Soccer Stadium Boasts 'Lion Pride'

Opening for the 2017 season, the 290,000-sq.-ft. Orlando City Stadium seats 25,500 and is the first stadium with this concept in North America. Located in downtown Orlando, the stadium is home to Major League Soccer’s Orlando City Soccer Club and Orlando Pride National Women’s Soccer League team.

The stadium features an expansive fan plaza, balcony-style bar, single deck safe-standing supporter section, shops and restaurants. The fans are shaded by aluminum canopies, which also reflect the crowd’s cheers back to the pitch to kick up the feel of a soccer match.

Kansas City, Mo.-based Populous, designed perforated panels with custom painting, which created the trademark lion symbol for the Orlando City Soccer Club.

The perforated panels were the ideal choice for the scoreboard that displays Lion Nation Pride. Nancy Mullins, project manager with Eastern Corp., says, “The perforated panels let the wind go through on the scoreboard, and these panels were used to create the shape of the logo in a purple and gold. This came out very cool. The logo on the scoreboard is the trademark feature in this stadium.”

Eastern Corp., Norcross, Ga., installed 5037 sq. ft. of 0.08-in. aluminum Dri-Design panels. The perforated panels were painted City Purple and Overjoy. Dri-Design custom painted panels use advanced computer-based manufacturing to create complex multi-color images.

“Our new facility truly reflects the energy and intensity of the growing soccer market here in the United States,” says Orlando City Soccer Club CEO Alex Leitao. “From the start, Populous understood we were designing for soccer first, everything else came second. As a result, we’re extremely proud of the new home they have helped us create for the Orlando City SC and Orlando Pride.”