GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — We now know what a soccer stadium in Grand Rapids could look like thanks to new drawings that were released this week. Now, local sports organizations are reacting to the idea of welcoming another pro team to town.
"It comes down to venue, and you have to have the venue in order to attract the sporting event," says Mike Guswiler, President of the West Michigan Sports Commission.
He believes building the stadium would be a positive for the city, saying a new professional soccer team would be a big draw to town, and increased tourism would boost the local economy.
"We think that it'll continue to elevate and make our job easier to attract more and more people into our hotels and restaurants and those new dollars that they bring with them," says Guswiler.
While the stadium would primarily host a professional soccer team, Guswiler says that hope is it will have more purposes, like high school or even local college sports.
"We created a list of, you know, a dozen, two dozen opportunities that we could foresee filling that on the off dates," he says.
In the end, Guswiler believes the project would further put Grand Rapids on the map as a sports town.
"It's a place maker, no question," says Guswiler. "It's going to change the landscape, It adds another, you know, a very attractive building in our community, another pro team. And something we can point to, specifically in the work that we do, that we are a sports destination."
Grand Action 2.0, the group behind the project, has not provided a timetable on when the project could receive final approval or begin construction.
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