EDITORIAL: ABQ City Council should approve proposed lease with NM United

We have to give New Mexico United credit for its ability to make off-field adjustments.

After suffering perhaps the biggest loss in franchise history two years ago when Albuquerque voters by a 2-1 margin rejected a $50 million bond to use gross receipts tax revenues to build the team a Downtown stadium, United President Peter Trevisani made some adjustments.

Instead of asking voters to approve a publicly owned stadium, the mostly New Mexico-based ownership group is raising enough money to build its own $30 million stadium, this time on 7 available acres of ample land at Balloon Fiesta Park.

The Albuquerque City Council is scheduled to vote Monday night on a 30-year lease agreement with the team. It will be one of the most consequential votes the council has taken in years, and a seminal moment in the 5-year-old soccer team’s history.

The City Council should approve the proposed lease. Here’s why:

The proposed lease requires United to invest $30 million of private funds to design and build a stadium in a large parking area east of the launch field. The area is depressed and avoided by balloonists because of tall power lines running along the north-south perimeter. The area has enough room to accommodate a stadium without impacting the annual Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta. In fact, it could enhance Albuquerque’s signature event with much-needed infrastructure improvements like running water, gas and electricity. Those would be real, marked improvements. There’s also the possibility of having stadium seating to view the Balloon Fiesta.

What’s the cost to the city? Nothing, other than the city providing United a build-ready pad with state revenues. In fact, the United Soccer League team will pay the city a base rent of at least $35,000 annually, plus 10% of net revenues from parking fees.

Building the stadium with an estimated 7,500 seats initially will free up about $10 million for stadium infrastructure improvements state lawmakers appropriated in 2020, 2021 and 2023 that the city, as the fiscal agent, can use to create parking lots for the stadium, create shaded areas and public restrooms accessible to the public during Balloon Fiesta, create plazas to the north, west and south of the stadium with lighting, stabilize the existing escarpment, provide lighting for green space areas and pedestrians, improve the fencing and entrance to the multi-use stadium, and make drainage improvements with retention ponds, drainage pipes, culverts, basins, and drop inlets.

Spending that money on infrastructure will benefit both United and Balloon Fiesta.

“What’s beautiful about this is we’re improving Balloon Fiesta Park, too,” co-owner Jason Harrington told the Editorial Board on Wednesday. “It makes our state unequivocally better. It makes our city unequivocally better.

“This is a legacy project.”

United would retain all other revenues generated from the stadium, and from naming rights, sponsorships, advertising, tickets, merchandise, games and other events, while taking on all costs to operate the stadium and parking at all times. And United would pay its own utility costs. The city would get its own box or cabana or specialized seating area.

The 30-year lease, with two options for 15-year extensions, prohibits United from hosting home games during the annual fiesta, and requires the team to coordinate and synchronize with Balloon Fiesta operations. That’s critical. As much as United needs its own stadium, a new stadium cannot be allowed to interfere with Balloon Fiesta, which attracted nearly 828,800 guest visits last year and contributed $203 million to the Albuquerque economy. The lease also stipulates United will sell the stadium to the city for $1 at the expiration of the lease.

The lease gives the city the right to use the multi-use stadium for at least 10 “reserved community event days” a year, at no charge to the city, including days to host boys and girls state high school soccer championship games.

That’s good, but we’d like to see the city and team agree to increase that to more like 20-25 days a year. Playing in a professional soccer stadium would be a thrill for so many of our youth, and they should come first in terms of stadium use outside of United’s roughly 17 home games per season.

United agrees to hire and use local contractors to build and operate the stadium, including food and beverage services, with a minimum wage of $15 per hour or the prevailing wage, whichever is higher. So the criticism that the stadium would have low-paying jobs is a canard. Construction of a $30 million stadium would also provide numerous high-paying jobs.

A new stadium could help United attract a professional women’s soccer team to the city, and other events, such as concerts. Lighting and noise studies have been conducted, and a traffic study is underway. We don’t see problems with any of those studies. In terms of traffic, there’s always going to a snarl when 10,500 people — United’s current average attendance at Isotopes Park — are headed to the same place at the same time. Nearby Interstate 25 provides good ingress and egress.

The lease, as proposed, is a solid deal. It allows the soccer team to utilize city property and make a long-term go of it in the USL Championship league, with guardrails built in to protect the city’s interests in Balloon Fiesta.

United soccer games are the hottest tickets in town, and their games bring diverse communities together for 90 minutes of jubilation and exaltation, when they win.

“New Mexico United is about fun, it’s about bringing people and families together,” Trevisani, the lead investor, told the Editorial Board.

The City Council should approve the lease. Future generations of United fans, proponents of economic growth and the team itself are counting on it.