With downtown no longer an option, Lexington Sporting Club continues search for stadium site

Lexington Sporting Club won’t be playing in the shadow of the downtown Lexington skyline anytime soon, as the city’s new professional soccer franchise continues to explore potential locations for a permanent stadium.

LSC released renderings in January of a proposed 6,000-seat soccer stadium, 160-room hotel and a 250-unit apartment complex on the High Street parking lot of Central Bank Center, but on Thursday it became clear that proposal would not be realized.

The group that oversees Central Bank Center — Lexington Center Corporation — announced Thursday it would continue negotiations with local developer The Webb Companies and Dallas-based Lincoln Companies to redevelop the 17-acre High Street parking lot.

The Lincoln-Webb proposal includes a mix of residential, retail and multiple parking garages.

This means LSC — which will begin play next spring in USL League One, the third tier of American soccer — must explore other locations to build its stadium.

“We had never put all of our eggs in one basket … we made sure that we were looking at multiple sites and we have from the outset,” LSC President Vince Gabbert told the Herald-Leader in a phone interview Thursday. “It doesn’t really change anything for us, except that it probably will allow us to actually be to-market quicker with some of the other sites that we’re looking at.”

Gabbert said the downtown proposal process was “taking longer than what we expected” and LSC advanced discussions at other potential sites for a stadium.

In October, William J. Shively, the founder of Tower Hill Sports, which majority owns the franchise, said he has contracts for land near Interstate 75 in Lexington that would serve as a backup option for a stadium if building the downtown stadium didn’t occur.

Gabbert said there are several sites on I-75 that LSC is exploring as potential stadium locations.

Also in October when discussing a potential downtown stadium, Shively said there was “no funding from the city in any of the plans” for the venue.

On Thursday, Gabbert confirmed the intent for LSC’s stadium to be a private venture without the use of public money.

“It would be great if the city would work with us and partner with us. We’ve not made any necessarily specific asks just because we’ve planned all along with this (being) privately financed and a privately funded project,” Gabbert said. “It would be great if the city wanted to be a part of it and help out in any way that was possible. We feel like it’s going to be a great benefit to the city and the community. Of course, we would welcome that partnership, but it’s also not anticipated.”

The downtown stadium renderings were centered around a “state-of-the-art, multi-use venue,” in the words of Shively.

That goal remains, wherever the stadium will be located.

‘The elements and the things that we want to do to the stadium aren’t going to change, regardless of where our location is,” Gabbert said Thursday. “We still want to be one of those marquee event facilities: Home to our professional team, but also making sure that we’re hosting community events and concerts and high school championships and the potential for NCAA championships as well.”

Gabbert did not provide a timeline for a potential stadium opening once a location is found, and also said LSC has not finalized its temporary stadium location for when the senior men’s team begins play in spring 2023.

That venue is expected to be the Wendell and Vickie Bell Soccer Complex, home to UK’s men’s and women’s soccer teams in the Barnhart Family Athletics Complex.