The Detroit City Football Club, has unveiled initial plans for a $150-million soccer-specific stadium to be built on an 11-acre site in southwest Detroit.
HOK is the architect for the new 15,000-seat stadium at Michigan Avenue and 20th Street. SmithGroup is doing site planning. A contractor has not yet been announced. Detroit FC plays in the USL Championship, the second tier of men’s professional soccer in the United Soccer League system.
Construction of the stadium, to be called AlumniFi Field, which is a brand of MSU Federal Credit Union catering to young adults, is planned to begin in late 2025 on the site of Southwest Detroit Hospital, which has been vacant for about 20 years, and which the club acquired in 2024.
“Our goal is to do a stadium that’s community-oriented, that’s neighborhood-scaled and that’s additive to what’s already in the neighborhood, and is both a regional draw and is something that residents can come and use, not just on match days— [it will have] retail and [will] not a dead zone,” said club Owner Sean Mann in a local news report.
The owner of the Detroit City Football Club plans for the stadium to bridge neighborhoods in the city.
Map courtesy of the City of Detroit
The stadium is intended to bridge the Detroit neighborhoods of Corktown and Mexicantown and would also generate revenue from concerts and collegiate or other professional sporting events.
Chris DeVolder, director of Sports + Recreation + Entertainment at HOK, said in a statement that the stadium will be an example of urban placemaking and will embrace the unique site.
Tyler Clark, senior project manager for HOK, says one of the biggest challenges in developing the stadium is the constrained site.
“The property is slotted between a major freeway interchange, railroad tracks and an underground utility easement, leaving a very narrow footprint for a stadium of this scale,” he says. “These constraints turned into a unique design opportunity, driving the stadium to be more vertical in nature.”
“The seating bowl was optimized to pull fans as close to the field as possible, and the fan amenities for each stand were designed to tuck neatly underneath the footprint of the seating to limit the overall width,” Clark adds.
The stadium will be privately financed and is to be owned and operated by the USL team.
The Detroit City Council in May approved a brownfield reimbursement agreement that calls for the club to be reimbursed up to $5.9 million for the costs of demolishing the former hospital.
Tax revenue generated from the stadium for 21 years would be distributed to the club to cover the cost of demolition, asbestos removal and other work associated with the site that was a coal yard in the 1880s and was the location of the hospital from 1974 to 2006. The cost of the demolition is estimated at $6.5 million in total.
Mann said the hospital basement contains one million gallons of water that needs to be pumped out before demolition, which is planned for the fall, can begin.
While there are no specifics yet for the retail portion of the plan, Mann said he envisions “bars, restaurants and retail to complement the dense, walkable neighborhood.”
According to the city, the club also has proposed a residential component with 76 units of affordable housing, a 421-space parking deck, and approximately 8,500 sq ft of commercial space.
The team currently plays at Keyworth Stadium in Hamtramck which has about half the capacity of the new stadium that is planned to open for the 2027 USL Championship season.
