Milwaukee Pro Soccer stadium plans, what city records show

Is Milwaukee Pro Soccer stadium still coming?

What happened to bringing a new professional soccer team and outdoor stadium to Milwaukee? FOX6 News filed an open records to find answers.

MILWAUKEE - What happened to bringing a new professional soccer team and outdoor stadium to Milwaukee?

Milwaukee Pro Soccer

Local perspective:

A United Soccer League team was supposed to start play in its own brand-new stadium in 2026, as of the last update – already a year later than initially announced. 

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By now, you'd expect construction traffic, fences and hardhats at the site. Instead, the future home of what was dubbed Milwaukee Pro Soccer is rather quiet. 

The backstory:

It's been three years since Kenosha-based Bear Development, Mayor Cavalier Johnson and Jim Kacmarcik, who would own the soccer team, announced it would be coming to The Iron District.

Rendering of Milwaukee Pro Soccer stadium

"I truly believe this particular parcel of land was kept for this very purpose," Kacmarcik said in 2022. That parcel of land at 8th and Michigan remains empty as of Wednesday.

Property records from February show Bear Development sold the property to a Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce subsidiary for $9.3 million and is now leasing it back. That's the same amount Gov. Tony Evers awarded the project through a 2023 grant, which used federal money from the Biden administration. 

What records show

Dig deeper:

The Milwaukee Pro Soccer website and social media accounts went dormant, and requests for an interview went unanswered. So, FOX6 News filed an open records request with the city to see how – if at all – the project was advancing.

In August 2024, records show an attorney hired by Bear Development floated the idea of using a state law that's designed to give professional sports stadiums a property tax exemption – which the attorney even wrote "is not widely used." Beyond that, the project was included in talking points for the Department of City Development's commissioner when looking toward the future. 

Parcel for planned Milwaukee Pro Soccer stadium at 8th and Michigan 

The question remains: Is The Iron District a pipe dream?

What they're saying:

Requests for information from Milwaukee Pro Soccer, Bear Development, the Milwaukee Department of City Development and the United Soccer League were all declined or ignored. 

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The only involved entity that did reply was Marquette University, which said its soccer and lacrosse teams will move to the stadium whenever it's completed.

Soccer in Green Bay?

Big picture view:

The City of Green Bay's Redevelopment Authority entered into an exclusive agreement with the United Soccer League. It gives the league two years to study potential stadium sites and set up financing, while also preventing the league from exploring other parts of northeast Wisconsin.