The completion date for the proposed stadium for the Jacksonville Armada has been pushed back.
The City Council signed off Tuesday night on a plan to extend the start date for construction and the deadline for the project to wrap up.
Construction will now start July 31, and the new date to finish is March 1, 2026. That gives the builders an extra seven months to get the job done.
The new stadium for Jacksonville’s professional soccer club will be on A. Philip Randolph Boulevard, around Albert and Georgia streets, just north of EverBank Stadium.
The original plan was to have the Armada stadium completed in July 2025, so the team could also begin playing in 2025.
But like with many things, the COVID-19 pandemic caused many disruptions.
Last November, the Armada announced the team was planning to join the MLS NEXT Pro league, a big switch from when they played their first game under the North American Soccer League in 2015.
The plan city leaders agreed to Tuesday night comes with a couple more tweaks:
- It considerably shrinks the square footage of the proposed stadium’s office space from 25,000 to 10,000.
- It also requires that RP Sports Investments provide at least 531 parking spaces for Jaguars games and the annual Florida-Georgia matchup.
The stadium itself is expected to have a minimum capacity of 2,500 soccer fans.