Construction of a new Louisville City FC stadium is making steady progress, as the facility is on track for its 2020 opening.
The current 2019 USL Championship season will be Louisville City FC’s last at Louisville Slugger Field, which the club has shared with Minor League Baseball’s Bats (Class AAA; International League) since it began play in 2015. After this season, the club is slated to move into a new soccer-specific stadium in the city’s Butchertown neighborhood, with the facility envisioned as an anchor for future development in the surrounding area.
Work to build the stadium is well underway and proceeding on schedule, according to an update given by project officials this week. More from WLKY:
“We’ve got a championship team and a championship city, and we think it’s a championship project the way its progressed here. This is 164 days since we’ve been on-site so this is what you get after 164 days,” said John Megibben, Louisville region leader for Messer Construction.
What was once a vacant lot now has a massive steel structure, concrete, and some walls. The crews are currently installing the steel for the roof, which is expected to be complete by early July. Jason Larkin, the project executive for Messer-Harmon, says the project is on-time and on-budget for the start of the 2020 USL season and its $65 million cost.
“We rely on picking and choosing what we plan to do so if it’s going to rain, we’re not going to paint today but we can still put masonry up in the rain. We pick and choose what activities we schedule based on the forecast,” said Larkin.
Design plans call for Louisville City FC’s new stadium to open with 11,700 fixed seats, with total capacity coming in at about 14,000. Louisville City FC has generally been among USL Championship’s most solid clubs in terms of attendance since it began play, and has continued that trend this season with a per-game average of 8,088 fans as of May 19.
Image courtesy Louisville City FC.
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