Greater Cincinnati's largest nonprofit youth soccer club is done renting fields all over the region. Cincinnati United Soccer Club plans to break ground this year on a new $10 million athletic complex and headquarters facility on a 24-acre site off Ohio State Route 28 in Goshen Township, with turf fields and a fieldhouse planned for the property.
The project, first reported by WKRC, would give the club a flagship home base in what the outlet describes as the region's fast-growing northeast development corridor. Blake Decker, CEO of Cincinnati United, is leading the push, according to the Cincinnati Business Courier's reporting cited by the station. The club counts U.S. women's national team midfielder Rose Lavelle and former MLS defender Nick Hagglund among its alumni, and it maintains a partnership with FC Cincinnati.
Cincinnati United serves nearly 3,000 players ages 4 to 18 across the Cincinnati region, a footprint that has grown considerably since the organization's founding. The club traces its roots to 1993, when it started as the Greater Cincinnati Soccer Alliance under the Cincinnati United Premier name, before the various local youth clubs formally merged into a single nonprofit in 2008.
A Club Outgrowing Its Rented Fields
For most of its history, Cincinnati United has operated as a multi-site organization leaning on municipal field rental deals rather than owning its own turf. That reliance was on display as recently as February, when the City of Lebanon approved a new five-year field usage contract with the club running through December 2030, with annual rental fees ranging between $29,192 and $35,481. A $10 million complex would mark the club's shift from tenant to owner-operator.
The scale of that investment stands out against the club's finances. According to Form 990 tax filings reviewed by Cause IQ, Cincinnati United generated $4,892,159 in total revenue for the fiscal year ending June 2025, against $4,971,463 in operating expenses. A $10 million build represents more than double that annual operating budget, meaning how the club finances construction — through private debt, capital donors, or some combination — remains an open question the club has not yet detailed publicly.
Cincinnati United has been expanding its regional reach even as the Goshen Township project takes shape. In April 2025, the club launched “CU Northwest,” pushing into Colerain Township, Fairfield and Hamilton to complement its existing North, South and West sub-communities, which together span 28 playing sites across the Tri-State area. The nonprofit has also leaned on corporate partnerships to help fund its programs, including a 2023 deal with Cincinnati-based Standard Textile to design and sell custom fan gear, with a share of sales going back into youth development.
Building Where Goshen Township Is Already Booming
The chosen site sits inside a stretch of State Route 28 that is already reshaping Goshen Township. Just up the road, the former Eagles Nest Golf Course is giving way to a 555-home community and Kroger Marketplace, part of the same commercial growth corridor drawing the soccer club's investment.
Clermont County is no stranger to major athletic facility spending. FC Cincinnati's Mercy Health Training Center in nearby Milford, a $30 million, 24-acre complex serving the MLS first team and its youth academy, opened in November 2019 and offers a regional benchmark for what this kind of build can look like. County officials have also pointed to the financial upside of youth sports tourism, with an economic impact analysis commissioned for Clermont County sports facilities estimating that out-of-town tournament visitors generate up to $6.8 million annually in direct spending and nearly 18,000 hotel room-nights countywide.
Traffic and Infrastructure Questions Loom
Adding a major sports complex to State Route 28 will test infrastructure that officials are already racing to upgrade. Goshen Township and the Ohio Department of Transportation are coordinating plans to widen the highway from two lanes to four or five lanes between Smith Road and Charles Snider Road to handle expanding traffic, according to the township administration. The township has also used Tax Increment Financing along the corridor to capture incremental property tax growth and fund public road improvements.
The stakes around corridor safety are not merely theoretical. State Route 28 in Goshen Township was the site of a fatal early-morning crash in December, and the area has also seen ongoing land remediation work, including a county-led cleanup of a longstanding illegal dumpsite reported in November. Those efforts, combined with the planned road widening, underscore how much change is converging on this stretch of highway as Cincinnati United moves to break ground.
