USL: Firestone pro soccer push ‘different’ from failed Future Legends effort

FIRESTONE — Preliminary analysis by Firestone town staff, consultants and officials from the United Soccer League has determined that bringing a professional soccer team — along with a stadium, other amateur athletics facilities and surrounding mixed-use amenities — to Central Park is feasible from demand and economic standpoints.

And perhaps equally important — from a messaging and community support perspective, at least — the effort from the USL and Indianapolis-based sports facilities-developer Card & Associates to return pro men’s and women’s soccer back to Northern Colorado is not doomed to be a repeat of the Future Legends debacle that has unfolded in recent years 30 miles to Firestone’s north in Windsor. 

“All the indicators that we have are that Firestone is an incredible market for this, and we’re very excited about it,” Card executive vice president Dan Connors told Firestone officials this month.

Card and USL’s plan for Firestone, which was unveiled in September, calls for a “200,000-square-foot multi-sports facility for all ages,” along with a “stadium with a minimum seating capacity of 5,000,” and “complementary development, including, but not limited to, infrastructure improvements, hospitality, retail and other commercial developments,” according to a pre-development agreement with the town that spells out the broad strokes for the parties’ vision at Central Park.

Central Park is a 252-acre, Firestone-owned property on Colorado Boulevard that surrounds the Carbon Valley Regional Library and the town’s municipal campus. Firestone leaders have long envisioned developing the site into a mixed-use district with a hotel, residences, entertainment and recreational facilities, and retailers.

Currently, the broad vision for public-private development of Central Park includes the stadium and athletics facilities, two hotels, a school, shopping centers, residential neighborhoods and a senior-living community, according to the recent feasibility study.

Over the next year or so, the town, USL and Card will work together to create a planned unit development district plan that more specifically defines a framework for Central Park’s development. Firestone staff plan to give town officials regular updates every few months.

“What we found is that the concept is suitable for this community because it would satisfy local demand and it meets the market and the trajectory of where it’s going in terms of disposable income, population growth, interest in sports activities and tourism,” Points Consulting president Brian Points told town officials. Points Consulting was hired to study the general feasibility of the Central Park project.

“You could look at least 50-plus miles and not find an athletic facility like the athletic facilities being proposed for Central Park,” Points said.

According to the consultants’ analysis, the Central Park project could create more than 1,400 new jobs — largely hospitality, retail and recreation roles — in Weld County, bring in about $137 million in annual sales and add about $2.8 million in yearly tax receipts to Firestone coffers once the development is fully operational, which Points estimated is likely to take roughly seven years.

Within Weld County, and when fully operational as envisioned, “Central Park would produce roughly equivalent level of impact that (the University of Northern Colorado) is currently producing on the economy,” Points said. 

While the demand for athletic facilities to be used by local youth and adult sports leagues exists among Firestone’s residents, it is likely to be visitors who come to town for tournaments — and stay in area hotels and eat at local restaurants — who will pay the bills long-term, Firestone officials have said. But the existence of two distinct user groups could create some tension, so Central Park’s programmers must balance the needs of locals whose taxes support the development of the facilities and out-of-towners whose spending keeps the lights on. 

Another potential balancing act relates to the purpose — or purposes — of the project. Is Central Park mainly meant to serve as an amenity for the community? Or is it primarily an economic engine for the town? Ideally, it could be both, leaders hope, but suggested during a recent study session that perhaps a more fine-tuned approach to goals-setting during the planning process could improve the likelihood of success. 

Bringing a professional sports club to town — and building the associated facilities — can sometimes prove easier said than done. In Denver, for example, the Denver Summit FC, a team that will make its debut next season in National Women’s Soccer League, regarded as the country’s highest-level professional women’s league, is poised to set a ticket-sales record for its March home opener at Empower Field. But the process of creating a permanent Denver home for the team has been complicated. 

“The early fervor for Summit FC, which is closing in on 20,000 fans on its season-ticket deposit list, hasn’t been dampened by some drama between the club and Denver City Council over the plans to build a 14,500-seat stadium and entertainment district at Santa Fe Yards. Last week, the club threatened to look for a stadium site outside the city after the council delayed votes on an initial $50 million allocation to the project at Broadway and I-25,” the Denver Post reported on Nov. 24. “City officials have said Denver will invest up to $70 million in the project, but for now, the council wants more details on the city’s financial agreement with the team.”

As recently as last year, the United Soccer League fielded two professional soccer clubs in Northern Colorado, but the league bailed on the Future Legends Sports Complex and its affiliated teams as the Windsor facility’s viability crumbled.

“We’re the largest and fastest-growing soccer organization in the country,” USL senior vice president Chris Boyajian told Firestone officials. USL, often viewed as a rival to more-established, top-tier leagues such as the NWSL and Major League Soccer (MLS), operates 47 women’s and men’s professional teams across several levels — think Minor League Baseball’s Triple A, Double A, etc. — and hundreds of youth and pre-professional clubs for college players. 

“We’ve been hyper-focused on building stadiums and building the right stadium for our product,” Boyajian said, which are typically “5,000 to 10,000 seat stadiums that we can fill on a consistent basis.”

Jeff Katofsky, owner of the never-fully-developed, lawsuit-plagued and now inert Future Legends complex — envisioned and pitched as 186-acre sports and events destination with stadiums, a sports dome, hotels, a dormitory and retail — brought professional sports to Windsor five years ago amid a wave of fanfare that played on Northern Colorado regional pride.

First came the Orem Owlz, an independent Pioneer League minor-league baseball team that Katofsky moved from Utah in 2020 and renamed the Northern Colorado Owlz.

Turmoil surrounding the Future Legends Sports Complex caused the Owlz to resign from the Pioneer Baseball League this June and to regroup as the Colorado Springs Sky Sox to finish the baseball season.

The club’s previous home field, 4Rivers Equipment Stadium at the Future Legends complex, has been inaccessible since April 27, when the Town of Windsor shut it down, claiming that Katofsky, the complex’s managing member and co-founder, failed to address health and safety issues.

In 2021, USL League One brought the newly formed Northern Colorado Hailstorm FC into the fold as an expansion team.  By late 2024, USL had dropped the Hailstorm after spending several months loaning Katofsky money to pay his players. Sources at the time claimed that amount was well over $1 million. Katofsky then sued the USL, alleging fraud and claiming that the league failed to pay his team their $100,000 prize money for winning an intra-league tournament.

“The United Soccer League has terminated Northern Colorado Hailstorm FC’s franchise agreement,” the league said last year. “This decision reflects our commitment to uphold the standards of our organization and protect the interests of our clubs’ ownership.”

The Hailstorm then joined The League for Clubs in early 2025 and played some home matches at Windsor High School, according to the Greeley Tribune. 

The Northern Colorado Rain FC, a women’s professional team, made its debut in the USL W League last year before moving to the Women’s Premier Soccer League for the 2025 season.

“From the (Firestone Board of Trustees) we’ve heard that the public has expressed some concern and some interest about what happened in Windsor,” Boyajian said. “… Future Legends faced some mismanagement and they had some struggles financially. It appears that they have essentially been foreclosed on and … the club was essentially kicked out of the league because they could not fulfill the obligations and standards that we uphold.”

While Boyajian put much of the blame for USL’s previous failures in Northern Colorado at the feet of Future Legends.  “We don’t like these situations either,” he said. “…They passed our vetting but there were several mistakes made along the way that put the project underwater.”

But the fundamentals of the Future Legends deal were “different than this relationship” with Card and the Town of Firestone, Boyajian said.

“The USL was not involved in the (Future Legends) master plan,” he said. “We granted a franchise to (the Katofsky ownership group). In this (Firestone) situation, we are a co-master developer and ultimately will either run the team or … find the right steward to run the team in Firestone. That difference is a big one.”

With the Firestone plan, “one of the big advantages here is we’re trying to check multiple boxes” by providing a mix of amenities beyond just sports facilities, Boyajian said. “We’re trying to merge the sports component with the traditional mixed-used district in terms of (including) some multifamily, some retail, some entertainment.”

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