SOCCER

Des Moines Menace owner announces plans for pro soccer team, $60 million stadium in downtown Des Moines

Danny Lawhon Austin Cannon
The Des Moines Register

Des Moines is being considered as a site for a USL Championship soccer club that could launch by 2022, contingent upon the construction of a multi-million-dollar, soccer-specific stadium near downtown, Krause Group CEO Kyle Krause announced Wednesday night. 

The USL Pro Iowa campaign, announced at a private event Wednesday evening at Krause Gateway Center in Des Moines, has the backing of the 36-team league that includes sites such as San Diego, Las Vegas, Nashville, Phoenix and others, league officials confirmed. 

The Des Moines group, which Krause is spearheading, hopes to build a $60 million stadium on the southern edge of downtown, near Southwest 14th Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway, according to details provided to the Register.

“It’s the right time and it’s the right place,” Krause told the crowd at Wednesday's announcement event. 

Court Jeske, executive vice president of the USL, said Des Moines already has the local ownership and enthusiasm for professional soccer, and the city is high on its list for potential expansion teams. 

Not only would Des Moines' USL team play its league compatriots, but it would also have the potential to face MLS and European sides, he said.

“I see all the elements for professional soccer to represent Des Moines and represent the state of Iowa nationally and internationally right here,” Jeske said.

Krause would own this potential team, though it is unclear whether the team would retain the Menace name.   

How would the proposed stadium be built?

The big question mark: a stadium.

It would be constructed through a public-private partnership, according to the group's newly launched website. Krause plans to contribute to start-up costs for the club alongside a substantial funding mechanism for stadium development, the group says. Additional private donations are being sought in addition to state, county and city monies.

Plans for the stadium, according to the release, call for a multi-use venue that would include at least 6,000 seats, 18 suites, club seating and a fan zone. It could also host outside soccer championships, football games, cultural events, festivals and more, according to the campaign website.

The group says it has formed an exploratory committee rooted within the community to "help understand all of the possible needs" in building the multi-use stadium. 

The group says central Iowa must meet an April 1, 2020, deadline to show the league that "sufficient support and funding mechanisms are in place" to develop the stadium. Those requirements include the owner-operator of the stadium. For example, the city of Des Moines owns Principal Park, home of the Iowa Cubs of baseball's Pacific Coast League.  

Councilman Chris Coleman, who will retire when his term ends in early 2020, said the city won't stray from its neighborhoods, streets and public safety priorities. The city will still have to figure out how any partnership with the team would work. 

"If this earns some kind of city funding, it will be some unique revenue source that we’re able to create for it," he said. "It’s not going to take away from the basic services that our city residents are demanding and deserve.”

If funding thresholds are met, the group anticipates breaking ground on the stadium in August 2020, with the team officially beginning play in the league in March 2022.

Operating under the auspices of the United Soccer League, the USL Championship is the division one step below Major League Soccer, the United States' premier professional soccer league.

Team history, vision for Des Moines part of planning

The Des Moines Menace was founded in 1994 as an expansion team in what was once known as the United States Interregional Soccer League. Krause has owned the Des Moines Menace soccer team, now a USL League Two group, since 1998.

The Menace has played in a number of leagues and venues during its 25-year history.

The team spent three years in Waukee (2005-07), followed by an 11-year run in West Des Moines. In 2019, the team joined the USL League Two — the fourth tier among United States professional and amateur soccer leagues — and moved its home games to Drake Stadium. It was the first time since 2004, when it played at Hoover High School, that the Menace held home games in Des Moines.

Des Moines' gradually rising profile among top cities for young professionals to live, alongside the prevalence of minor-league sports franchises and the lack of a professional squad in the city, could be among the reasons the league would expand to central Iowa.

“I have a bucket list. This is on there, and it has been for a month. I’d like to see this get down the road,” Coleman said.

“As the fastest-growing major metro in the Midwest, and home to one of the most successful USL League Two clubs, Des Moines is primed and ready to take soccer to the next level,” Krause said in the release. “Bringing Des Moines a USL Championship club — Iowa’s first professional soccer team — and a multi-use stadium will have transformative benefits to central Iowa, further boosting civic pride and the economic vitality of our growing city.”

Citing a feasibility study from Johnson Consulting, organizers said such a stadium and club could generate $9.9 million in total annual spending and $2.3 million in increased earnings for central Iowa.

Check back with DesMoinesRegister.com for more details.