Syracuse, N.Y. – A private development group has notified public officials that they hope to lure a professional soccer team to Syracuse by building a new stadium at the Syracuse Inner Harbor.
The group also wants to build a complex of roughly 10 playing fields at a separate location to be a hub for traveling youth tournaments and training programs.
Leaders of the effort, including a former U.S. Soccer Federation executive and several high-profile business owners, caution that the project is still at an early stage, with key details yet to be worked out.
Their goal is to develop two linked projects – a stadium and a tournament complex – that will bring pro soccer back to Syracuse, boost sports tourism and expand opportunities for young local players to train and compete.
“What we’re trying to do is pretty bold and pretty ambitious,” said Ryan Mooney, a Syracuse native and the former chief soccer officer for the U.S. Soccer Federation, the governing body for American soccer. “We see this as being three prongs: It’s a sports complex, it’s a professional team, and the professional team requires a stadium.”
Mooney and five other investors, doing business as CNY Growth LLC, have tried to stay under the radar while they work toward a deal to bring an expansion team to Syracuse. They are targeting either USL League One or MLS Next Pro, the professional leagues from which players move up to top-tier teams in Major League Soccer or the United Soccer League.
As of Friday, the investors had not announced an agreement with either league.
CNY Growth officials said they are wary of discussing details about their efforts before securing a team franchise, the critical first step. They are optimistic about reaching that goal soon but can’t say how long it might take.
The group is likely to get a sympathetic hearing from Onondaga County Executive Ryan McMahon, a strong advocate for sports tourism and a former college soccer player. Coincidentally, McMahon and Mooney went to Le Moyne College at the same time, where they both played soccer.
“I think it’s fair to say that, yes, a passion or an enthusiasm for soccer, certainly it seems that our county executive has that,’’ Mooney said.
McMahon declined to comment for this report.
Assuming CNY Growth can land a team, the next steps will include raising money to build.
According to a feasibility study conducted for CNY Growth and reviewed by syracuse.com, soccer stadiums in cities comparable to Syracuse have been built for a wide range of costs – from $42 million to as much as $175 million. The median cost is $95 million, according to the study.
Stadiums are typically public-private partnerships with about 40% of the cost covered by public sources, according to the analysis by CSL Consulting.
But some stadiums have been built entirely with private money. Fort Wayne FC, a new USL League One team, recently moved into a 9,200-seat arena that the team says was built without public financing. The price has not been disclosed. In Nassau County on Long Island, owners of Island FC, a new MLS Next Pro franchise, plan to spend about $20 million in private money to build a stadium with 2,500 seats that can be scaled up to 5,000 in the future.
At the other end of the spectrum, AC Grand Rapids, a Next Pro team, plans to move into a $175 million, 8,500-seat stadium next spring that was subsidized with $100 million in municipal bonds that will be repaid with proceeds of a newly raised hotel tax. Owned by a public authority, the stadium also received a $33 million naming rights donation from Amway.
CNY Growth officials said they have not applied for any public funding thus far, but they expect to when the outlines of the project become clearer. Like the Long Island team, they contemplate building a modular stadium that could start small and grow as the crowds get bigger.
The feasibility study by CSL Consulting estimated that a Syracuse soccer team would draw between 2,500 and 3,500 fans per match, pulling in spectators from within a 30-mile radius. The minor-league Syracuse Mets baseball team, by comparison, averages roughly 4,800 spectators per game at a stadium that holds 11,000.
Assemblyman Bill Magnarelli, D-Syracuse, who is among the elected officials who have met with the soccer investors, said he would need to see details but supports the general concept of a stadium and tournament complex. In an interview earlier this month, Magnarelli said he met with members of the group – he declined to say who – a couple months ago.
“It was kind of just a very preliminary meeting,’’ Magnarelli said. “I said, ‘OK, when things come together a little bit more, I’d be happy to talk to you.’ I mean, I don’t think it’s a bad idea.”
Officials from the city of Syracuse, Onondaga County and the state economic development agency also have been briefed, sources say. They all declined to comment, saying the project had not moved past the conceptual stage and that no proposals had been submitted.
CNY Growth is targeting the Inner Harbor for a stadium in part because it’s near downtown nightlife, mall shopping, hotels, and attractions like the new county aquarium.
“The stadium being located in the Inner Harbor is the ideal location,’’ Mooney said.
Whether a stadium would help jump-start the long-delayed development of the harbor area is unclear. The city of Syracuse chose Cor Development Co. in 2012 to develop about 30 acres of formerly state-owned land with a $350 million plan for hotels, apartment buildings, townhouses and mixed-use structures to line the waterfront. So far, the company has built a hotel and a large mixed-use apartment complex.
A knowledgeable source who asked not to be identified said the target location for a stadium is likely to be a vacant 6-acre parcel at the corner of Spencer and Solar streets that is not owned by Cor. The lot, where Bankers Healthcare Group abandoned plans to build a new headquarters in 2022, is across the street from the Aloft hotel, a block south of where Onondaga County is building an aquarium.
The property is owned by a limited liability company affiliated with Hueber-Breuer Construction Co. The company has previous experience with a stadium, having served as general contractor on the $12.2 million second phase of renovations at the county-owned NBT Bank Stadium in 2021.
When CNY Growth LLC was founded in 2024, company officials listed its address as the same post office box used by Hueber-Breuer.
Andy Breuer, president of Hueber-Breuer, declined to comment. Other CNY Growth investors also declined to specify where at the Inner Harbor they hope to build a stadium.
Syracuse Common Councilor Jimmy Monto, who chairs the economic development committee, said a soccer stadium might give a boost to Inner Harbor development. Monto said he had not been fully briefed on the stadium plan but learned of the general concept from one of the principals, whom he declined to identify.
”I like it. It can’t be the only thing we do (at the harbor), but I like it, Monto said. “I don’t think there’s anything to be lost in talking about it and looking at the possibilities.“
Building a soccer ‘ecosystem’
The second and equally important piece of the plan is to build a complex of 10 or so turf fields affiliated with the pro team that could host traveling youth tournaments, local leagues, practice sessions and camps. CNY Growth will need about 60 acres for the complex and has not yet identified a site, Mooney said. It won’t be at the Inner Harbor, however.
Linking a high-quality field complex to a pro soccer team would lend prestige to help the facility attract tournaments and establish high-quality training programs for local kids, said entrepreneur Brett Albro, who initiated the CNY Growth concept before teaming up with Mooney. Albro was an all-star soccer player for Westhill High School in the 1990s.
“A professional team can be a real differentiator in terms of the kind of programming, the frequency, the quality, the level, the inspiration, the aspiration,’’ Albro said.
Albro is a co-founder and partner at InDev, a technology contractor to federal agencies based in Alexandria, Va. He started working on the idea for CNY Growth in 2023 out of conviction that Syracuse should have a bigger soccer “ecosystem,” he said.
“I like to think that I’m pretty good at building businesses from scratch,’’ Albro said. “I have a little bit more of an IT background, but all my kids play soccer. I still play soccer, played Division One in college, played at Westhill. That idea has never left me. Like, why does the Syracuse community not have this?”
According to the CSL Consulting analysis, the planned field complex would attract almost 1 million participants and spectators per year. The study was based on a complex of 10 fields, two of which would be covered and one of which would be a championship field with 1,500 bleacher seats.
The complex would be expected to host an estimated 5,820 practices, 1,080 league games, 28 tournaments, 10 camps and 4,050 skills sessions, according to the study.
Five years ago, McMahon, the county executive, unveiled plans to build a $25 million complex of 10 tournament-quality fields to attract soccer and lacrosse teams to Hopkins Road Park, a 63-acre, county-owned site in Salina.
But McMahon abandoned the project a year later, asking county lawmakers to shift the money to fund improvements for the development of Micron Technology’s chip fabs.
Instead, county officials funded a $6 million improvement to Hopkins Road Park, adding three turf soccer/lacrosse fields to the complex of baseball/softball fields.
Is a stadium the key?
Mooney, 46, has built a career in the business of soccer.
He worked for 10 years at the U.S. Soccer Federation, the nonprofit governing body for U.S. soccer at all levels — international, professional and amateur. He rose to the position of chief soccer officer, leaving in 2018 to work at For Soccer, a national soccer marketing company.
More recently, from 2022 through 2025, Mooney was the managing director at Striker Partners, a private equity firm that invests in a variety of businesses, including soccer. Company founder Richie Graham is part-owner of the Philadelphia Union MLS team.
Mooney still serves as a trustee of YSC Academy in Pennsylvania, a soccer-specific private school founded by Graham for pre-professional and pre-collegiate soccer players in grades six through twelve.
Syracuse has landed pro soccer teams before only to see them fade away. The city hosts successful minor-league baseball and hockey teams, but three previous attempts to make a pro soccer team take root have ended in failure.
The Syracuse Salty Dogs, who played at what is now NBT Bank Stadium, competed in the now-defunct A-League in 2003 and 2004. Despite good attendance numbers — the team averaged about 6,000 tickets sold at home games — the Salty Dogs folded because of financial difficulties.
Syracuse got another soccer franchise in 2011 with the Syracuse Silver Knights, who played in the Major Indoor Soccer League, which is also not in operation anymore. The Silver Knights played in what is now Upstate Medical University Arena before moving to Utica in 2018 and rebranding as Utica City FC.
The Syracuse Pulse, a franchise in the National Independent Soccer Association, played one season in 2022 at Onondaga Community College’s Lazer Stadium. In 2023, the team merged with the Flower City Union team in Rochester. Flower City won the championship that year but left the NISA in 2024 to join a semi-pro league.
Perhaps a dedicated stadium would help a Syracuse soccer team set down roots. Interest in soccer is on the upswing nationally. USL League One and MLS Next Pro have added more than 20 new teams combined in the past five years. A stadium is a precondition to land a team, Mooney and Albro said.
The Syracuse region has a larger population than other cities with existing or upcoming teams, including Fort Wayne, Chattanooga, Corpus Christi and others.
Magnarelli said he supported the general stadium concept, although the development’s prospects will depend on details that are not yet known.
“I thought it would be great for Central New York,’’ he said.
The last stadium proposal in Syracuse fizzled out for lack of political support. In late 2013, former County Executive Joanie Mahoney sought support from former Gov. Andrew Cuomo for a new stadium for Syracuse University in the Kennedy Square area. The idea was dropped after former Mayor Stephanie Miner raised concerns.
Magnarelli said he thinks the latest proposal for a new stadium could be a positive development for the Inner Harbor and for local tourism. He asked the proponents to come back and see him when their plans are fleshed out.
“Do I think it would be good for the city?” he said. “Yes, I do. Do I think it would be good for the county? Yes, I do.”
