Today will be another milestone in the city of Chester’s march back to “major league” status.
By that we mean Major League Soccer. The league’s newest team, the Philadelphia Union, will call Chester home. They will play – eventually – in a city being constructed in the shadow of the Commodore Barry Bridge, hard by the Delaware River.
Today team officials will gather at the site to announce a naming deal for the stadium.
This no doubt will come as something of a stunner to all those who smirked that they would believe all of this when they see it. Obviously, they have not used the Commodore Barry Bridge recently. It is almost impossible to miss the stadium that is rising up underneath it.
A few years ago, it would have been hard to fathom a company paying to have their name put on a building in Chester.
That’s how far the city has come.
PPL Corp., an energy firm based in Allentown, today will convene with team officials to announce a 10-year, $20 million deal to have the soccer stadium officially christened PPL Park.
In the meantime, construction continues at a frenzied pace. It will not actually be finished in time for the team’s opener. The Union will play two games at Lincoln Financial Field, home of the Eagles.
The first game at PPL Park is set for June 27.
The Union will kick off the MLS season on the road in a little more than a month, March 25 in Seattle.
They are playing eight of their first 10 games on the road to allow more time for crews to finish construction of the stadium.
But make no mistake, that stadium is real. They are building it. People will come.
The money already is. PPL is sinking $20 million into the city of Chester.
Major league, indeed.
By that we mean Major League Soccer. The league’s newest team, the Philadelphia Union, will call Chester home. They will play – eventually – in a city being constructed in the shadow of the Commodore Barry Bridge, hard by the Delaware River.
Today team officials will gather at the site to announce a naming deal for the stadium.
This no doubt will come as something of a stunner to all those who smirked that they would believe all of this when they see it. Obviously, they have not used the Commodore Barry Bridge recently. It is almost impossible to miss the stadium that is rising up underneath it.
A few years ago, it would have been hard to fathom a company paying to have their name put on a building in Chester.
That’s how far the city has come.
PPL Corp., an energy firm based in Allentown, today will convene with team officials to announce a 10-year, $20 million deal to have the soccer stadium officially christened PPL Park.
In the meantime, construction continues at a frenzied pace. It will not actually be finished in time for the team’s opener. The Union will play two games at Lincoln Financial Field, home of the Eagles.
The first game at PPL Park is set for June 27.
The Union will kick off the MLS season on the road in a little more than a month, March 25 in Seattle.
They are playing eight of their first 10 games on the road to allow more time for crews to finish construction of the stadium.
But make no mistake, that stadium is real. They are building it. People will come.
The money already is. PPL is sinking $20 million into the city of Chester.
Major league, indeed.
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