Portland’s soccer club has outgrown its home, and now it has a plan and a piece of land.

The Hearts of Pine announced Tuesday an agreement to acquire property at Cassidy Point on the Portland waterfront for a soccer-specific stadium seating between 9,000 and 11,000. The project is expected to cost more than $50 million, be predominantly privately funded, and open as early as 2029, with construction targeted to begin in 2027.

The demand has been there since the first whistle. In their inaugural 2025 season the Hearts drew 104,386 spectators across 18 home matches and set USL League One records for attendance and consecutive sellouts. An announced crowd of 6,440 for an October match against Spokane Velocity became the largest in the league’s seven-year history, and the club averaged 5,811 across the season, better than any other team by more than a third. Portland sold more than 4,000 season tickets that year with a waitlist of over 2,000.

The 2026 numbers are effectively a capacity ceiling. The club is averaging about 6,200, the full house at Fitzpatrick Stadium, with a season-ticket waitlist now thousands of names long and a $25 deposit required to hold a spot.

Fitzpatrick, which opened in 1931 and holds roughly 6,000, remains a multi-use city facility shared with Portland Public Schools and community events, which means soccer infrastructure gets installed and removed around other users. The city council approved a 10-year lease in late 2023, with the club paying more than $1 million in facility improvements in exchange for free rent.

On the field, the second season has been harder. The Hearts sit 5-10-8 in league play after reaching the semifinals as a seventh seed last year.