OMAHA — Union Omaha soccer and the City of Omaha are planning to build a 6,500-seat sports stadium to anchor a new 20-acre mixed-use entertainment and housing district in downtown Omaha, Nebraska’s biggest city.

The campus — proposed to rise on a largely unused area north of Cuming Street, near where the College World Series is played — comes after an earlier downtown site fell through for the state’s first and only professional soccer club.

As planned, the City of Omaha would own the estimated $140 million open-air stadium on the tract of land east of the Millwork Commons area, and is in the process of buying the land from Union Pacific Railroad.

Financial and other details are contingent on various city and state approvals. The first step is securing the property, said Deputy City Attorney Jennifer Taylor. A land purchase agreement is on the City Council agenda for Tuesday. But the progress of the project also could hinge on the city and soccer club’s ability to access a bottlenecked state incentive for sports complexes that requires approval from Gov. Jim Pillen.

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