Let’s face it: New Mexicans are a proud bunch. Whether it’s our quintessential crops, stunning views or famous former residents, we all seem to brag in unison about things that remind the rest of the country there’s actually a state between Arizona and Texas.
But, like it or not, we’re also a cynical lot.
New Mexico United won off the field in November when the Albuquerque City Council greenlit a lease agreement with United that allows the team to use a chunk of land at the city-owned Balloon Fiesta Park. The city will use about $13 million of state capital outlay money to improve infrastructure and get the site ready, and the soccer club will foot the $30 million bill to build a stadium. United will pay about $30,000 each year in rent and fork over 10 percent of parking revenue. But it wasn’t an easy sell for some councilors and many city residents.
Maybe it’s the list of now-defunct sports teams, or even a popular indie band that blew town for the Pacific Northwest, that fuels the, “This is why we can’t have nice things” feeling that adds a few ice cubes to our warm glass of New Mexico pride.
Sure, many of us are excited for a new stadium, and sure, the slice of public money going towards infrastructure improvements comes from tax dollars that are essentially already spent. But many still can’t shake the feeling we’re going to get burned — again.
The Paper., in collaboration with New Mexico PBS, sat down with the team’s majority owner and CEO Peter Trevisani to learn more about what’s in store for both the team and its fans.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
The Paper.: Technically, there’s some public money involved. But obviously, there’s money coming from your organization. Can you walk us through sort of who’s paying for what and how that breaks down?
Peter Trevisani: I’d explain it like this: We have, for the last few years, been focused on building a privately-funded stadium. And in order to do that, it was pretty clear to us, we’re going to need some kind of collaboration with the public just to be able to build a facility. So we looked at a lot of sites, and we came to Balloon Fiesta [Park]. What really was exciting about that location for us is that there’s 13,000 parking spots there already and they are used for two weeks out of the year for the one of the greatest festivals in the world. And for those two weeks, we won’t be active or activated. So that’s great. The ingress and egress can handle 100,000 people, we’re closer to 10,000. So we had this site that was really used to that. Then it becomes, “Well, how do you build something privately on public land?” We have anti-donation clauses, and so where we came out is “Yes, we will lease seven acres, which will be the footprint of the stadium, and build privately.” So, 100 percent of the stadium on that seven acres will be private. But there’s a lot of infrastructure needs that need to go into place, many of which need to go in place anyway for this 400-acre park. Maybe that means improving power or water. There has to be work to be done to figure out exactly what those things are. But thankfully, the state Legislature has already appropriated about [$13 million] of public money, as well as, I think, another $5 million for Balloon Fiesta. So I think there’s about $18 million of public money that can only go into the infrastructure: Building bathrooms, making sure vendor row is better, lighting, maybe repaving, which is a common expense for public parks. So, that’s where it sits right now. We’re obligated in the lease to put in at least $30 million of private money. And we’re prepared to do that. I think between that and the state money that’s been allocated, we’re going to have a facility that we’re all really proud of.
In 2021, 65 percent of voters essentially said, “No way, we don’t want to fund a stadium with general obligation bonds.” Can you walk us through how we got to where we are today?
I think to really do that, we have to take maybe one or two more steps backward and kind of go to the whole origin of the team. When the ownership group came together for New Mexico United—I’m one of the owners, I’m the majority owner, but we have other owners, and we’re all either from New Mexico or have raised our families in New Mexico—we wanted to bring a soccer team [to New Mexico], but more importantly, we wanted to figure out how we can bring our community together, especially at a time where it felt very divided. How can we bring a community together so that we can show everybody that when we all rally together, we’re the strongest, best version of ourselves? When we brought the team in, we knew we didn’t have a place, a soccer venue, that was really clear. We looked around, there was nothing. So the idea was, “Well, could we convert Isotopes Park? Could we convert that into a soccer field?” That has happened in some other cities. We convert the current field from a baseball stadium into a soccer stadium. We had over 10,000 people a game the first season. Clearly this team was activated. So then it became a matter of, what is next? And I think the city felt that, “Hey, 20 years earlier, we used a similar mechanism to build a stadium for Isotopes that was paid for using city tax dollars, but then would be leased out to a team.” We got behind that idea and, you’re right, people voted and it was heard—65 percent of people said, “No, we do not want to use city dollars to build a public stadium. We want to use city dollars for other things.” At that point, we just took a step back. The best night of sleep I got in that year was the night of the election because I said, “OK, that’s behind us. We know it’s a ‘no’, now let’s go figure out how to make it a ‘yes.'” And from there, we just focused on funding it privately, and that’s what we’re going to do.
One of the things that was sort of hanging over this was the United Soccer League, said pretty publicly that they had no interest in holding franchise rights for teams that didn’t have a home. I don’t remember hearing this come out in council meetings or even from the organization saying, “We have to do this or else…” How did that sort of looming consequence shape conversations you had with some of these elected officials?
Personally, I’m not someone who wants to use an “or else” line of thinking to get something done. I don’t think that’s really constructive and productive. I think, too many times here, we get to a place of “yes,” because of a threat. At New Mexico United, I think we really feel strongly that we want to focus on the positivity of the project. We want to focus on the reasons to say “yes,” and we’re not here to say, “If you don’t do this, we’re going to take our toys and leave the sandbox.” I think that doesn’t serve us very well. What we really want to do is say, “You know what? New Mexicans can build really nice things for New Mexicans, we have all the resources we need right here in our state. We don’t need handouts from outside of the state, we don’t need other people to come in. We can do it with people who are born and raised here, have decided to live here, and really care deeply about our community.” So you’re never going to hear us threaten to leave. This is New Mexico’s team. That’s why we built it. It’s going to be here for 100 years, and whatever the hurdles are, we’ll just figure out how to climb and get over the hurdles. What we’re not going to do is threaten to take the hurdles away.
If you go to a home game, in the rowdy section, there’s this real sense of ownership and pride that comes with it. I also think another hallmark of New Mexico is, sometimes people call it cynicism or being critical, saying “This isn’t going to work out.” For folks that are looking at this and saying, “This guy, Peter Trevisani, just made this deal to build a stadium, his team is going to be worth a whole lot more money,” what’s your future look like with this team and how long are you going to stay at this whole ownership deal?
Our vision is a 100-year vision. We talk about this all the time at United. In the fulfillment of that mission, players are going to come and go. Coaches are going to come and go. Owners, including Peter Trevisani, are going to come and go. Fans that are going to go to every game for 50 years will also have a time when they’re no longer at the games. That’s the beauty of it. We always have to understand that what we’re putting in place, we just want to leave and make it better for the next generation and the next person. We’ve put a lot of money into the team, we’re going to put more money in for the stadium. I come from finance, this is not an ROI, a return on investment project. This is an ROC, a return on community investment. The dividend that we get from New Mexico United is the joy, are the smiles in the stands, the joy of people [who say] “I was going through the most difficult time in my life, and I was at my lowest point, and I got through it because of my New Mexico United family, because of the people that I go to the games with.” We need more of those stories. I hear so many stories of people saying, “I got to a low point in my life, and I ended up on the streets,” or “I ended up on drugs,” and in many cases, leading to tragic circumstances. So, this is a way for us to change some of the narrative, some of the things that we want to change here, crime, homelessness, fentanyl. One of the ways we can have a positive impact is to have an asset like New Mexico United that brings people together no matter their situation. That’s the dividend. We get paid in smiles every single day, and that’s the greatest reward anyone could ever have.
This story was produced in collaboration with NMPBS. Watch the entire interview below.
