, we want the proper width. What we would do is seek a waiver from U.S. Soccer for the initial year or two while the widening is addressed. Long term we believe we can work with the landholders [Mecklenburg County] to widen the field, and in the short term work with what’s there presently.”

According to Puckett, any discussions between Charlotte FC and commissioners have occurred in a minor capacity and have not been brought to the table for the group to discuss as a whole.

“To my knowledge, there is not a contract signed with anybody to use it as a minor league soccer stadium yet,” Puckett said.  

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