Orlando City to play entire 2015 stadium in renovated Citrus Bowl
The Citrus Bowl was the Lions home last season.
April 24, 2014
The Lion’s last year in USL Pro has kicked off with many new additions to the roster as well as the creation of plans to build the future downtown stadium. There is a sense of Orlando City becoming a state-of-the-art club with many aspects of the club being upgraded. Many changes that will follow Orlando City include a new logo that will be used for MLS.
With plans to break ground for the new stadium being delayed due to the sluggish acquisition of the land for the new stadium, Orlando City has announced that its temporary 2015 season home will be its full time 2015 season home. The newly remodeled and revamped Citrus Bowl will open in time for Orlando City to begin its inaugural MLS season next year.
Orlando City will return to its USL Pro home as an MLS team while the Citrus Bowl will greet the Lions as a world-class stadium with new concessions, wider chairs in certain sections and new club and premium spaces.
The Citrus Bowl holds many memories for the Champions including both the USL Pro final where 20,000 fans roared their support while the Lions crushed the opposition to take home the top prize. Those memories will carry over into the new Citrus Bowl as all home games for the 2015 season will be played there.
For the 2016 season, the soccer specific stadium will be used for the Orlando City MLS home games. The new stadium will house approximately 20,000 seats which will provide the intimate atmosphere that many MLS teams currently benefit from.
“We remain hard at work alongside our partner the City of Orlando on all aspects of the project,” said Orlando City President Phil Rawlins in a press release. “I am very confident saying that we remain fully on track to our new stadium prior to the start of the 2016 MLS season and we will be announcing details for our new stadium groundbreaking ceremony later this year.”
The new stadium will be designed and built by three companies: Populous, Barton Malow and Icon Venue Group. These companies come to the table with other stadiums under their belt including the designing of Yankee Stadium, Orlando’s own Amway Center and the Rose Bowl among others.
Orlando City continues to makes strides toward their future as an MLS team. The club will break ground later this year.
