n DEVELOPMENT
is involved, leading an investor group of baseball players.
Lee, who was born in Sacramento and played at El Camino
Fundamental High School before being drafted by the San
Diego Padres in the first round of the 1993 Major League
Draft, played for six teams in his 14 seasons.
Nagle and Republic FC officials still are in the early
stages of developing the 17 acres adjacent to the stadium.
Nagle envisions a mixed-use development, including en-
tertainment, hotels, restaurants and nightlife activities.
“It kind of closes the loop from where you are at Golden
1,” Nagle says. “As you move down to the Railyards, you’re
now capturing an area ... that’s really going to double the
size of the downtown area.” Adds Gumpert: “We want it to
be active all the time.”
Nagle and Gumpert also point out the stadium will give
the Sacramento region another outdoor concert venue. This
is no small consideration because, aside from Raley Field in
West Sacramento, the nearest proper outdoor venue, Toyota
Amphitheatre, is in Wheatland, a 40-minute drive from down-
town.
And Halbakken is hopeful about the use of the Central
Shops, eight brick buildings from the 1860s that were listed by
the city council as a historic district in 2016. While there’s still
work to be done on figuring out if and how all of these build-
The Man Backing the MLS Bid
FIVE THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT RON BURKLE, WHO JOINED SACRAMENTO
REPUBLIC FC AS LEAD INVESTOR IN ITS BID TO JOIN MAJOR LEAGUE SOCCER
• He’s a man of few words. A reclusive investor with a net
worth of $1.5 billion as of June per Forbes, the Southern
California-based Burkle prefers to hang back, certainly in
public. Investment partner Matt Alvarez has the more public
role, taking meetings with local leaders and project manag-
ers while Republic FC has finalized its bid to become an MLS
expansion franchise.
• He’s no absentee investor. Far from it, in fact. Burkle became
majority owner and principal investor for Republic FC in
January and already has made his presence known. “Make no
mistake, Ron knows everything that’s going on, and he weighs
in as he needs,” Ben Gumpert, team president and chief oper-
ating officer, says.
• His teams win championships. Burkle partnered with hockey
legend Mario Lemieux to buy the Pittsburgh Penguins of the
National Hockey League out of bankruptcy in 1999, as Burkle
noted in a rare interview with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. His
time as a part owner has been highly successful, with the
team drafting franchise cornerstone Sidney Crosby in 2005
and winning the Stanley Cup three times since 2008.
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• This isn’t his first Sacramento rodeo. During the mad
scramble to keep the Kings in Sacramento after the Maloof
family announced plans to sell the team to a group that would
move it to Seattle, local leaders, including former Mayor
Kevin Johnson, tried desperately to recruit wealthy investors
to form a new ownership group. Burkle was an early candidate
to lead this group before bowing out, with the public reason
cited that he owned an agency that represents NBA players.
Eventually, Vivek Ranadivé led a group that purchased the
team.
• He’s perhaps the biggest signal MLS is coming to Sacra-
mento. As his friend Lloyd Greif told The Sacramento Bee,
“Trust me, I know Ron; he wouldn’t be doing this if there was
any risk that Republic wasn’t going to be an MLS team.” It’s
to Sacramento and The Railyards’ benefit, of course, with
Mayor Darrell Steinberg saying, “We now have the opportu-
nity to build out The Railyards much faster than we otherwise
would.”
~ Graham Womack