COURTESY CHARLOTTE FC

The former Eastland Mall site would become headquarters for Charlotte FC's soccer academy under a plan submitted by Tepper Sports to Charlotte City Council.

Eastland will not be Charlotte FC headquarters.

The Oct. 26 Charlotte City Council meeting revealed that the expected headquarters of Charlotte’s Major League Soccer franchise will not be on the former shopping center site. However, it will be headquarters for the club’s academy.

Community engagement for the former Eastland Mall site began to increase in 2017, and ultimately became making a recreation/sports an anchor component, particularly with the arrival of Carolina Panthers owner David Tepper, who purchased the team in 2018. He has since expanded his sports holdings to include Charlotte FC, which will begin play at Bank of America Stadium in 2022.

“2018 is also when Tepper arrived into the city, and we started building that relationship with them around Charlotte, not just the Eastland conversations, but Charlotte as a whole,” Assistant City Manager and Economic Development Director Tracy Dodson said.

Dodson said the following components emerged as what the community desired the most for the site: soccer/sports fields, a public plaza, residential space, green spaces, retail and food and beverage. They divided the site into the Village Green, which is designed to be the core of the site, the Get Outside component to connect the site through green space, Reside, which represents residential, the Daily for community services and Active for the sport section.

Phase one of the site plan includes the park, multifamily and single-family housing, commercial and retail space, an Atrium Health facility as well as the Charlotte FC component. Demolition would begin winter 2020/21 and be scheduled for completion in 2022. The initial proposal from TSE had Eastland as the MLS headquarters, but the current proposal has the site as the academy headquarters.

“This is where there is a slight change in the proposal from this time last year,” Dodson said. “What we had initially proposed was an MLS headquarters facility and some community fields and potentially some academy [components]. Now what we are looking at is the Charlotte FC elite academy headquarters with training and tournaments and camps there—potentially open practices during the season for the MLS team. The community use of the field—so we still have that—[and] additional camps, clinics, tournaments and festivals and other events that will operated by Tepper Sports. International club and national team open practices there.”

Dodson said this model is superior to siting the MLS headquarters because the previous layout would result in land that was not open to the public. Also, the intended square footage for the site and potential number of job opportunities remains unchanged.

“This is all about bringing the community to the site,” Dodson said. “This is about bringing people from all of the Carolinas that are in academy to this site. At the end of the day, if we go back to those community goals, it is something that is more exciting as a generator for the east side as well as this site.”

The city intends to use $10 million in hospitality funds for the Tepper Sports component on the Eastland site for fields, facilities and infrastructure. Charlotte would enter into a ground lease with Tepper Sports, which would build and operate the facilities. Atrium Health would partner with a facility on site.

The original plan called for $110 million in city hospitality funds, but how that funding was to be used was never specified. For instance, would it all go to Eastland, or would some of it go to Uptown? The 2019 terms also placed the MLS headquarters in a 20,000 square foot facility for 15 years and funding would not be committed to Bank of America Stadium improvements until a long-term vision for that area of Uptown was established. Also, a timeline had not been set for those projects.

The updated proposal been reduced to $35 million in hospitality funds, which will be distributed between Eastland and Uptown at $10 million and $25 million respectively. Non-relocation for nine years at Bank of America Stadium and 10 years at Eastland for the academy is also included. The Eastland facility will be approximately 10,000-15,000 square feet and employ 20-25 full time and 30-40 part-time. Tepper Sports must commit to 100 days of annual programing at Eastland, excluding community play, and a plan for the Uptown District must be completed in 2021-22.

Charlotte city council District 7 representative Ed Driggs questioned what these plans mean with regards to football, as the Panthers are in the process of building new headquarters in Rock Hill.

“This is strictly about our investment in Charlotte—David Tepper and Nicole Tepper’s continued investment in this region and our fans here and the city of Charlotte and Eastland,” Panthers Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Mark Hart said. “The Panthers are obviously an important subject matter, which we talked about when we met with all of you, but this is about creating the best MLS team, the best fan base. With respect to Bank of America [Stadium], as you know we have to transform that building, which is a great building for football. We have to transform that building a little bit for soccer, which is what this investment is designed to do.

“With respect to the old agreements we had pre-COVID-19, as you COVID-19 has had a toll on all of us. It has certainly had a great toll on the city, but to a great extent it has had a toll on professional sports. A lot of the changes that you see here, specifically with respect to tethers with the Panthers, a lot of that is just not appropriate at this time.”

Eastland falls within one of the city’s six Corridors of Opportunity, a $24.5 million program the city announced in September.

“Ever since 2003, the vision for this site has been relatively the same, which is a mixed use development,” Dodson said. “You purchased the property in 2012, so you have almost owned it for a decade, but where things really changed was in 2017, and in 2018 when you selected the development partner of Crosland Southeast.”

Council approved rezoning the property in January as well as $2.87 million on Oct. 12 to buy the adjacent Wilora Lake property, which is on the Tepper Sports side of the Eastland site.

Principles for redevelopment of Eastland were established in 2012 when the city purchased the property. They set out to, “enhance the perceptions of the Eastland area and East Charlotte, unify local communities, create connectivity and walkability for surrounding neighborhoods, take advantage of natural features and create opportunity for civic development and increase equitable economic development.”

City council must authorize City Manager Marcus Jones to negotiate and execute a master development plan with Crosland Southeast and one with Tepper Sports. The panel will meet on Nov. 9 to decide on how to proceed.

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