Goooaaalll: Pro soccer team for East Valley?

A bid to bring Major League Soccer to the Valley has a local company considering Mesa’s Fiesta District and other East Valley areas as potential locales for a 25,000-seat, $150 million stadium.

The league plans to expand into three new markets by 2010, and the Valley is one of more than half a dozen metropolitan regions it’s considering. Some others include Las Vegas, Philadelphia and Atlanta.

On Wednesday, the national group announced the San Jose Earthquakes as its 14th team.

That leaves two spots open.

The Valley is a serious contender with its rapid population growth and strong economy, said Dana Gagnon, president of PHX Soccer Development.

For the past 10 months, Gagnon has been talking with potential investors and officials from different cities to bring the project together.

“We’re open to putting the stadium wherever it makes sense,” he said. “It’s not easy to get built, and we need to find the right partner to make that happen.”

The East Valley has a strong presence of suburban soccer families and Hispanics — the group’s two largest target audiences, Gagnon said.

More than 1 million Hispanics live in Maricopa County, according to the 2005 census.

Assuming it draws an estimated 1 million visitors a year, a stadium would have a major impact on Mesa’s Fiesta Mall area, which the city has been working to revitalize, said Heath Reed with the West Mesa Community Development Corp.

As the area is redeveloped, residents will start to see a larger mix of uses, and the stadium is an idea worth exploring, Vice Mayor Claudia Walters said.

“Whether or not it’s a perfect fit for Mesa, I don’t know,” Walters said. “I’m glad they’re talking about it.”

In addition to Mesa, Gagnon is also looking at Chandler and Tempe, as well as the Central Valley, and plans to pitch a number of options to MLS President Mark Abbott in the fall.

Major League Soccer is looking for a strong ownership group with plans for a soccer-specific stadium, spokesman Will Kuhns said.

“We know that playing in our own stadiums is a major driver in our business,” Kuhns said. “We don’t plan to move into new situations where we are renting a facility from another group.”

Seven of the league’s 13 teams currently play in venues designed for soccer. Most have been built by private organizations or by public-private partnerships.

Major sporting venues have economic ripple effects in local communities, creating jobs and bringing in visitors who spend money in the community, said Ray Artigue, executive director of Arizona State University’s sports business program.

Many also become epicenters for mixed-use projects that could include space for housing, office and retail, as developers try to capitalize on foot traffic, Artigue said.

With soccer’s popularity rising nationwide, the Valley is well-poised to support a professional team if it has good ownership and a savvy, experienced marketing team, he said.

“Soccer is being played more by our young people,” he said. “There’s more attention that’s being brought to it by the recent arrival of David Beckham.”

That doesn’t mean it will be easy to achieve success in what’s become the most competitive sports marketplace in America, Artigue said.

The Valley has six professional teams and college sports, is a center for spring training and hosts national golf tournaments, he said.

“The sports fans these days don’t know where to spend their money,” he said. “It’s a buyers’ market. They have so many choices.”

The league hasn’t set a deadline to announce a decision on where it will expand.

In the meantime, Gagnon said he has talked with Mesa Community College officials about the possibility of locating the stadium on its campus and is working with architects on preliminary designs.

He’s also talking with other cities and rounding up potential investors to help fund the stadium, which would have a retractable roof and take an estimated 18 months to build.

“We need an ownership group, investor group to put the financial muscle behind everything to make it happen,” he said.