FAYETTEVILLE, GA. – A pair of Home Depot employees wearing matching orange construction helmets and aprons walked over to the steel beam and began to sign. More followed them over and began to sign their names and inscribe short messages, while others took selfies and recorded videos. Moments later when everyone was safely out of harm’s way the beam was lifted by a crane and put into place by the crew of Atlanta-based construction company Brasfield & Gorrie.
Located in Fayetteville on a 200-acre plot of land surrounded by farms and winding two-lane roads, the Arthur M. Blank U.S. Soccer National Training Center will be the headquarters for this country’s 27 soccer clubs, including the men’s and women’s national teams, and all of the youth teams associated with the national level. The beam is now part of a 200,000-square-foot support building on the property.
Nine months after the ground was broken on “The Blank” (Note: That’s my nickname for the training facility, not theirs), the ground has been completely graded, steel is going up, and roads are being paved around the grounds. According to a six-month look ahead distributed by Brasfield & Gorrie, field construction is scheduled to begin in February, and the structure of the indoor practice facility will begin in April.
During a Tuesday, Jan. 28, press briefing on the construction advancements, U.S. Soccer Chief Financial Officer Chelle Adams said the facility is scheduled to open in April 2026. Since the ground was broken in 2024 the goal was to get the facility open before the start of World Cup 2026. The city of Atlanta and Mercedes-Benz Stadium will be the host site for several matches throughout the quad-annual tournament, including one of the semifinal matches on Wed., July 15, 2026. Having a training facility less than an hour from downtown Atlanta could be a huge advantage for the United States Men’s National Team or depending on what country is playing in the semifinals, an advantage for an ally country looking for a place to train.
The facility will have 12 outdoor fields, an indoor field, meeting spaces, multiple locker rooms, dining rooms, and breakout rooms, according to Adams, who along with the U.S. Soccer Chief Commercial Officer David Wright, U.S. Soccer Extended National Team Player of the year Jacob Crumbley, a 24-year-old native of Fortson, Georgia and member of the U.S. Male Cerebral Palsy team, and Home Depot Sr. Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer Molly Battin addressed the media.
During the press conference, Wright announced that Home Depot and U.S. Soccer agreed to a partnership deal.
“We are in this moment in time for our sport. It’s a transitional moment for our sport,” Wright said. “This is definitely a moment in time we all should embrace.”
“We’re excited to be on this journey and transformational moment,” Battin said.
The Arthur M. Blank U.S. Soccer National Training Center is located at 910 Veterans Pkwy.